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THE NEWSLETTER  |  08.20.25  |  V05N28
  Co-Founder/Content: Doug Fodeman  |  Co-Founder/Creative: David Deutsch  |  Scambaiter: Rob M
 

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Think All Travel Websites are Legit? Think again!

It was just a couple of weeks ago when we heard from a 35-year old man who told us how much he enjoyed hiking the outdoors. Last October, he and a close friend had planned a trip to Zion National Park in Utah to spend a couple of days on the magnificent park trails. The most important part of their plan was to book a room in the only lodge located inside the park itself, at Zion National Park Lodge. Unfortunately, though they tried multiple times in the weeks before their planned trip, the official website for the lodge, zionlodge.com, repeatedly informed them that the lodge was fully booked. A bit disappointed, the pair of hikers managed to book a hotel room not far from the park. But as the pair were driving to their destination, one of them decided to try a last ditch effort. He opened Google on his phone and searched for Zion Lodge. Almost immediately, he noticed a link to a hotel booking site called TravelUro[.]com. The search result stated that they had rooms available at Zion Lodge. This turned out to be a complete lie! And ten months later, as we investigated what happened to these hikers, we came upon another International travel site called Agoda[.]com, that also claimed to have rooms available for Zion Lodge. This was also a lie and we have proof! If you want to travel without being taken for a scam ride instead, we urge you to continue reading….

To protect their identity, we’ll call our two hikers Andrew and Jackson. We spoke last week to Andrew about their experience last October. He said that just a few hours before their arrival at Zion while driving to Utah, Jackson wondered aloud if, in fact, a room had opened up at the Zion National Park Lodge. Taking out his phone, he Googled Zion Lodge and saw a link for TravelUro[.]com that said they had rooms available. Feeling hopeful, Jackson clicked into their website, entered that October date for one room for 2 adults. Incredibly, TravelUro[.]com said they had one room available. Andrew recalls that the price of the room was about $200-$250 for the night, about the same as what the Lodge itself would have charged. Though Andrew had his doubts, Jackson didn’t hesitate and immediately booked the room for that night for the two of them via the TravelUro[.]com website. At the end of that online booking experience, Jackson was informed that he would receive an email confirmation shortly.

However, an hour later, no email confirmation had arrived as the pair continued their long drive to Utah! Andrew was thinking “I told you so!” but Jackson wasn’t deterred. He looked up the Customer Service phone number for TravelUro[.]com and called them. When a Customer Service Rep asked how she could help, Jackson said that he had used their website to book a room at the Zion National Park Lodge for that evening. However, he still had not received any confirmation email after an hour to confirm their room, even though he had already been charged by TravelUro on his credit card. (Note: According to Andrew, the woman on the phone had a heavy accent, but he did not think it sounded Indian, Chinese or even European, he said) The Rep said “Yes, that is being processed. We’re working on getting you a room.” To which Jackson replied “Do I have a room, or not?” The TravelUro[.]com Rep repeated over and over “that is being processed sir” and finally “Is there anything else I can help you with?” This repeated response did not inspire confidence that they had a room at the Lodge. Finally, Jackson said “If I cancel now, can I get my money back?” to which the Rep said “No sir, it is not refundable. Give us time to process your booking.” and “Give us one to two hours and we’ll call you back to confirm your booking.”  But this would have put the pair dangerously close to their arrival in the area! The uncertainty of continuing their booking through TravelUro[.]com was not acceptable! Over and over, Jackson pushed back saying he wanted to cancel this booking and get a refund. Over and over the woman representing TravelUro Customer Service said it was non-refundable and they would call back in 1-2 hours. Frustrated, Jackson finally hung up. 

Just to be absolutely 100% certain that something hadn’t changed, Jackson called the Zion National Park Lodge directly and asked them once more to confirm that no rooms were available for that night. Again, they said they were full and added that they had no cancellations or anticipated getting any cancellations. To which Jackson responded that he had just booked a room at their Lodge through TravelUro about an hour earlier. The Representative at the Zion National Lodge said “Sir, we don’t do any third-party booking with any other service. Period.” Jackson was in disbelief at this point. Two hours went by and still no call back from the Customer Service department at TravelUro. Again, Jackson called the TravelUro Customer Service Department and got the exact same statements that were delivered earlier, including that he would have to wait another 1-2 hours before getting a confirmation phone call. The fact that the actual Zion Lodge had said they don’t allow any third-party booking agents made these men feel HIGHLY suspicious of the TravelUro claim to have a room available for booking! Thankfully they still had another reservation through a nation-wide hotel chain that was available in that area.

Jackson did tell us that eventually the non-refundable room charge for the Zion Lodge made through TravelUro[.]com came OFF of his credit card. He received an email from TravelUro some time later stating that the charge was refunded to his card due to a “technical issue.” This felt like a complete lie to both men! But what made this experience even more interesting was that Andrew was very curious why the TravelUro[.]com website showed one room as available for the Zion Lodge, even after multiple calls over multiple days that the Lodge website said they had no availability on their date. Andrew called the Zion Lodge one more time. Not only did the Lodge’s Representative tell him that they were fully booked, but he also confirmed that NO OTHER HOTEL or BOOKING SERVICE was authorized to book/sell rooms at the Zion National Park Lodge!

We wondered if this experience by Andrew and Jackson was unique. Might others have posted awful reviews of traveluro[.]com? It took us mere seconds to find hundreds of poor reviews of TravelUro, as well as other business names connected to this website that included “F” ratings. For example…

Clearly, what we’ve learned from Andrew, Jackson and the many online reviews informed us to avoid using TravelUro[.]com and it’s parent companies for booking anything! One might think that this is the end of this story. Oh, no. Faaaar from it! Andrew and Jackson’s experiences made us wonder if there were other questionable travel sites trying to take advantage of consumers to book trips. It took us no time at all to find another scam-like international travel service using questionable booking practices! Say hello to Agoda at agoda.com. I reached out to Andrew again and we were able to play a little “cat and mouse” game with Agoda to confirm some seriously shady consumer practices. Andrew again visited the Zion Lodge National Park website (zionlodge.com) and confirmed that they had absolutely NO openings at all for the night of September 1, 2025, which is clearly displayed in this screenshot below. Also, notice that the price range offered in the first few weeks of September for a room is $322 – $339/night.

 Then I immediately visited the Agoda.com booking website and searched for “Zion Lodge.” Remarkably, Agoda.com informed me that “only 1 room offer still available” and their “last room” was going for $494, the “cheapest price you’ve ever seen!” It’s critical to note that booking this room is “non-refundable” and payment will be made immediately when booked! (NOTE: The $494 cost for this room at the Zion Lodge on the Agoda website is actually down from a price of $570 that was shown to us an hour earlier for the exact same date. We wanted to be 100% certain that Agoda didn’t mistakenly show information for a room at the Zion Lodge so we conducted two searches an hour apart. Also, Andrew ran the exact same search on Agoda.com from the opposite end of the United States and also found a listing for just 1 room available at Zion Lodge at the same price.)

The Zion Lodge National Park website clearly informed us that NO ROOMS were available for September 1, 2025. Both Andrew and I wondered how the Agoda.com website might respond if we asked for two rooms! That’s when Andrew (who has some pretty awesome coding skills) noticed that the link on the Agoda website contains the code “checkin=2025-09-01&checkout=2025-09-02&los=1&rooms=1&adults=2&children=0.” We couldn’t help but wonder what Agoda.com might tell us if we modified that code to read rooms=2&adults=4 and left everything else the same. When we clicked into the link, and made those two small changes, we discovered that the Zion Lodge suddenly had not just one, but TWO ROOMS AVAILABLE for us via the Agoda website!  (This didn’t work when we increased it to 3 rooms. ;-)

After Agoda.com told us that only 1 room was available at the Zion Lodge, but changing the parameters of our request then showed us two rooms were available, we felt it was time again to call the REAL Zion National Park Lodge. Wow, are we glad we did! We did not expect to hear what their reservations representative told us! First, she confirmed that they were completely booked for the night of September 1, 2025. I then mentioned to the woman on the phone that I had found a room available at their lodge through the website Agoda.com and she immediately said “don’t use it.” When I asked why, she said that their lodge doesn’t work with them at all. And she also said that they have had “a lot of guests pay for things [via Agoda.com] and lose money.” The woman from Zion Lodge booking then said that they have had an “ongoing situation with them.” I cannot speculate whether or not this means a lawsuit or a “cease and desist order.” However, it is crystal clear that Agoda.com is very purposely misrepresending their bookings with the Zion National Park Lodge AND scamming consumers by saying they have rooms available, for a non-refundable booking fee.  How is this practice NOT a fraud?  Why is this website still able to operate using these scammy practices? And these sleazy practices are coming from a travel company that claims to have more than 7000 employees and been around since about 2005. Of course, it raises the question whether or not this website is running these same scam-like practices in the name of other hotels, lodges, etc.

    Again, we’re not the only people making the claim that the International travel website Agoda.com is using very sleazy scam-like practices against consumers. Here is a quick glance at the reviews and complaints we found online…

    By contrast, it is also important to mention that when we visited the well known travel-related site Booking.com and inquired about reservations at Zion Lodge, it did not show any listings at all for Zion National Park Lodge. Nor should it have since the Lodge representative told us that they do not allow third-party booking sites. Oddly though, when we visited Hotels.com and made the exact same query, hotels.com showed us a listing for Zion National Park Lodge. However, it also showed that no rooms were available for September 1. We then searched for many different random dates for the Zion Lodge on Hotels.com, looking as far ahead as mid-September, 2026. Each search on hotels.com returned the same results… “We are sold out.” (Technically, this means they have no rooms to book through Hotels.com.)

    By now our point is crystal clear to those who enjoy travelling. Stay far away from unfamiliar travel websites! Even websites that are supposedly legitimate are sometimes reported to have scam-like pratices! Take for example the booking travel site called GuestReservations.com. According to many posts on TripAdvisor, this legitimate booking site has scammed some people! Read some of the reviews. (The BBB website rates GuestReservations.com as a “B-” based on more than 930 complaints in the last 3 years and TrustPilot has more than 45,000 reviews for GuestReservations.com, showing a 2.5 poor star rating as of August 15.) Lesson learned! If you are drawn to possible lower travel costs on these sites, you had better do your homework and look at reviews and complaints against them before booking anything! They could be similar to a scammer wearing a clean, sharp suit dangling candy in front of your eyes.

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    Lack of Privacy, a Targeted Attack, Scammers Never Forget You, & More!

    Americans are often completely unaware of the dozens of ways that your lives have become less private and more collectible as sellable data. This is described in a recent TED Talk by Eliza Orlins titled “Universal Surveillance is here.” This has become seriously evident again because of a new feature released last week by Meta for Instagram account holders. That latest update included a feature that can report your exact location to your friends at all times. While this may not seem like a problem, imagine how dangerous that information might be for some people if that collected data came into the wrong hands. If you are an Instagram user, we suggest you watch this CBS Morning News video “What to know about Instagram’s location-sharing feature” and read this Mashable Article “How to turn your Instagram location on and off.” The feature is supposed to be auto-set to “off” but would you trust Meta (i.e. Mark “I’m sorry” Zuckerberg) with that data? (Gotta love rhetorical questions!) And speaking of the deterioration of our online privacy, here are another couple of things to consider. You may recall that the NationalPublicData.com database was severely hacked back in the Spring of 2024. That hack, reported about a year ago, exposed very personal information on about 170 million people across the United States, Canada and the UK. (e.g. Microsoft article: National Public Data Breach: What You Need to Know and this DarkReading.com article.) It turns out that their National Public Data website is back online but now it appears to be exposing it, selling much of that very same data! (There is some speculation that the website has a new owner.) But you can have your personal data removed…

    We found lots of personal information on our family members available on the National Public Data website. And every record we found also contained errors as well! (Close friends also confirmed the same exposure and mistakes.) Like most online data brokers, the new NationalPublicData.com site has an Opt Out page and we strongly recommend that you check if your personal data is on this site. If it is, request an Opt Out. Here are the steps to take….

    1. Visit NationalPublicData.com 
    2. Enter your full name and your state into the search field and click search. (If you find nothing, try entering your name, along with a prior state in which you lived.)
    3. If you find your profile, click “View Full Profile.” Verify that this is you based on the information presented. (We found many errors in our family details, including a mix up of phone numbers.)
    4. Copy the URL (link) for the full profile you want to opt out of.
    5. Visit their OPT OUT page, paste the link into their form, and follow their instructions. Once complete, we strongly suggest you do the same for your immediate family members. (Please consider sharing these instructions with extended family and friends!)

    Also, If you are a ChatGPT User you may be surprised to learn that an Israeli security company discovered that your ChatGPT account could easily be hacked and controlled. Imagine the damage that a bad actor could do by manipulating the questions “you” asked of it? This is especially concerning when you consider that many accounts were public and searchable until recently!

    In our 14 years exposing online fraud, David and I, and sometimes our family members, have been targeted by cybercriminals many times. Sometimes it has felt as though they target us because of the education we bring to the world about their sleazy, low-life practices to hurt people for their own financial gain. This **may** have happened again last week. We routinely monitor our names and our immediate family’s names in social media and on the Internet. Last week I discovered that someone had just created a new Facebook account in the name of a family member. The newly created account had some matching personal information, but no posts, no images, and no friends. Nothing. It had likely been created less than 24 hours earlier. Perhaps a hint at which cybercriminal gang was behind this fake account was in the “People You May Know” section. Nearly ALL of the names/accounts that appeared in this section were people who appeared to be from India, or other surrounding countries. This suggests to us that Meta noticed that the account was created in India, or a surrounding country, and that’s why its algorithm suggested friends from that region. There were, however, two other friend suggestions. One was the very real account of the family member whose name was now on this fake account. The other was another family member sharing the same last name. Fortunately, I was able to get the account deleted quickly before it was used to cause harm or fraud. But this effort also makes me wonder… Have you have searched for your name using Google or in social media services like Facebook? Or for a close family member? Hopefully there are no surprises.

      Back on April 2, we shared a story with readers titled Is a Free Amazon Product a Fraud? We were recently very surprised to hear from the woman who had shared that experience with us. Once again, nearly five months later, she was contacted by a “Maria Berry” from icomexion[.]com with an identical offer to receive a free product in exchange for a 5-star review. You may want to re-read the April 2 story to understand how this fraud works!

      So, speaking of fraud that comes back to haunt you months later, would you believe that a fraudster contacted Scambaiter Rob AGAIN after their conversation ended 3 years and 5 months ago?! That’s right! Nearly three and half years later this scammer wanted to remind Rob that he still had an ATM card loaded with money to send to Rob! (**Palm plant to forehead!**)

      In case you’ve been wondering, Rob has been very busy responding to the many women abroad who reach out to him because they are interested in a relationship with him! Rob is SUPER-POPULAR! He tells us that he’s been getting about 3-6 emails per day for weeks from beautiful younger women in foreign countries. We can’t help but notice a small discrepancy to many of their emails. They say they are from country X but they send their emails from a server in country Y. Odd, isn’t it? Oh well, in the end we’re really happy for Rob. We trust he’ll eventually choose wisely from these many lovely ladies and then spend lots of money to bring her to the U.S. Below are just of a few of the emails these lovely ladies have sent. They are beautifully written and direct! Such as Marina’s email asking Rob “Are you nuptial?” Enjoy…

      If you ever pick up the phone and hear an obvious computer-generated voice telling that your Amazon account was used to purchase a new computer, DO NOT press 1 to speak with a scammer, er…..we mean  representative! This call is a complete fraud and Amazon would never send you such a phone message!

      Amazon voicemail scam call

      And speaking of Amazon, according to these news articles, consumers are getting texts claiming to be from Amazon about a defective product that was shipped to them. The sender claims to offer a refund for the defective product but, instead, steals your money! Amazon doesn’t operate like this either! And if Amazon were to send you a text, we guarantee it would come from a 5-6 digit short code and NOT a random phone number or email address. Check out…

      https://dailyvoice.com/new-york/bedford/scam-warning-fake-amazon-texts-offer-cash-back-stealing-it-instead/

      https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/08/06/amazon-refund-text-scam/85539011007/

      Late last January, we informed readers about a “jury duty” scam that cost one victim about $7000. Apparently, this fraud now has a new twist and you can read about it on the Federal Trade Commission website…

      https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2025/08/scammers-are-using-fake-websites-twist-jury-duty-scams

      In this YouTube video, Noel Phillips (UK) describes how he was fooled to transfer his life savings directly to scammers who pretended to be calling from his bank, Chase Bank. This fraud is brutal and many people have fallen for this trick. Raise awareness in your family about this fraud by checking out this YouTube post….

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyeVh3g-IH4

      There is a very clever phishing trick targeting Instagram users lately. It uses a fake email telling you that someone is trying to get into your Instagram account and includes a passcode to do that. But wait, if this wasn’t you trying to access your account you can “Report this User.” But clicking to report simply notifies the scammers! Check out…

      https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2025/07/watch-out-instagram-users-targeted-in-novel-phishing-campaign

      Once again, AI tools were found to generate a fake video of a U.S. Politician that caused another politician to criticize her. But the video wasn’t real! Check out that story on the New York Times.

      Imposter scams targeting older Americans are surging, resulting in millions of dollars in losses….

      https://dailyvoice.com/new-york/bedford/imposter-scams-skyrocket-among-older-adults-ftc-warns-what-to-do/

      Here’s a small win to celebrate…. According to the Associated Press, the U.S. Treasury Department has just imposed sanctions against a number of Mexican companies and people associated with a fraud against elderly Americans.  Read the details at…. https://apnews.com/article/treasury-sanctions-jalisco-new-generation-cartel-trump-mexico-c964291647e7cd7096d1ca8d6ea43f0b

      Xfinity, Coinbase Transaction & New Phone Order!

      Last month one of our readers received this phishing fraud from another person’s hacked email account! It’s a “soft reminder” (whatever that means) to let you know that you have to accept Xfinity’s new Terms of Service. We followed that link from a shortened link at Ow.ly to a free web page creation tool at framer[.]wiki and found a fake Xfinity login page. LUNGE for the delete key!

      Many readers have been reporting bogus phishing emails disguised as Coinbase receipts. Seriously? Are there really that many people using Coinbase? According to this June article on BankRate.com, there are over 100 Million Coinbase users! Wow! No wonder these phishing scams are so common! Of course the link in this smelly phish pointed to a pdf document on Cloudfront. Embedded in that document was a link to a server in Brazil! Now delete.

      WOW! A new Desert Titanium iPhone 16 was just charged to your Paypal account! Oh no! Not yours? Then put on your noise-cancelling headphones, grab your Airhorn can and call these scammers back to let them know how concerned you are for their loss of hearing! They even give you two calling options: 864-518-4390 and 803-745-4262. Remember to report your smelly phish to us and Google!

      https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish/

      Helping A Stranger in Need…

      Recently, one of our friends received a random email simply asking “Let me know if you get this.” She wondered if it were a scam and contacted me. Of course it was! And I was happy to respond. Upon hitting reply, I immediately noticed that my reply was going to a different email service than where the email came from. That’s scammer behavior! Meet Nancy Schneider, or “Nance” as she likes to be called. Poor Nance has a niece who is dealing with stage 4 cancer. She wanted some help from me, a random stranger, on her niece’s birthday because Nance was out of town. Of course, I jumped at the chance to be a kind soul, and bring a tiny bit of joy into the life of someone suffering from the Big C. Truth be told, I wasn’t planning on just giving Nance $100 and I asked her twice how she planned to repay my kindness. I said “Nancy, I am sending this in good faith because you seem like a kind person and trying to help someone desperately in need. How will you repay me for this gift?”  But she never answered me. Nonetheless, I got an image of an Apple gift card and sent it to Nance, along with a tracking link. She clicked my tracking link three times! Guess where Nancy Schneider lives? My last email to her said “Do you understand how deeply your scams hurt people? Do you not care at all?  You know, most Americans are not rich, and many can barely make ends meet.” I am still waiting for her reply.

      Document for Your Review & Latest Social Security Statement

      When a supposed “Docusign” email doesn’t come from docusign.com and the links don’t point there either, then you know you’re holding a hand grenade in your inbox! These bogus Docusign emails are often linked to malware used by cybercriminals to breach your computer and/or network. Trust us when we say….It’s going to hurt! Instead, DELETE without clicking!  By the way, many of these bogus threats also contain a lot of empty space below the content meant to catch your attention.  If you scroll on down past that blank space, you’re likely to find strange content, like hundreds of question marks in this one, along with several emails from foreign countries!

      Please, please, please share this information with any elderly relatives who are on Social Security! They are being heavily targeted by cybercriminals. However, lately it includes email links to malware infections too! This email shows an ssa.gov address in the TEXT field. However, the real email field between the < > symbols shows an email from the United Kingdom! Last time we checked, the UK was not paying for American’s social security!  The very malicious link in this clickbait points to a misspelled malicious mimic called SociallSecuriitsUpdates[.]com. Yikes!

      A No Cost Roof Inspection and Texts from the Philippines

      Are you getting texts from “local companies” telling you that they are “nearby” and offering to stop by and give you a free estimate of one thing or another? We’ve received a bunch of these in the last few weeks. And we typically just delete them and not give them another thought. But when another one popped on my phone from “May” last week, I gave it a bit more attention. Her choice of words made me wonder if, in fact, this was legitimate. And so after offering me a free roof inspection since her company was already nearby, I simply asked her the name of her company and its address. She never replied to my question. Moreover, her phone number turned up nothing on Google. No business, no person. Just crickets. Hmmmmmm……

      Apparently, the Philippines must have become our 51st state because lots of people have been reporting all kinds of texts coming from the Phiippines International calling code +63! They claim to represent UPS ground shipments, Registries of Motor Vehicles, and even the investment firm Charles Schwab! If you ever get a text and you see that it comes from a phone number beginning with a plus sign “+” it means that it was an internationally sent text. Google can tell you what country is represented by searching for the first 2 or 3 digits.

      Until next week, surf safely!

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