Care needed when booking travel online

By WAYNE THOMPSON

Travellers being taken for a ride when pre-paying for tickets has become a growing problem in the internet age.

And victims of internet travel fraud can face a tough battle for compensation, say lawyers at the International Bar Association's conference in Auckland.

Lawyers quoted cases where families were stranded in foreign countries and had to pay double fares to get home.

Pre-payments were made for services or tickets that were never provided - due to deliberate insolvency or disappearance of the travel agent or tour promoter.

Sergio Gimenez, a Spanish travel law expert, said thousands of fans had been duped out of seats at world soccer and rugby cups in the last 15 years.

"For them it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity which they had saved from their salaries to attend."

Such people would prefer to see the game rather than be suing for damages, he said.

Mr Gimenez said some internet websites offered bargain hunters tickets for up to 154 matches at one time.

But consumers were vulnerable when buying tickets online.

Swiss lawyer Otto Meier-Boeschenstein said greater legal protection and penalties in the last few years could not replace the need for consumers to apply care when buying travel.

They must realise that recovering money from a travel agent or tour operator was highly complicated because the travel industry involved chains of people and companies and barriers of different languages and cultures.

Lawyers said shonky agents were hard to stop when they no longer needed a shopfront - just a telephone, computer and website.

Consumer remedies included seeking compensation from active directors of travel companies and forcing firms into insolvency and claiming assets.