The Travel Quality Assurance Association (TQAA) yesterday cautioned consumers to be careful of exceptionally low-priced tours, as they might be travel scams orchestrated by criminals.
TQAA division chief Chen Shu-juang (陳屬庄) said the association recently received complaints from two groups of tourists who said they had been left stranded in China after being cheated by an unscrupulous travel agent.
An investigation led by the association revealed that the two groups had both been taken to China by the same former employee of a travel agency.
One group had been set to visit northeastern China and South Korea, while the other had been scheduled to tour northeastern China.
Their tour guide disappeared with approximately NT$800,000 from the unwitting travelers.
“The person used his own mobile phone number and ran an ad in the newspaper, claiming to be an employee of travel agency ‘A,’” Chen said. “Customers were then asked to transfer part of the payment to travel agency ‘B’ to pay for his own debts with that agency, and then they were asked to wire the rest of it to travel agency ‘C,’ apparently to buy flight tickets.”
But by the time the travelers left on their trip, the “travel agent” had already disappeared, he said.
Chen advised tourists to use credit cards to pay for flight tickets. Should there be any dispute over a certain transaction, people can inform their bank to suspend the payment to a questionable third party.
He said prospective travelers should also make sure the payment is in fact going to the travel agency that organized the trip.
The association yesterday released figures on the average group tour prices to different continents from next month until December.
Except for group tours to New Zealand and Australia, the prices of trips to northeast and southeast Asia, North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa all rose compared with the same period of last year.
The average price of a group tour to Japan, for example, rose by about NT$2,000, with prices for this year ranging between NT$25,000 and NT$48,000.
Wu Chih-sung (吳志崧), another TQAA division chief, said rising fuel prices were the main reason for the increases in the costs of group tours.
The association said trips to less well-known destinations such as Libya and Tunisia were becoming more popular among Taiwanese holidaygoers.
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