The dangers of cheap travel

Because they trusted too much in the attractive offers of tour packages, many people were deceived to the point of "losing both money and health".

Summer is coming, the demand for vacation and tourism of people increases. Grasping this "demand", many travel centers and travel companies have launched cheap tours as a lucrative bait to attract the attention of tourists.

The price of each tour of the companies will usually not be too different, but each place will appeal to the consumer's psychology about the destination and different accompanying services with attractive offers.

Entering the words “cheap tour” on Google will give you more than 1,800,000 results from many different sources. This shows the boom of tourism and the increasing demand for enjoyment of people, but also reveals many shortcomings such as those who intend to travel will be confused by the “matrix of tours and prices” and, more dangerously, they can be scammed, causing them to “lose both money and health”.

A tour discount announcement from New Tour travel company.

A few years ago, the police agency collaborated with the media to expose many ghost companies using tricks such as "cheap prices", "promotions", "discounts" to exploit people's preference for "delicious, nutritious, cheap" to defraud and appropriate property, even sending many people on "paper airplanes".

A typical case is that New Tour travel company scammed people into buying vacation packages via the internet with extremely attractive vouchers (discount cards). Dozens of people believed it and deposited nearly a hundred million VND in the hope of enjoying their dream trip.

As Ms. H., a reader in Hanoi, said, when she learned that New Tour was selling discount vouchers through an online shopping website, she called the company's hotline to buy a direct tour to Phu Quoc for a group of 8 people with a total purchase price of more than 50 million VND.

However, after collecting a fair amount of money from the “victims”, both the “director” and “employees” of New Tour Company fled, leaving many people to complain on social media and warn others. The police have begun an investigation, but the suspect’s whereabouts are currently unknown.

A victim of New Tour Company not long ago.

Another scam of ghost companies is “advertise sheep’s head, sell dog meat”. A director of a travel company said: “Many travel companies offer tour packages with very attractive prices and include all travel and accommodation services. For example, a 3-day, 2-night tour to Sapa for just over 1 million includes all very high-end services such as accommodation at hotels and luxury restaurants.

However, due to not checking carefully and confirming with the company, many people have been in a ridiculous situation when they arrived, not only having to eat and sleep in conditions that were not as described, but also having to pay extra money to enter the tourist areas. The amount of money tourists spent added up is even greater than the price of similar tours at other reputable tourist centers. Not to mention they also took us to places that were not fun at all.

Image of a group of customers upset because they bought a poor quality tour.

Regarding this trick, Mai Le (facebook nick) currently studying at the University of Commerce also said that she and her group organized a tour to Co To archipelago (Quang Ninh) themselves without going through a travel agency. However, when they arrived on the island, Mai Le's group registered for a cheap tour around the island.

Because the group did not check the price and expenses carefully, after the trip ended, there was a conflict between the two sides when the tour company asked for more money for the car. The tension only really ended when Mai Le's group agreed to pay more for their tour. The clip of the incident, filmed by the group and posted on social media, received a lot of attention from netizens.

Recently, when the backpacking trend has flourished, especially among young people, some new and unprecedented scams have also appeared to lure "prey".

Although this form is not yet popular and serious, it has appeared in some places where backpackers gather. Ways to attract customers include: Advertising super cheap homestays (homestays with family) online combined with home-cooked meals and motorbike rental prices; restaurants offering special discounts, or cheap deals for backpackers...

Besides the honest businessmen, there are also many people who profit from this form of business. A person with the nickname thaibinhdutu shared on the website of backpackers about a restaurant that posted a reasonable price but charged a huge price in Co To.

Specifically as follows: "Wandering to Van Chay beach and then entering Truong Nguyen restaurant (Van Chay beach, Nam Ha village - Dong Tien commune, Co To) because we heard that restaurant had the most reasonable prices. After enjoying the nail dish, the person in the restaurant introduced the specialty geoduck dish and both husband and wife clearly heard the price of 1kg was around 150 VND.

After eating, I asked to pay and oh my gosh, 1.1 kg of geoduck costs 450k. I was annoyed and told the owner that when I ordered, it was 150k, but now it was 450k. After arguing for a while, I had to pay 700k for geoduck and fingernails, which I was so sick of. I was annoyed because they asked me one way for the price and charged me another. I ate without asking the price, they just ripped me off. Before I asked the price, when I paid, they told me a different price, so I had to give up.

To avoid such ironic situations, Truong Dan (a backpacker) shared that for each trip, you should research all different sources of information such as through friends, relatives, especially through trusted travel websites to create a complete program yourself, avoiding confusion leading to being scammed by others.

Writer Dieu Linh (pen name Di Li), famous for her travel books such as “Paradise Island” and “Rome Kiss”, shares her experience: “I often travel on tours and book with reputable companies because they are large companies with clear supply and demand. The prices are not too different but the service is very transparent.

Some other companies also offer cheap packages but with lower services, for example instead of taking a high-speed train, they use a regular train, so the money that tourists spend is also less. But the most important thing is that tourists must read carefully the content of the tour.

It is unacceptable that some travel and tourism companies take advantage of people's normal need for relaxation after stressful months to make illegal profits. "Once lost trust, lost trust forever", it seems that they only see the immediate benefits and forget the long-term business strategy that customer trust and confidence is the core to overcome difficulties and challenges.

The story surrounding low-cost travel is not new, but it will never get old in the current market economy. Hopefully, in the future, there will be no more people or organizations denouncing each other or cheating each other related to low-cost travel, so that people can truly enjoy their trips without worrying about being scammed or “losing both money and health”./.

According to VOV