⚠️ Beware of Scammers when you are contacting any travel agency in Nepal and Tibet. Recently, I have been hearing a lot of news about travelers being scammed by hackers pretending to be travel agencies in Nepal and Tibet. In this post, I will share how the scam is done and how you can protect yourself and the travel agency from scammers.
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We have been scammed.
Recently, I have been receiving numerous calls and emails from friends’ travel agencies in Tibet and Nepal, stating that they have been scammed. When a travel agency meets travelers in Lhasa or Kathmandu on arrival for payment, travellers would tell the agency that the money has already been sent. They would display bank details and emails requesting that the tour money be sent to a specific bank account. This means the traveler would have already made the payment for the tour money, and the travel agency will not receive any money.
Which means that to Traveler, they will impersonate the travel agency, and to the travel agency, they will impersonate travelers. The hacker will contact you (the traveler) and the travel agency using a very similar email address. If the Travel agency email is info@thelandofsnows.com, Hecker would contact travelers with very similar emails, such as info.thelandofsnows@gmail.com or info@thelandofsnows.com. If your email address is james@xxx.com, the hacker will contact the travel agency with a very similar email, such as jamas@xxx.com, with minute differences.
How to prevent from scamming from you
If you are being very watchful, you can prevent yourself from loosing your precious money to hackers.
Check email address very carefully
When every you recieve any email asking for deposit money or the tour money. Please check that email address is same as email mentioned on the travel agencies website letter by letter, and make sure both are same. Scammers may ask you to send the money using very indentical email address.
WhatsApp number or Wechat Account
All the travel agencies in Tibet or Nepal will have thier phone number on their Wesite, which is associate with WhatsApp or WeChat. You can add them on the respected platform. When it come to Travel agency most of them will have Wechat associate with thier phone number. Before sending any passport informations and money. Check with them on thier WhatsApp or WeChat to make that you are sending it to the right person.
Banks Informations
While talking to those scammed travelers and travel agencies. One of the common thing is that travelers are ask to send money to a third country bank information. They (Hackers) will tell you due to changes to bank regulations Tibet or Nepal is preventing in recieving the tour money, hence you will be ask to send money to bank account in USA or other parts of China or in India.
Please Check with the travel agency via other means of communications and make sure you are send the money to tibet if going to Tibet or Nepal if traveling to Nepal.
Common Practice in Lhasa and Kathmandu
Most Common pratice of Travel agency in Tibet and Nepal is they will ask you to send a minimal amount of money upon booking the tour and they will ask you to pay upon arrival in Tibet or in Kathmandu. If you are ask to send entire tour money aggressively and if you fail to verify them on whatsApp or Wechat. Dont send them any money.
Conclusion of Beware of Online Scammer
In conclusion, please beware when you sending your tour money to travel agency in Tibet and Nepal. There is increasing number of cases where a hacker would scam travelers pretending to be your travel agency in Lhasa or Kathmandu.
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