Holidaymakers conned by fake accommodation peddled on social media
Tali writes about scams and consumer rights for Which? delving into fraud, technology and consumer rights topics to keep readers safe and empowered.
Spinning a web of lies using tempting social media posts, adverts and fake websites, fraudsters are conning holidaymakers and impersonating genuine businesses.
Which? found scam adverts appearing on Facebook for luxury treehouse accommodation. The scam impersonated Wolf Wood Treehouses, a legitimate accommodation provider.
It's not easy to spot the scam when fraudsters steal images and build slick websites. Sadly, victims of these holiday scams often don't realise they've been conned until they arrive to find the accommodation doesn't exist or they've booked through a fake website.
Read on to find out how this scam works and what you can do to avoid falling for a holiday scam.
Scam Facebook posts and fake websites
Which? found two video adverts appearing on Facebook that promoted ‘treetop’ holidays, featuring luxury accommodation.
The images used had actually been stolen from Wolf Wood Treehouses, a legitimate holiday company that offers treehouse retreats in rural locations.
The fraudulent posts featuring the stolen images were posted by Facebook pages; one of which had been created as recently as 1 May.
The scam posts included comments with links to book a holiday. When we inspected the websites, we found that both had been recently created in April. The websites also listed no contact information, hosted more stolen images and contained links that lead nowhere.
It's not the first time Which? has seen examples of holiday scams. In 2024, we found various adverts promoting fake holidays in glamping pods.
‘We are plagued by scam websites’
Sam, the owner of Wolf Wood Treehouses, told Which? that he’s aware of around 10 websites impersonating his business.
He told us: ‘We usually hear about them through customers who have been duped, or are about to be duped. As soon as we hear about them, we report the sites to the National Cyber Security Centre, contact the web hosts to inform them they are hosting a fake website and report them to Facebook.
'We also ask the person informing us to report it to the police if they have been scammed. Despite these different ways of reporting, it takes many weeks for each website to be taken down.'
Frustratingly for Sam, when the websites are eventually taken down, new ones quickly reappear under different names. Sam said: ‘This has been going on for about a year and a half, but it seems to have got much worse recently. We get at least a couple of calls a week from people who have either been scammed or worked out that it was a scam.'
He also noted how people are led to the scam via posts on social media, and payments for the fake holidays are taken over the phone. Sam told us that a recent victim of the scam had lost £500.
‘The advertised address only had old static caravans’
After seeing luxurious treetop accommodation being promoted on Facebook, Stacey (not her real name) booked two nights at a discounted price of £125. She was told she’d be called to confirm her booking.
She was called a few days later and asked to pay a £260 refundable deposit, to be refunded after the stay if there was no damage. She was also asked to log in to her banking app to confirm the payment, which she refused to do because she felt uneasy.
When her partner drove to the site where the holiday was advertised as being located, there was no such accommodation, just old static caravans.
How can we stop these scammers?
The Online Safety Act, which became law in 2023, makes tech platforms, including Facebook, responsible for stopping certain types of illegal content from being published on their websites and apps. This includes scams.
While rules for scam adverts are not yet in force, platforms should be banning illegal user-generated content. In this particular scam, the fraudsters had created fake business pages on Facebook to post their dodgy ads.
Collectively, the ads we found reached an estimated 41,458 accounts on Meta – the number of accounts that saw at least one of the ads.
Which? shared our findings with Meta, and it told us it's investigating them. It also said that malicious groups are constantly evolving their techniques to evade detection, and despite its ongoing investments, it acknowledges that there may be cases that will require time to address, some they may miss or take down in error.
We also shared the websites we found with Shopify, the platform used to create them and didn’t receive a response.
How to avoid holiday scams
Five tips to avoid being caught by sham holidays:
- Avoid paying over the phone, and when you do pay, you should use a method that offers more protection if things go wrong, such as a credit card.
- Check company reviews across multiple platforms before you decide to book.
- Check to see when the website was registered using a domain checker such as Who.is. If a site is brand new or has been registered in a different country than it claims to operate in, this can be a red flag.
- Check for stolen images. You can do this on Google by selecting the image icon on the right-hand side of the search bar and uploading an image that you've taken a screenshot of from the listing.
- Double-check the holiday booking’s website address, as scammers can create copycat sites with slightly different URLs.
Scam websites can be reported to the National Cyber Security Centre.
To report scam ads or posts on Facebook or Instagram, select the three dots in the top-right corner and press report.
If you've lost money or spotted an unauthorised transaction on your account, contact your bank immediately using the phone number on the back of your card.
Scams should also be reported to Report Fraud, or by calling the police on 101 if you live in Scotland. You can also forward scam emails to report@phishing.gov.uk.
