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Florida/Cruise phone scam?

Spritey

Spritey

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 22, 2006
174
0
Canada/Norway/USA
So I just got of the phone talking to a friendly-sounding young man representing Astar (A-star..?). He asked if my name was X, and congratulated me that I had been selected/won (forget the exact word) a trip to Florida and a cruise trip to Bahamas at a $3000 value. He also asked to verify my e-mail address (an old one I haven't used for over 5 years) and an address I moved from 3 years ago.

Anyway, then he went into detail about the itinerary of my trip for over 5 minutes. It was a few days in Orlando and Fort Lauderdale staying at Holiday inn or Hilton or something, tickets to Universal Studios etc. Then off to the Bahamas.

So now that I was all buttered up, he asked me if I was over 21, and in good standing with Visa or Mastercard. 'Suure' I said, as I was just waiting to be asked my credit card numbered and be scammed.

Then he transferred me over to a "travel agent" who was going to take care of all traveling details. That's when I told him how skeptical I was about this whole ordeal, and that I'm not giving out my credit card number for this free trip (at least that's what I assumed) as I study e-commerce and security online. He told me it wasn't free, it would cost me $795 for 4 adults for this trip which would have to take place within 18 months. So I answered if they could please mail me all the details, I'll look into it further and get back to them.

That's when it got silent, and well, after a few hellos I hung up.
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Just want to note that normally I would have hung up, but I figured it would be interesting to listen to how this exactly this stuff works as I study these kind of things.

Anyone else got a call from this company? Is it actually a legit trip if you pay the $800? I assume this is their website: http://www.astartravel.com/

Found a few things here regarding the company, but they all canceled their payments before being given tickets or anything:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/260/RipOff0260242.htm
 
Belive it or not, there are gulable people who would buy in to this and other "offers"
P.T. Barnum, was alleged to have said it, "There's a sucker born every minute."
 
Florida trip scam

Hi guys, I got an early morning saturday call from a lady saying I had a trip to Florida and Bahamas as well, I did ask her a couple of times if I had won it she didn't answer that question, she talked about free tickets to Disney world, Universal Studios, car rental etc. The trip was needed to be taken within 18months. Then she put me onto a guy called Kevin who said I had a discounted trip and would cost only $1420.85 nz dollars for four people. I was waiting for them to ask for my visa number etc which they did and I kindly refused and said that this could be a scam for all I new.

He proceeded to be pushy and said did I not register for the discounte trip, which I replied I did not think I did, he had my address, email details etc. I asked him to email me details which he said anybody could and it could be a fake letter. I new then he was lying and trying to get money out of me.

When I told him I wanted an email so I could check up on them to see if legit and that I would do this through my travel agent friends he hung up on me.

So what does this say guys. Free trip to Florida and Bahamas not likely. They did say though that I would have to pay for the costs to get to Florida.
 
this type of travel scam has been around for ages......the idea is to pressuring you into buy this discount package but all they want is to charge your card!

When you go to finalize your travel plans you discover that the discounts aren't available at the time you want to travel, and the hotel discount is only available at a different time then the airfare discount, or the cruise discount is only available at yet another time, etc, etc, etc. In the end, they count on you giving up trying to get your fabulous discount trip.
 
Scam vacation faxes are very much alive and well, too. Most of them are disguised to look like they are coming from your company "travel dept."
 
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