A closer look at travel industry fraud

This is the first article in a series about fraud presented by ATOQ, in partnership with ACTA and CATO and made possible by the support of PAX.

March 2017 marks the 13th anniversary of Fraud Prevention Month. Fraud is a problem which affects us all and unfortunately, the amount of fraud is growing every day. Even worse, we are expecting a very aggressive increase in fraud for the next several years.

The Association of Tour Operators of Quebec (ATOQ), in partnership with the Association of Canadian Travel Agents (ACTA) and the Canadian Association of Tour Operators (CATO) with the support of PAX, will be presenting a series of short articles about the issue of fraud, since it is only by raising awareness – and then working together – that we will be able reduce the cost of fraud.

How big of a problem is fraud? Huge.

Here are some numbers to put things into perspective:

• On a global basis, airlines lost over $1 billion in 2015 (IATA)
• Every month in Canada, it is estimated that 20,000 credit cards are flagged as stolen (Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre)
• Canadian tour operators face losses estimated at $10,000 a day (ATOQ)
• There have been many travel agents hit by losses in excess of $40,000 (ATOQ)

In the travel business, we are constantly doing transactions with Cards Not Present (CNP) for bookings by phone or web; this type of fraud is expected to skyrocket and right now makes up 80 per cent of all fraud in Canada.

In the next article, we will share with you some tools available to fight fraud on the front lines.