[imagesource:wikimediacommons]

A fake travel agency scammed a group of pensioners from Strand who each paid R26,000 for 14 nights in Thailand only to be left high and dry on the eve of their departure.

The 80 or so people who had booked this amazing trip were expected to leave on June 20, but a week before departure, they were told that their long-awaited tour was cancelled without refund.

Sharon Lategan, a 64-year-old woman from Strand, said that it was a group of 10 people from her area who each paid R26,000 to Prudence November from ‘Angelique’s Tours’ after seeing and hearing good things, per IOL.

“We know the woman who was the organiser, someone saw the flyer on her WhatsApp status last year, but prior to this we heard about it from our friends.

Image: WhatsApp

“She would organise successful boat trips to Namibia and people would come back impressed. We enquired and she explained to us and sent banking details,” Lategan said.

She explained that everyone sent a deposit of R5,000 in May 2023, and had to be done with the full payment by December last year.

“We found out there were about 77 people who booked, some booked for 10 people and paid more than R100 000 to Prudence and the estimate for everyone was more than R2 million.”

Everything seemed to be hunky-dory, and they even received their itinerary in February.

“We exploded with excitement and because this is a place you can go, nice hotels, 3 and 4-star hotels. I Googled all of them, so the places were real. We were going to travel from Cape Town to Doha [Qatar] and then Phuket.

“It seemed legit, we didn’t think for one moment that something was not right. But then time went on and we started asking for our tickets and we were told we were going to get our tickets in June.

But the tickets were being held off and when Lategan asked for a booking reference so that she could organise overseas card spending with her bank, she was not given what she asked for.

“We again asked on June 8 for the tickets. We began to worry when we didn’t get the flight details.”

As they neared the departure date, they were told they could go ahead with packing and reassured that the trip was still on track. A couple from Kimberley had even told the travel agency that they had booked a bus and were going to Johannesburg on June 16.

“She didn’t tell them not to book, she let them go there.

“They got on the bus and on Monday they were there waiting for us. They went back home on Saturday, devastated.”

Only last Monday was the group officially informed that the trip was not going to happen when they had a meeting with Prudence:

“At the meeting, someone who said she was a lawyer said that we are not going to Thailand, nor are we getting our money back.

That is when some member of the group decided to go to the police and open a case, demanding their hard-earned money back.

“We have proof and invoices from Prudence. We want her to give us what she promised, we know that we are not going to Thailand so she must give our money back. We are 60-plus, we can’t wait for next year.”

This scam has left another disappointed traveller, Yolanda Louw, completely stressed out.

“I really wanted to go, it would have been my first time overseas and this was quite disappointing.

“My son kept calling to find out if I was fine and even took me to a comedy show so I could forget that we were scammed.”

She believes that “justice will prevail and everything will come to the fore.”

Police spokesperson Wesley Twigg said they registered a fraud case, which is still under investigation.

[source:iol]