How To Spot Travel Scams

You can find them at work or at home: Great travel deals coming over the fax machine. They offer low prices to popular vacation spots like, "Fun in The Sun: Cancun for $299."

So what's the catch?

In The Early Show's travel series, "Traveler Beware," consumer correspondent Susan Koeppen says some of these trips are too good to be true.

Many people buy these trips because the deals are just too good to pass up. But consumer advocates say you should think twice before you buy.

Selena Furr bought a travel deal and learned that the hard way.

She says, "I think the thing that got me suckered was the simple fact that I wanted to do something for my kids. "

All Furr wanted was a family vacation.

One day at work, she saw an offer that came over the fax machine: $299 per person for an all-inclusive trip to Cancun, plus a bonus trip to Orlando.

Furr says, "I try to find a different place to go each year with the kids, and I was like, 'Well, this would be great.' Not having a lot of money, $299 is really a good deal for me to take my kids somewhere."

So Furr called the number on the fax, and decided she couldn't pass up this great offer: $746 dollars for hotel rooms, amenities, and taxes.

She says, "I asked her; I said: 'What other charges are there? Are there any other charges that I need to be aware of?' No.

"I said, 'There's nothing else? I don't have to do anything else?' That's it. You just call them up. Let them know where you want to go, when you want to go."

Furr wanted to travel in June. The company said no problem, so she bought the trip, and was told to go to a Web site to pick her hotel.

"Oh, it was just awesome," Furr says. "I'm looking at all these different resorts, and you see people playing beach volleyball; you see people laying out; you see the lobby is huge; you got this spiral staircase, and you know, everybody's just happy."

But Furr wasn't happy with what happened next. When she called the company with her hotel choice and exact travel dates, this is what she heard:

"I see here where you want to go in June. Well, that's peak season. So, we're going to have to charge you an extra $300," Furr recalls, "I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. What do you mean, peak season?"

And that's not all. Furr was also hit with hundreds more in upgrade charges to stay at the hotel she wanted. So much for the promise of "no extra fees." Furr's trip was now almost double the original price.

"That's when I was like, 'Okay. I've been scammed,' " she says.

At the Central Florida Better Business Bureau, travel scams are a top complaint. President Judy Pepper is all too familiar with cases like Furr's, where companies lure in customers with flashy faxes and phony promises. She calls it the classic bait-and-switch.

Pepper explains, "The person on the other end of the phone is making their living by getting people to buy these packages. So they're going to tell you anything that you want to hear, so that they can make their commission."

Pepper says hundreds of thousands of these faxes are sent to workplaces every day. Consumers jump at the low price, thinking their company is getting a special corporate discount. When they call about the trip, they're hit with a slick, high-pressure sales pitch.

If the person on the other end of the phone says, "You got to book now, I need your credit card right now, or else you're going to lose this trip," Pepper says that is a red flag.

She adds, "You should just back away at that point and say, "You know, then, I'll just let somebody else take the trip until I get some information.' "

Her advice for those who get a fax like the one Furr got is to throw it away. And Pepper says if you think you've been scammed, contact your state's Consumer Protection Office.

Furr filed a complaint in Florida, where her travel company is located. As a result, it waived the extra fees, but Furr still fears getting burned, if she takes her summer vacation.

"I was not happy with them, and I'm still not happy with them. I don't trust them," Furr says, "I honestly don't want to go on the trip, because I don't know what I'm going to get when I get there. I just feel so unsure about the trip now."

Furr is supposed to take her vacation later this month. She's afraid to go on the trip, but Koeppen wasn't. In the CBS newsroom, Koeppen received the same fax Furr did. So Koeppen bought the trip to Cancun and went on the vacation.

Tune in Friday, when she will tell us what happened.