Senators urge the FTC to guard itself from journey fraud

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Two US Senators wrote a letter on Thursday calling on the Federal Trade Commission to do more to protect American consumers from travel fraud.

In response to reports that travel and tourism-related fraud has increased – for example, scammers posing as travel advisors or creating fake airline websites to sell fake tickets – Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., And Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., Wrote to Rebecca Slaughter, acting chairman of the FTC, asking the agency to provide information on and how they are going to respond to any measures it has taken to address the issue Wants to prevent crime in the future.

More from Personal Finance:
Could a vaccination card be the ticket to vacation this year?
How travelers could benefit from the struggles in the hotel industry
What to expect when live music events come back on stage

“As the FTC publishes evidence of travel fraud, we believe that more needs to be done to protect consumers,” the senators wrote. “Travel reservations on fraudulent websites can be costly and stressful for travelers, and it is important to ensure Americans understand how to spot travel fraud and their recourse options when they fall victim to these scams.”

Klobuchar and Daines in their letter find that 67% of Americans plan to travel this summer as vaccination rates rise and restrictions are lifted nationwide. Additionally, they cite a recently released FTC report that found that consumers have lost more than $ 400 million to scammers in total since the pandemic began more than a year ago.

Klobuchar, co-chair of the Senate Caucus on Travel and Tourism, has been an active advocate for U.S. travelers. In March, she and the other three caucus members wrote to Commerce Department Secretary Gina Raimondo asking what steps the department was taking to help the travel and tourism industries recover from the pandemic and the public-private marketing partnership Promote “Brand USA”.

In February, Klobuchar and Senator Roy Blunt, R-Mo., Introduced the United States Tourism Protection Act “to improve tourism across the country by studying and investigating the impact of the pandemic on the travel and tourism industries identified important policy recommendations “according to her office.