A pipe dream: Family of 6 loses over $2,500 after falling for cruise scam

A family of six thought they would be holidaying on a Genting Dream cruise ship, but their dreams were shattered after they discovered they had fallen for a travel package scam.

A man surnamed Zhang recently told Shin Min Daily News that he had come across a Facebook advertisement promoting the luxury cruise experience last December.

"We were planning to take a family vacation on a cruise and happened to see the advertisement for a four-day, three-night trip on Genting Dream," said the 55-year-old company director.

Drawn to the cruise itinerary from Singapore to Port Klang and Penang, Zhang contacted the travel agency SingExpress Travel Pte Ltd via WhatsApp and was attended to by a staff member named Kenny.

Joining Zhang on the trip were his wife, mother, elder sister, nephew and his nephew's girlfriend.

"Kenny told me my mother could board for free due to a promotion for senior citizens," recounted Zhang.

Prior to making payment for the trip, Zhang's sister went online to check if the travel agency was a legit one.

An invoice the family received on Jan 5 showed that they had booked three rooms and paid a total of RM9,076 (S$2,560) for five tickets.

Fake email and office addresses

After they transferred the money, however, the travel agent allegedly refused to issue a receipt as proof of payment, and did not mail out their cruise tickets.

"I made several enquiries, but he kept dodging the question and even lied that he had mailed all the documents to me," said Zhang's sister.

"When I sent them an email later, I discovered that the email was a bogus one, and noticed that something was wrong."

The family later realised that the listed addresses of the travel agency at Suntec City and Toh Guan Road were also fake.

"We also contacted Resorts World Cruises, who said it did not have any record of our cruise package booking and added it was not working together with this travel agent," said Lin, who is the girlfriend of Zhang's nephew.

Realising that they had fallen for a scam, Zhang asked Kenny for a refund. The latter agreed but claimed that they would need to wait for a period of 21 days.

When asked about how the refund would be processed, Kenny allegedly stopped replying to Zhang.

Subsequently, the family lodged police reports in both Singapore and Malaysia.

The police confirmed to Shin Min that they had received the family's report.

Victim flew to Singapore to search for agency

According to Zhang's family, the police said that a previous report was lodged against the same company in Singapore, while four other police reports were lodged in Malaysia.

"Whenever we questioned them, the scammers would always have a reasonable explanation," said the family.

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While looking through the travel agency's online pages, they had also found several victims who had fallen for the same scam.

"We saw someone leave a Facebook comment stating that they had been scammed of RM6,000, but the agency did not reply to their message. Afterwards, we found five more families who had also been scammed after coming across the cruise advertisement," she said.

In a bid to find the travel agency, one victim had even flown from Malaysia to Singapore but left empty-handed, added Lin.

Responding to Shin Min's queries, a spokesperson for Resorts World Cruises said SingExpress Travel is not an official travel partner registered with them and reminded the public to be cautious of travel scams.

ALSO READ: 'We don't need to explain': Investigating a travel deal that looks like a scam

lim.kewei@asiaone.com