The number of online reservations and online ticket booking or online cab services has grown in the past couple of years. This also attracts fraudsters and scammers to trick people and steal their money. According to Scam Watch, US $360151 was lost due to travel scams in 2019. This static raises the need for verification of customers and other business entities for better compliance.
Most of the travelling industry scams can be reduced by employing age verification.
What is Age verification:
Customer's age is verified before onboarding. Age is verified through some official government-issued documents. Different online businesses have a different range of age verification mechanisms such as some need 18+ and some need 16+ age verification. It is done so that no age-restricted content can be accessed by minors. The second reason is to decline the number of frauds through pension funds and old-age benefits.
Fraudsters try to get old-age benefits or provident funds. Some others try to possess special elders' plane seats for minors. They can also avail discounts that are exclusive for old people or kids.
These days airports have passport scanner which can scan a passenger in no time. Thus the genuine passenger can avail airline facilities more easily, eradicating manual interruption in airports and bus stations.
Scams in the Travel Industry:
The rising number of online scams and digital frauds has also affected the travel industry and entertainment sector. Scammers try to reserve hotel rooms and travelling tickets by stolen or tampered credit or ID cards. KYC ensures that the customer is verified and authentic, he does not have any criminal background. It becomes easy and reliable to do business with a KYC verified customer. He is more trustworthy and if he commits any crime in the future, it is very easy for law enforcement agencies to detect him. Because the business acquires his personal information.
Scammers try to avail hospitality services by fake identity. Through this, hotels and resorts can face chargebacks. Some services are only for minors like free rides or free tickets are also a target for fraudsters. They can use these facilities by giving the wrong age information. Airlines sometimes offer a cashback facility on cancelled tickets to engage new customers. Scammers try to avail this facility by booking tickets through stolen credit cards, then cancel them. They do that in a large number so that the ultimate money will be huge. Some kids can use their parent's credit/debit cards for reservations. They can do so for fun or unintentionally.
This money along with other black money can be used for money laundering. This is a violation of the AML/KYC regulations set by the regulation authorities. Businesses can be fined for not complying with these regulations. Also, travelling businesses that do not have intelligent fraud prevention methods will likely to lose customer trust and will earn a bad reputation.
Age verification for better compliance:
Age verification will help travel businesses to have a clean and fair availability of customer services. This will enhance customer trust in business and business revenue will be increased through this. Businesses will earn a good market reputation among customers through age verification screening. This will also save the travelling industries from chargebacks by customers, cutting the business expenses.
Conclusion:
All of the above problems can be tackled by complying with the AML/KYC solution. Travel agency scams, illegitimate use of credit cards, and online scams can be counter through this solution. It will enhance customer due diligence and enhanced user experience. Online child abuse is a major concern by parents. This can affect kids' mental health and will be harmful to their future. Kids usually order age-restricted goods online because of no verification process on websites. Age verification will eliminate these risks and will reduce the access of age-restricted products to kids.
