Travel agent scams 3.2m yuan

A travel agent in Yangpu district has been charged with swindling more than 400 travelers and travel agencies out of 3.2 million yuan ($524,790) by forging bank receipts and lying to clients, local media reported Sunday.

The defendant, Cao Yun, 29, was charged by the Yangpu District Prosecutors' Office with contract fraud for forging bank receipts to hide that she hadn't paid for plane tickets she booked, according to a report in the Oriental Morning Post. She also cheated clients by taking money to book hotel rooms that she never reserved.

Cao was a travel agent in name only. She leased an office on Jiangpu Road in Yangpu district in August 2011, where she posed as an authorized agent of the legitimate Xinhua International Travel Agency.

The location lent her credibility because its previous tenant had been an agent for the company.

She sold travel packages priced from 1,000 yuan per person to 30,000 yuan per person.

In one typical case, a couple paid her about 20,000 yuan for a honeymoon trip to the Maldives in December. When they arrived at their hotel on the island nation, they learned their hotel had never received their reservation. The couple was able to get a room for their trip, but at a higher rate than Cao had promised.

Cao worked as a middleman between travel agencies and individual travelers, which allowed her to cheat both. She never paid for the airline tickets she ordered on behalf of her clients.

When the travel agencies she used to book the tickets called her about payment, she sent them forged copies of bank receipts that showed she had transferred the money.

Cao would tell the travel agencies it would take a few days for the bank to clear the transferred money, so they would usually go ahead and order the tickets on her behalf.

This allowed her to obtain plane tickets for her clients without actually paying for them.

Cao also ran the scam through an online store on a popular social networking website. Most of her victims lived outside of Shanghai. Some reported her to their local police departments, others remained silent.

Cao was first charged in December, and was prosecuted again as more victims filed complaints about her this year.

More of the out-of-town victims emerged and set up an online messenger group to complain about the case after Shanghai police started investigating it last year.