X-Men actor James McAvoy has revealed how he narrowly avoided being scammed out of £10,000 when he almost fell foul of a fake hotel website.
Posting on Instagram, McAvoy explained how he was trying to organise a family trip to the Ritz Carlton Abama hotel in Tenerife.
His suspicions were raised though when he logged onto ritzabamatenerife.com and found it offering a better deal than the hotel’s actual website.
And after double checking with a travel agent, he quickly established the website was, in fact, a fake. The website has since been taken offline.
McAvoy said the site required him to wire money by bank transfer in return for a 10% discount and send a copy of his passport photo.
"I have just avoided being scammed through a cyber-scamming scheme online and I’m just making this video to draw your attention to it,” said McAvoy in a video post.
"Don’t use them [ritzabamatenerife.com], they nearly took £10,000 off me, which is a ton of money.
“The deal seemed too good to be true so I double checked it through a travel agent and it was, of course, a tenth of the price it should be.”
McAvoy said the site was “very convincing” and the supposed deals and procedures enticing enough for many to consider.