The scammer told an advisor at Bedbank, part of the Vertical Travel Group, she was Janette Healey from Shenfield-based The Travel Boutique and she was having trouble making a booking online.
She then offered to give Healey’s Abta number as proof of ID – but unbeknownst to the impersonator, Healey’s husband is Vertical boss Peter Healey, and Healy herself recruited the advisor that the scammer was attempting to dupe.
"Once I heard the call, I started to think – have they done it to anyone else?," Healey told TTG. "Some operators don’t have any security checks in place, which is a big problem and opens them to issues like this.
