You arrive at the vacation rental you've been looking forward to for months. Bags packed, kids tired, ready to settle in. You walk up to the door, punch in the code your host sent, and nothing happens. You double-check. Still nothing.

It takes a few minutes to realize what happened. The listing you booked through wasn't connected to the actual property. Your reservation was never real. Someone else owns this house, and they've never heard of you.

The Federal Trade Commission put out a fresh travel-scam alert warning that vacation bookings are one of the biggest scam categories of the summer. The pattern: a paid ad at the top of a Google search for "Maui rental" or "Lake Tahoe cabin," a beautiful listing that looks identical to a real Airbnb or Vrbo page, prices 30 percent below market, and a checkout that "redirects you to our secure partner site." You pay. The host disappears. The property either doesn't exist, or it exists and the owner has no idea their address is being scammed against.

The new wrinkle in 2026 is AI. The fake listings used to give themselves away with pixelated photos and bad grammar. Now the photos are AI-polished or stolen from real listings, the reviews are AI-generated, and the chatbot pretending to be the host can carry a convincing back-and-forth for days.

A few minutes of vetting before you book saves the entire trip. Do a reverse image search on the property photos (drop them into Google Images and see if they show up on other unrelated sites). Type the property address into Google Maps and check Street View. Look up the booking company's name plus "scam" or "complaints." If the host insists on payment by wire transfer, Zelle, Cash App, gift card, or crypto, walk away. Real platforms keep the money in escrow until you check in.

The rule: Before you click "Book Now," reverse-image-search the photos, Street View the address, and Google the company name plus "scam." If anything doesn't add up, find another rental.

Sources: FTC: How to avoid a travel scam this summer and Allstate Identity Protection: Does that perfect vacation exist, or is it a scam?

Travel scams all look different on the surface. Some are vacation rentals. Some are fake flight deals. Some are travel-agent chatbots that don't connect to a real agency. The underlying pattern is the same. Ask yourself these five questions before you commit to any booking.

The rule: Unsolicited, too-cheap, time-pressured, unreversible payment, and unverifiable operator. Any two of these together is a scam. Three or more, run.

Source: Allstate Identity Protection: Travel scams

You own a vacant lot. Maybe inherited from a parent. Maybe a plot of land you've been saving for retirement. You haven't visited the parcel in years.

Last week, the FBI put out an alert about a scheme where criminals find vacant or absentee-owned property records online (every county recorder publishes them), impersonate the owner using a fake driver's license and a VoIP phone number, list the property with a local real estate agent, and sell it to a real buyer. By the time the actual owner finds out, the buyer has wired the money to an "attorney" in another state, the funds are gone, and the new buyer is showing up with paperwork.

The fraud works because everything looks legitimate on the realtor's end. The seller emails are professional, the documents (often including a fictitious deed) look right, and the seller has a plausible reason for never meeting in person ("I live overseas now," "I'm dealing with a family illness"). The agent collects a commission, the title company processes the sale, and the wire goes out. No one has actually talked to the real landowner.

A few red flags that the FBI calls out. The seller refuses to meet in person and only communicates by email or VoIP number. They want to close fast, sometimes well below market value. They lack basic documents (surveys, current tax records). The payment goes to a wire account in a different name or a different state from the property. The deed is notarized abroad.

Two simple defenses for property owners. First, check whether your County Recorder, Register of Deeds, or County Clerk offers free notification emails when any legal document is filed in your name. Many counties added this in the last two years specifically because of this scam. Second, review your title insurance policy for post-policy fraud protection. Standard owners' policies often cover the legal costs of clearing your title if someone tries to sell out from under you, but you have to file before the title actually transfers.

The rule: If you own a vacant lot or a second property, sign up for your county's deed-fraud alerts today. The county filing system is the only place this scam can be caught in time.

Source: FBI IC3: Protect Your Property from Illegal Sales Through Parcel Owner Impersonation (June 16, 2026)

Your dad, who's 72, has been chatting with someone he met on a Facebook dating group for three months. She's warm, attentive, lives a few states away, and over the last few weeks she's been telling him about a cryptocurrency platform that's been "incredibly good" to her. He invested $8,000. The dashboard shows it growing every day.

Today she calls him with bad news.

"The platform got flagged by regulators for some compliance issue, nothing to do with you, but they're freezing wire transfers temporarily. To keep your investment safe and active during the freeze, the platform is sending a verified courier to pick up your next deposit in cash. He'll have a code we'll agree on so you know it's him. Can you withdraw $15,000 from your bank today? He'll meet you at home around 4 p.m."

Your dad goes to the bank. The teller asks a few questions. He has a confident answer for each one (the love interest coached him). He takes home $15,000 in hundreds. At 4 p.m., a man rings the doorbell, shows him a $20 bill with the matching serial number she texted, and leaves with the cash. The dashboard updates an hour later showing a deposit of $15,000.

The FBI put out a fresh alert about this exact pattern on June 15. The cryptocurrency platform doesn't exist. The dashboard is fake. The love interest is a scammer in a different country. The courier is a local hire (often someone who thinks they're doing legitimate logistics work for a "money services business") who hands the cash to a coordinator that same night. Every dollar is gone by morning.

The "courier" twist matters because it bypasses the warnings your dad's bank tellers were trained to give about wires and crypto. A teller can flag a $15,000 outbound wire. A teller can't flag a cash withdrawal for "home repairs." And once the money is in a stranger's hand on the porch, it's already overseas.

Three rules for everyone over 60 in your life (and frankly, for everyone).

The rule: If anyone, ever, says they're sending someone to your house to collect cash, hang up. Then call a family member before you withdraw anything. The DOJ Elder Justice Hotline (1-833-FRAUD-11) takes calls from anyone worried they're being scammed.

Source: FBI IC3: Scammers Use Couriers to Collect Cash in Cryptocurrency Investment Scams