Rakesh Shah had booked a Thailand/Malaysia/ Singapore Star Cruise to coincide with his children’s vacations and was looking forward to it. Unfortunately, his travel agency preponed his booking. Unwilling to make his children miss school for the cruise, the Ahmedabad-based Shah was left with no option but to cancel the trip. And since the travel agency was unable, or unwilling, to give a reason for getting the booking wrong, Shah went ahead and filed a case of harassment against it.

Shah is not the only one to get a raw deal from his travel agent. With spending power increasing, a large number of people are choosing exotic holidays and are being fleeced. Take Amrish Patel, who travelled to Switzerland and Paris. He had to pay his agent 540 euros for a scheduled trip to euro Disney but when he reached he found that the actual entry fee was 206 euros only. Of course, as soon as he came back, Patel asked the agent to return the remaining 334 euros.

Another Patel, Mahesh, was put up in an ordinary hotel when he had been promised, and paid for, three-star accommodation. That wasn’t the only breach of contract — he had to travel in ordinary buses instead of the promised luxury ones and the food too was sub-standard.

From Ahmedabad to Calcutta, the story is the same. Nitish Chandra Saha Roy, a divisional engineer in a government office in central Calcutta, had planned a family vacation at Port Blair and even got his tickets. But when he punched in the PNR number of the e-ticket on the airline’s website, he realised that he had been duped. And he is not the only one to have been handed a fake e-ticket.

With more people choosing to make their travel bookings via travel agencies and e-portals, the number of people being duped is increasing. The four cases mentioned above are just drops in the ocean of consumers being duped, harassed or over-charged by travel agencies. “People approach us with such complaints on a regular basis. Getting sub-standard treatment is the most frequent one but fake tickets are not that infrequent,” says Mumbai-based consumer activist Jehangir Gai.

It is best to be wary of travel agencies (both online and offline) that come up with unbelievably good deals. They are just that — unbelievable. Take the travel portal www.travelchacha.com, which promises huge discounts. Many consumers have complained against it. “I had booked a ticket with Travel Chacha. But when I didn’t get the PNR number or the e-ticket, I called up the agency,” recounts Rajasthan’s Bhavdeep Singh Bhatia. But unlike others, Bhatia didn’t let the matter go that easily, he made the travel portal refund the amount rather than taking up the agency’s offer to book the ticket for a later date.

So what should a prospective traveller keep in mind when making a booking? Is it easy to verify the authenticity of travel agents? Can one actually demarcate between an authentic and a fly-by-night one?

“No,” says Pawan Tekrival, owner of Rishi Travels, Calcutta. According to Tekrival, whose office is on Park Street, a lot of travel agents dupe travellers with fake e-tickets. “Many travel agencies in and around Free School Street issue such fake e-tickets,” he says. It’s the promise of heavy discounts that help such scrupulous agents dupe customers, feels Tekrival. “If you are travelling by a low-cost airlines such as Indigo or SpiceJet, you should raise an alarm if you don’t get your ticket details via short messaging service (sms) within an hour of booking,” he advises. But what about the global distribution systems (GDS) airlines like Kingfisher or Air India? “These airlines don’t send PNR numbers to travellers but to the agencies. In such cases, while booking tickets, request the agent to forward the PNR number to your mobile,” he advises.

That’s not always fool-proof because you might be given an invalid PNR number like Sunil Kumar (name changed) was given by Travel Chacha. Says Gaurav Kumar, a ticketing executive at Travel Chacha, “It’s not that we are here to dupe them. We are short staffed and at times we do send in the wrong PNR number by mistake,” he clarifies. So what does one do in such a situation? “Call up the airlines giving your name and flight number. The airlines can then give you your PNR number,” he advises.

“Always check the contract clauses, which are printed below the itinerary. Most of the times these conditions protect the travel agents’ interest. Also before you transfer your money make them to agree to the changes in writing that protect your interests,” advises Preeti Shah, director of the Ahmedabad-based consumer group Consumer Education and Research Centre (CERC). Also, check out any agency before you use its services. “See if there are any grievances against your tour operator on the Internet. Visit the website www.confonet.com and search for judgments, if any, against your tour operator,” says Shah.

But despite all precautions, if you still end up feeling cheated, “Take pictures, keep the receipts, and collect whatever you can as evidence. And on returning, take the issue up with a consumer forum or file a criminal case against the company,” says M.S. Kamath, general secretary of the Mumbai-based the Consumer Guidance Society of India. Remember Amrish Patel who was charged extra for his Disney trip? Well he had saved the ticket that proved the travel agency had charged quite a bit extra. When CERC contacted the agency on behalf of Patel, it admitted its mistake and refunded the money.

Of course, its best if you book your tickets and hotel accommodation yourself.