Manchester City and West Ham fans warned about potential scams ahead of European finals

Well as Manchester City and West Ham prepare for their respective European finals this week, fans are being warned about potential scams when looking to book flights and accommodation. For more on this we can speak to Paul Smith who's the Consumer Director and Joint Interim Chief Executive of the Civil Aviation Authority. Morning to you Paul, what are the main dangers then for fans this week? Yeah good morning Rob, good morning to your viewers. So it's a big week as you say for West Ham and Man City fans and we know particularly those with tickets but people just looking to travel will be looking to get their flights and their accommodation and we just want to really make sure because some Liverpool fans had some bad experiences last year with flights and accommodation for their final. So we really just want to make sure people just take your time, do a bit of research, don't respond to unsolicited offers, look out for the Atoll logo, that gives you protection because if there's a failure of the company you'll be protected by us, the Civil Aviation Authority, and you can check if the company's got an Atoll, atoll.org, the website, put the company name in, that'll tell you if it's got an Atoll license and also if you've got one pay with a credit card, that gives you some extra protection as well. So just some simple tips I think that people can follow to have confidence that what they book for their flights and accommodation for such a big and potentially expensive experience that they're getting what they pay for. Is there anything on websites that fans may be looking at to try and get themselves either a flight or a hotel where from your perspective the alarm bells might start ringing if you see a certain thing online? I think one of the things unfortunately that we see scammers doing is looking to clone websites so you know clone price comparison websites, clone airline or accommodation websites, so really just checking that it's it's actually the genuine website and don't respond to those unsolicited offers on email, actually go to the website itself so you've got confidence it's the right website. Unfortunately travel, because often it's quite an expensive purchase, is a target for scammers. We've seen about action fraud have indicated them in about six and a half thousand scams, worth about 15 million in travel in recent times, so it's really just making sure it's the right website, take your time, do the research and again look at our atoll.org website and that will give you confidence it's a licensed company that can sell these these flights and this accommodation as a package. Are there potentially different issues with the two host cities, Manchester City that is are in Istanbul, West Ham are in Prague? I wouldn't say particularly, I think what we see and what we saw a bit last year with Liverpool is it's the people selling the flights and the accommodation from the UK to particularly sort of watch out for. There will be government advice about how to, you know, what to look out for in Prague and Istanbul and how to have a good time there, but it's particularly that buying of the flights and the accommodation in the first place and as I say, just even though obviously the finals are not very far away, do a bit of research, take your time, make sure that it's a genuine purchase, pay with a credit card if you can, look out for the atoll logo and that will give you confidence that you're buying and you're going to get what you actually paid for. Which I guess probably goes for match tickets as well because there will be more certainly West Ham fans heading to Prague than there are tickets available, so again keeping an eye out for those marks of authenticity. Indeed and that's, I think that's the message here really is take your time. I know there's a inevitably one, you know, there's a lot of excitement around it, but take your time, do a bit of research, if it's an unsolicited offer, you know, be very very cautious about that and do your own research, go to the websites so you know that it's genuine and as I say check out for that atoll.org and you can check if the company's licensed by ourselves, the Civil Aviation Authority. Paul, appreciate your time this morning, thank you very much indeed.