“Until 2014, travel agents were required to be licensed. Now, anyone can work as a travel agent.” Over a million Australians were told that chilling news last week on national television in a report about a traveller rip-off by an apparent travel agent who has since vanished.
Channel Nine’s A Current Affair detailed how trusting travellers paid a man who set himself up as a travel agent, took their money and then disappeared.
The company, Swan Travel, is now just an empty office, according to A Current Affair.
The program looked at a couple who booked tickets to Bali earlier this year and arrived at the airport only find their tickets were worthless. Another couple, who paid for international travel to visit a sick relative, were in a similar situation.
Phoning the travel agent, a man called Habib Jabir, proved fruitless because phones had been cut off. All that is left of Habib’s business is an empty office with a hand-painted blue swan on the wall.
The report said an application to wind up Swan Travel Pty Ltd was launched in February after the company failed to pay a debt to Helloworld Travel. Two months later, Swan Travel Pty Ltd was placed in liquidation.
A lot of people are looking for the proprietor, who allegedly kept on collecting money after his business went down. A Current Affair said Habib had apparently vanished, selling his apartment and deleting his social media. People’s holiday savings vanished along with him.
The program’s website quoted a statement from a spokesperson for Fair Trading NSW:
Swan Travel Pty Ltd was placed into liquidation on 17 April 2019. Consumers who are dissatisfied in their dealings with Swan Travel Pty Ltd prior to 17 April 2019 are encouraged to contact the liquidators to request further assistance. Where customers have paid by credit or debit card, they should contact their credit provider and make enquiries about applying for a credit card chargeback.
An account of the case can be read on the Channel Nine site here, along with a video link to the relevant segment of last week’s A Current Affair, complete with comment from AFTA chief executive, Jayson Westbury.
Edited by Peter Needham
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