How much holiday fraud actually happens
In 2024 there were 6,066 reports of holiday fraud in the UK, with total losses of £11,183,957 and an average loss of £1,844 per victim. More than half of those reports mentioned a social media platform. July was the busiest month of the year, with 647 reports.
The pattern behind those numbers is specific. UK Finance found that purchase scams — paying for something that never arrives — made up 71% of all authorised push payment fraud cases in 2025, with losses rising 20% to £118.1 million. Holiday lets sit squarely inside that category.
Lloyds Bank reported in 2024 that 49% of holiday scams started on Facebook, including Marketplace, and that caravans were the second most commonly faked holiday item after flight tickets. That is worth saying plainly: the groups where people find genuinely good caravan and lodge deals are also where most of this happens. The answer is not to avoid them. It is to know what to look at.
Sign one: the photographs exist somewhere else
Fake listings rarely involve fake photographs, because it is far easier to lift real ones. A Which? investigation published in June 2026 found Facebook video adverts using images stolen from Wolf Wood Treehouses, a real UK provider. Its owner said he was aware of around ten websites impersonating his business and gets calls most weeks from people who have been caught or nearly caught. The adverts reached an estimated 41,458 accounts.
A reverse image search takes about thirty seconds and is the highest-value check on this list.
- Search a listing photo with Google Images, or upload it to TinEye
- If the same interior appears under a different property name, county or owner, stop there
- Watch for photos that contradict each other — different flooring, different door furniture, different seasons
- Ask for a photograph taken today of something specific, such as the view from the kitchen window
Sign two: you are steered towards a bank transfer
This is the sign that turns a bad booking into a lost £1,800. A bank transfer is fast, hard to trace and, unlike a card payment, carries no chargeback. Fraudsters know this, which is why the request is usually dressed up as a favour — the Metropolitan Police specifically warns about a discount being offered for paying by transfer.