Buy these useless cruise miles
I have a friend who tends to book travel through whatever website seems to have the best price. I always tell them to just book directly through the airline, hotel, rental car company, etc. whenever possible, but that doesn’t always happen. It has caused my friend problems, but nothing dire.
The lesson that I keep trying to teach my friend was learned the hard way by nearly 200 people in the UK, who bought scam cruise miles from a man named Richard Lester, through his Cruise Direct UK Ltd business.
All told, Lester made over £400,000 from his marks and spent the money gambling online. Lester has been sentenced to five years in prison.
Gambling it up on victims’ dimes
Starting in 2009, Lester sold fake cruise miles to his victims for five years, all while gambling professionally and “living the high life in Las Vegas.” Essex Police in the UK investigated him for ten years after being contacted by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau.
Lester used multiple aliases, including “Lord” Lester, to make himself sound more important and legitimate than he really was.
The judge in the case said that Lester even “gaslit” his targets, often telling them it was their fault that their vacations were canceled. Of course, there were no cruises – Lester sold them an empty bill of goods.
Victims left shattered
The victims tended to find out they had been scammed when they arrived at the port only to be turned away. One person, Kim Berthen, told the court that she bought a cruise for her and her husband’s 30th wedding anniversary.
“I stupidly invested in this company thinking of wonderful holidays together. It makes me so angry and depressed to know I made a stupid decision,” she said.
In addition to the direct victims, Lester’s scam also affected travel agents who not only lost business, but had to manage infuriated customers. Both the customers and the agents thought the cruise miles were legit, but that didn’t necessarily matter to the customers, as they trusted the agents.
According to the BBC, Australian travel agent Elizabeth Erskine called the whole thing “harrowing.”
“I had to experience the fear and distress of my life crashing around me,” she said in a court statement.
Tania Panagiotopoulou, Lester’s attorney, tried to reduce the wrath of the judge by saying her client had “thousands of satisfied customers” before switching to a scam business, but the judge would hear nothing of the sort.
