Do you have a legal or moral obligation to notify authorities of a travel agency misusing funds? Does it make you complicit if you keep it to yourself?
Agents going broke are bad for everyone’s business. Suppliers are left unpaid. Rents go unpaid. Staff don’t get their full salary and superannuation benefits. Channel 9 gets involved and every travel agent is tarred with the same dirty brush.
With the CTS travel scam taking twists and turns behind closed doors, interesting points have been raised by and for agents.
What can be done to prevent it happening again? Can agents play a part in this?
Agents are alleging that ‘everyone knew XXX had a gambling habit’ or ‘they did not pay my superannuation back in late 2008’ or that ‘everyone knew they were always going broke’ and finally ‘I heard they had issues in the TCF days’.
Part of this is 2020 hindsight and a great chance for people to prove their long-held suspicions. But part of it is also inside ‘trading’ that could potentially be valuable before the fact.
An agent following up on unpaid superannuation or salary or aware of a travel agency not paying bills now might save the next person losing their salary. Do you have a legal obligation if you know a travel agency is misusing funds and you are continuing to do business there? Does that make you complicit?
If we had known what we know about a couple of our customers, we would have cut them off early before the pain was too bad.
If we then assume a few wholesalers stop supplying a travel agency, they are no longer able to trade and that’s going to mean the damage that they can cause the industry is significantly lower.
The sooner they are out of business, the better for everyone. You can’t argue that. Once the debt spiral begins for these agencies they can’t trade their way out of it.
But if we see a travel agent struggling to pay bills and displaying erratic behavior, should we tell anyone?
We’ve got one of these at the moment
- T&C’s of doing business have been signed
- T&C’s whilst making a booking a couple of months in advance were accepted
- Agent got multiple reminders that the following booking was due for payment or cancellation in the next few weeks – cancel now, no fee or charge, after this date, you are liable
- Phone call and email made before the critical dates, agent responded they were taking care of the booking, they understood their liability
- Email ‘read receipt’ confirming all the correspondence
In the litany of excuses that followed, the kicker was ‘cash flow was bad at the moment and can they pay us back in installments’. Heard that before.
First installment paid and then we are told that’s now in the hands of the debt collectors and the lawyers. It’s horrible playing hardball but those debt collectors are a necessary last resort.
So I’m going to make a wild assumption:
- Struggling to get their head around bills
- Cash flow issues
- Breaking financial promises
That’s an agency in trouble.
Statistics say we aren’t going to be the only one they are doing this with. When the staff become aware of this they will put two-and-two together and wonder how their next pay check and super is looking. Maybe the wages are already a little behind.
It’s a business in trouble.
The agent behavior is sad and deceitful.
- Staff missing out on leave, wages and entitlements
- Other wholesalers at risk of not getting payments
- Customers who are going to start losing their money
- Another argument begins on the value of travel agents