The day before they were about to embark on a long planned for $15,000 cruise on Carnival Cruise Line, a Kentucky family found out that their trip had been cancelled and that they would not be receiving a refund from Carnival. The problem stemmed from the family posting a "cruise countdown" on Facebook in the days prior to the cruise. Carnival encourages people to share the countdown of the days prior to a cruise on social media, however, the Kentucky family rather than clicking on the "share countdown" button provided by Carnival, instead shared a screenshot of the countdown that included their confirmation number and other details. This information allowed an identity thief to cancel the reservation 48 hours prior to the date of the cruise. Carnival has not indicated whether the identity thief obtained a refund or merely cancelled the cruise although it is reasonable to believe that the identity thief managed to get a refund of some amount.
TIPS
People often get into trouble by sharing too much information on social media whether it is family information that can make it easier for a scammer to perpetrate the grandparent or family emergency scam or provide information that can lead to identity theft. In this case, the posting of the confirmation number made it a relatively simple matter for the identity thief to access the Carnival account. As tempting as it is to tell people about an upcoming vacation or even post photos while you are on vacation, doing so notifies the world that you are not home and leaves your home susceptible to burglaries. A better course of action is to wait until you return from your vacation to post any photos.
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