For several weeks now, a fraudulent hotel provider named Converia Travel has been active in the area of academic conferences. Here’s what organisers and participants should be on the lookout for.
Last week, we were alarmed by a message we received from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). The university has been using our conference management software Converia for conferences and congresses for years. Hence, Converia is a household name among university staff and conference goers.
Now, several speakers at a JGU conference have been contacted by a supposed hotel provider named Converia Travel. They were asked to book accommodation for the duration of the conference. Speakers were then redirected to a website that asked them to enter their personal payment details.
If a person fills in their details, there will be no hotel room. But Converia Travel will happily take and keep the money.
Converia never directly contacts conference speakers to sell offers. We also do not offer accommodation to participants.
Over the past few weeks, these providers have popped up at various international conferences. In addition to Converia Travel, they use names such as Global Travel Team, Global Travel Experts, or Travel Housing Team. There may be other names as well.
We suspect that the name Converia Travel was chosen deliberately, as the fraudulent scheme is always related to academic conferences and are intended to generate trust.
We cannot stop this in the short term. According to its website, Converia Travel claims that the company is based in London. Unfortunately, our trademark protection only applies to software within the European Union.
For the time being, all we can do is issue an urgent warning to organisers and participants.
How the scam works
The procedure is the same in many cases:
First, Converia Travel approaches conference speakers by email. The emails often look convincing enough to give the impression that they belong to the conference.
Sometimes they even feature the conference’s logo or claim to be an official partner. The email may also contain a link to the real conference website.
The recipients are then redirected to a website that looks genuine as well. It resembles a booking platform where speakers are supposed to select their accommodation options.
Payment is to be made at the same time as the “booking”. This is a typical phishing scheme.
Our recommendation regarding Converia Travel
- Do not reply.
- Do not click on any links.
- Do not enter any personal data.
We advise you to actively warn your participants about this scam.
Point it out on your conference website or in a newsletter. Ask participants to be cautious whenever they receive an email that might be suspicious.
Provide an email address (e.g. the official conference email address) anyone who has received such an email can get in touch with.
This will protect your conference participants and prevent fraudulent providers from succeeding with their scheme. The sooner this becomes common practice, the sooner the scam will hopefully come to an end.