Plan a trip you’ll love rather than just one that looks beautiful!

Labels only show visible aspects. When the path demands a change, you can refine, combine, or break your patterns.

Journey profiles shape more than packing lists. They impact risk-taking, everyday speed, and comfort-discovery. Planners who appreciate detailed itineraries may produce productive and interesting days, while improvisers who are open to new ideas can find surprises.

Knowing your instincts makes it easier to plan a trip you’ll love rather than just one that looks beautiful.

5 Kinds of Traveling

The Planner – Arc Assembly

Planners like order. They search for public transit, museum hours, and restaurant reservations weeks in advance and establish flexible buffers around immovable areas. They labor without tiredness, yet may overschedule. Simple solution: set aside two hours a day for unplanned leisure and stick to it.

Explorers Should Follow the Compass, Not the Time

Explorers like fascinating days. They depart early, choose a direction, and follow what happens – alley music, market smell, map-changing chatter. Immersion is their specialty, yet they may miss vital locations or misjudge transport schedules. A basic must-see list frees you from uncertainty.

Searching the Connector for People and Stories

Connectors plan vacations for friendship and cultural exchange. They take cooking classes, go on walks, and stay with local hosts. Empathy and availability are benefits, but energy waste is a problem. Give yourself time to ponder daily to avoid losing valuable experiences to names.

Being a Minimalist Means Traveling Light and Thinking Plainly

Minimalists carry only their essentials, have modest closets, and use basic technology. Fast travel through airports, trains, and cobblestones is their strength. Not being ready for rare events is their weakness. A tiny emergency pack and a brief list of things to acquire upon arrival prevent oversimplification and scarcity.

Aesthete – Writing Beautifully While Moving

Aesthetic travelers plan art, fashion, and nature travels. They spend time in art galleries, notice local details, and bring back essay-like images. They’re brilliant at grabbing attention, yet they may write too much. Putting photos in a set window for each site maintains presence while creating a meaningful collection.

Travel Like You Are

Styles evolve during travel. Planners and minimalists usually verify everything before leaving. Explorers and connectors can lead discovery and discourse once they reach their goal. Aesthetes collect photos, notes, and rituals to remember their trip when they return. Leadership rotates by phase to respect each profile’s value.

Knowing yourself is key to traveling success

Apply what you’ve learned. Allow for the unexpected and stay safe when planning. To stay organized while traveling, choose two must-dos in each location. If you connect, research local small businesses you can trust. To prolong kit life if you travel light, prepare laundry. Stay near waterways, historic districts, and creative regions to make every exit feel like an entry for beauty.

Knowing yourself is key to success. Respecting your world navigation and consciously copying effective tricks minimizes friction and adds meaning. This method creates a logical but surprising path. Maps and inner learning, relaxing, and belonging shape your route.

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Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you click on them and make a purchase, Pipeaway may make a small commission, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting our work!

The photographs in this article have been sourced through Unsplash.
The author is Santhosh Mocharla.

The post What Kind of Traveler Are You – and How Does It Shape Your Adventures? appeared first on Pipeaway.

Making them isn’t about being a filmmaker. You don’t need a drone, fancy editing software, or a YouTube channel. If you’ve got a phone and a story worth remembering, you’re already halfway there.

Here’s how to make travel videos that aren’t just clips – they’re time capsules.

Beginner Travel Video Tips

1. Use the Camera You’ve Got (Really)

People love to talk gear. Cameras, stabilizers, lenses, mics. And yeah, some of it is cool. But for most travelers? A phone is more than enough.

The key is knowing how to use it. Keep it steady. Shoot with intention. Pay attention to light. That’s it. The rest? You can figure it out as you go.

DSLR or mirrorless cameras provide excellent image quality. But if you do love gear, try to keep it light

Want smoother footage? Walk slowly. Or rest your elbows on something stable. Want a clearer sound? Get closer to the subject. That’s the kind of stuff that matters way more than the model of your device.

Digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) or mirrorless cameras provide excellent image quality. But if you do love gear, try to keep it light. A small action cam or a gimbal can help with movement-heavy scenes. Don’t let tech get in the way of the moment. Sometimes the best shots happen when the camera’s already in your hand, not zipped up in a backpack.

A travel video maker can be an excellent solution, too. This powerful tool allows you to shoot, edit, and compile your travel footage directly from your smartphone. No need for advanced video editing skills; this type of app simplifies the process, helping you create stunning travel videos in no time.

You want to take your videos below the sea surface? Here's how to find the best underwater camera housing!

2. Focus on Composition

Good composition is key to making your photos and videos stand out. It’s not just what you shoot – it’s how you frame it. To get the composition right, follow these beginner-friendly tips:

Rule of Thirds: Imagine a 3×3 grid on your screen. Placing your subject off-center (where the lines intersect) can create a more balanced, eye-catching shot.

Leading Lines: Use paths, rivers, fences, or buildings to guide the viewer’s eyes toward the subject.

Change Your Perspective: Don’t just shoot from eye level. Try angles from above, below, or the side. You might be surprised by how much more interesting the shot becomes.

And remember: even if your footage isn’t perfect, editing apps can help enhance the final result. For example, Invideo AI’s travel video maker can turn your idea into a ready-to-publish video, complete with visuals, voiceovers, subtitles, music, and more. You can have high-quality travel videos created in just minutes!

3. Think Like a Storyteller: Film Little Moments

It’s easy to fall into the highlight-reel trap – panoramas, monuments, sunsets. But travel videos that hit hardest are the ones that feel personal and natural. The ones that tell a story.

What’s the feeling you want to remember? The chaos of a street market? The quiet before sunrise? A friend getting lost, again? Start filming with that in mind.

Get shots that set the scene (wide views, city sounds, passing faces). Then mix in close-ups (hands passing food, shoes on dusty steps, a map flapping in the wind). Don’t forget reaction shots either (a face lighting up, a frustrated shrug, the laugh that caught you off guard).

Most people hit record when something obvious happens: a waterfall, a dance performance, a fancy plate of food. But it’s the small stuff that gives a video heart.

That slow bus ride through nowhere. The woman making dumplings on a street corner. Friends half asleep on a train. A lizard that startled you. Film those too.

Shoot things you think don’t matter – because later, they might be the ones that transport you back, more than a posed photograph.

4. Light Can Make or Break It

Whenever possible, shoot in natural light, especially during the “golden hour” (shortly after sunrise or before sunset). The soft, warm glow adds magic to your footage.

Shooting under midday sun? That light can be harsh, causing strong shadows or overexposure. If you have to shoot then, move into shade or turn your subject away from direct light. Use your hand to block glare on the lens.

Also: backlit shots (where the light is behind your subject) can be gorgeous if done right. Mess around with angles. Don’t worry about the rules too much.

Again, travel video maker apps can help. They allow you to correct lighting in post-production – adjust brightness, contrast, and color grading to get the mood just right, even if you didn’t capture it perfectly.

5. Move Your Camera – but Not Too Much

Movement adds life to video. A slow pan across a landscape. Walking behind someone through a market. Tilting up to reveal a temple. Simple moves can make your video feel way more immersive.

Just go easy on the motion. Quick jerks and fast spins? Hard to watch later. Think slow, intentional, steady.

If you’re filming while walking, soften your steps. Hold the phone close to your body. Or rest it against something and let the scene move instead.

A little motion + a little patience = magic.

For smoother shots, especially when you’re moving, a gimbal or stabilizer can make a huge difference.

Feeling overwhelmed by editing? Let AI help. Many travel video apps now use AI to automatically analyze the footage, stitch your clips together, add transitions, and even suggest music – making it easier to create a dynamic video without spending hours learning software.

6. Stay Ready for Whatever Happens

Travel rarely goes exactly as planned – and that’s part of the fun. The bus is late, it rains on your hike, someone you meet invites you to a wedding you weren’t supposed to be at. And those surprises? That’s your best content. Some of the most cinematic moments happen when you least expect them.

Film random things. You don’t know what’ll matter later

Keep your phone or camera close, even when you think there’s “nothing going on”. Film random things. Wide shots of the setting, close-ups of details, a 5-second clip of someone tying their shoes. You don’t know what’ll matter later.

When you edit the shots later in a travel video maker, you’ll have all the pieces to tell a rich, layered story. It will be much more than just the obvious shots.

Watch one of Pipeaway’s more popular videos on YouTube, uploaded seven years ago, before the sophisticated AI tools arrived. There were hours and hours of material – how much easier it would be to edit this type of sequence today!

7. Edit Your Travel Videos Like You’re Writing a Letter to Yourself

Once the trip’s over – or even while you’re still traveling – take a little time to piece it all together. It doesn’t have to be a big production. A one-minute video montage. A folder of ten shots that tell the story. That’s enough.

Editing doesn’t have to be fancy. It’s about choosing what to keep and what to leave out. Think of it like writing a postcard to your future self. What do you want to say?

Most phones already come with simple editing tools. Cut clips. Adjust brightness. Add music. That’s enough.

Want help? Try a travel video maker app. AI video apps can pull out the best clips, match them to music, and add transitions automatically. You upload. They edit. Done.

Whether you’re looking to create a short highlight reel for your social media or a full-length travel documentary, AI video apps will make your life easier. It’s not cheating. It’s about simplifying the editing process so you can focus on the creative aspects.

How to Make Travel Videos for Beginners – Conclusion

This whole capturing-memories thing – it’s not about being a content creator or impressing strangers online. It’s about holding on to stuff you don’t want to forget. The small things. The way a place made you feel.

So yeah, take the photo. Film the moment, but don’t overfilm. Remember to look up sometimes. Be there.

Then, when you look back at what you captured later, whether it’s a quick phone video or a beautifully edited reel, you’ll have more than just a shot. You’ll have a piece of the experience.

And that’s the point.

Do you feel more confident in making travel videos now?
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Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you click on them and make a purchase, Pipeaway may make a small commission, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting our work!

The photographs in this article have been sourced through Unsplash.
In the order of appearance, the authors are as follows: 
Malibu beach (cover image) - Tom Briskey
Rule of thirds - Jiawei Zhao
Plane over head - Justin Clark
Sunset - Jametlene Reskp
Phone taped on a window - Omar Ramadan
Video editing - Danny Feng
Phone on plane window (pin image) - Pejvak Samadani 

The post How to Make Travel Videos That Actually Feel Like the Trip appeared first on Pipeaway.

There’s a sucker born every minuteP.T. Barnum

Cats were among the first social media stars to break the internet. Since Charlie Schmidt uploaded his “Keyboard Cat” to YouTube in 2007, the viral video has amassed more than 2 million likes.

But when, last week, Pablo Jiménez prompted Hailuo 02 (an AI model by China‘s MiniMax) to generate a Cat Olympics reel, pool-diving cats collected nearly 10 million Instagram likes in just five days!

The newest trending meme showed that cats still rule the web, but it also reaffirmed P.T. Barnum‘s alleged theory that “there’s a sucker born every minute”.

“No way, they are better swimmers than me”, one awestruck commenter said.

Naturally, Dog Olympics followed the viral trend shortly after. A worried animal lover pleaded: “But why do dogs and cats do this??? Respect their nature, not your ambitions!!!!”

There was even a detective mind who didn’t find it suspicious that our furry pets exhibit such a graceful athleticism. Something else informed their scrutiny: “I don’t think this is real, there aren’t the right number of Olympic rings.”

The same week, many fell for a scuba diving dog, too, someone calling it “the luckiest dog in the world”.

Are we just soft for pets, or is our gullibility – that glitch in human design – the easiest button to push?

If you’re more into meerkats than cats, I made my own experimental animal diving competition video with Hailuo. Check out the Zoolympics!

TL;DR: Scuba-diving dogs. Cats doing Olympic backflips. Pope in a Balenciaga coat. Every new wave of AI-generated content exposes an old truth: people will believe just about anything if it looks real enough. But this gullibility isn’t new. From spirit photography to Photoshop, humanity has always stumbled through the early stages of new technologies. This article dives into our recurring trust in the unreal, unpacks the psychology behind digital belief, and asks: why do we keep falling for it, and what can we do about it?

Fake It Till You Monetize – Inside the AI Gold Rush

I’ve written before about how artificial intelligence is (ab)used to capitalize on our trust. From Glasgow‘s sour Willy’s Chocolate Experience to an entire AI art Facebook trend, the scam didn’t need to be sophisticated. Even in the early days of generative AI, when a subject could never have too many fingers, and buildings melted against the laws of physics, those images were still successful fraud traps for unskeptical observers.

Now, as text-to-video AI generators step up the game, distinguishing between AI BS and the real thing is becoming an even greater challenge for many.

All those “photographs” of adorable tiny homes and mountain logs of yesteryears have evolved into enticing moving images of “magical retreats”. You can now vividly imagine yourself stepping into this parallel universe where noiseless houses stand on “soft white sand beach”, hobbit homes “glow softly with lantern lights”, and your infinity pool spills into a Jurassic waterfall. All of it looks like something out of a dream, but many cannot call it.

Check it out – artificial visuals, artificial voice, real engagement!

Despite flooding different Facebook pages, these concrete AI videos all lead back to one shadowy source – Vacarino LLC. The owner of the website, which, nota bene, uses stock photographs, has a hidden identity. While Facebook pages seem to be based in Texas or California, and their AI properties are located in, well, Neverland, the linked website rents villas in – Italy. Under each property in Aosta Valley, Lazio, and Le Marche, reviews left by guests are obviously fake. They are even feverishly posted within minutes of each other. Everything screams red flag.

Last year, 404 Media discovered that Facebook/Meta has been paying people to generate viral AI images, offering up to $100 for every 1,000 likes through its Creator Bonus Program. Twitter/X‘s incentive scheme also turned out to stimulate AI slop, emotionally manipulative, algorithm-pleasing fluff that gamifies gullibility.

The earning potential of AI-generated videos, which often receive over 100,000 likes, is thus enormous.

With AI-generated videos now regularly collecting hundreds of thousands of likes, it’s easy to see why this ecosystem thrives. It doesn’t matter if the story features birds nesting in flowers during a storm, a civilian Father Christmas rescuing a whale family, or an Arctic wolf heroically saving a trapped penguin by bringing it to humans. If it looks kind, cute, or just shareable, it prints engagement.

And where there’s engagement, there’s money.

How many outfits do you need to change to rescue a penguin? Apparently, at least three.

Ctrl+Alt+Believe – Gen Z & Critical Thinking

You might assume that only your mom or grandma would fall for this stuff. But studies show that even Gen Z, the generation raised with smartphones practically welded to their hands, struggles to separate fact from fiction online. In fact, they might be the worst at it.

Born between 1997 and 2012, Gen Z is often praised for its digital fluency. But fluency isn’t the same as literacy. Being constantly online doesn’t make you any better at telling what’s real. According to research, digital natives are surprisingly prone to digital naivety.

Part of the problem? Critical thinking is rarely taught, especially not at the speed needed to keep up with fast-evolving technologies. Schools struggle to update syllabi quickly enough. So while students might know how to use ChatGPT to do their homework, they’re not necessarily taught how to question what shows up in those chats.

It’s tempting to look at the rise of AI-generated content and blame it on a shocking new ignorance – a sign of the modern mind’s decay. But the truth is less clickbaity and more human: we’ve always been like this.

Our tendency to trust, to be wowed by novelty, isn’t new. It’s hardwired.

History shows that every time a new technology emerges, humans go through a predictable honeymoon phase: a new tool appears → we lack the experience to understand it → blind belief ensues. From photography to radio to television to deepfakes, the pattern is reliable.

Want proof? Let’s take a look.

History of technological naivety

1. The Lie of the Lens – Early Photography

Before photography was invented in the 1820s, the closest thing to “capturing reality” was a painted portrait – expensive, time-consuming, and always at the mercy of the painter’s imagination. The level of detail and striking realism in early photographs was reminiscent of painted portraits, leading some people to struggle with distinguishing between the two media.

To many, the process seemed downright supernatural and unsettling. What kind of machine could trap a person’s image so perfectly? Some believed photography had the power to steal your soul. Others feared it could alter your very being, hesitating to get photographed. In the same way that some now worry AI will replace humans, 19th-century minds saw early cameras as something between dark magic and dangerous science.

Photography also struggled to be perceived as art, because it felt mechanical, detached, and thoughtless (as effortless as we could see pressing the “generate AI” button today).

Meanwhile, traditional artists of the time felt threatened by the new technology, fearing that once color photography got perfected, they would all be deemed useless and lose their jobs. Sound familiar?

Before the public had time to question how photographs were made, or how they could be manipulated and retouched, the camera quickly gained a reputation as a truth machine. If it were in a photo, it had to be real. That belief made fertile ground for fraud.

In the 1860s, William H. Mumler launched a booming business in “spirit photography” – portraits in which ghostly figures of the dead floated beside their grieving loved ones. Today, we know it was just a clever use of double exposure, but at the time, photography experts couldn’t crack the trick. The images were so emotionally powerful, so technically mysterious, that people suspended disbelief.

Paradoxically, P.T. Barnum, a showman legendary for his hoaxes, testified against Mumler in court, accusing him of profiting off grief. The prosecution, however, couldn’t prove beyond a doubt that spirit photography was a fabrication, so its inventor walked free.

The debates about Spiritualism were especially strong in the 1920s, with two unlikely opponents. Arthur Conan Doyle, a man of science and the father of the most famous detective Sherlock Holmes, was a true believer in spirit photography. The rational mind was coming from the world of trickery – magician Harry Houdini, a devoted skeptic, made it a personal mission to debunk fraudulent mediums.

2. Hello, Hell? – The Telephone’s Spooky Beginnings

For centuries, long-distance communication meant waiting days or weeks for letters, or if you insisted on faster delivery, relying on smoke signals, flags, lights, and carrier pigeons. So when the telephone arrived in the 1870s, thanks to Alexander Graham Bell, the idea that someone’s actual voice could travel through wires and speak to you in real time felt, to many, like sorcery.

It was comparable to how spiritualists communicated with the dead. Suddenly, disembodied voices spoke from little boxes on the wall. Was it innovation, or necromancy? From the altars, priests spoke about the spooky telephone as a devil’s tool.

But the fears weren’t limited to the spiritual realm. Many believed the telephone was magnetic to thunder, that it could attract lightning strikes. Elderly people were afraid to touch the device, worried it might shock or electrocute them.

Some with chronic pain, however, took the opposite view: they believed those mysterious electric pulses might offer a cure for rheumatism.

Leaning on the booming pseudoscientific trend of electrotherapy at the time, one popular folk belief was that holding the receiver to an aching joint or sore body part could relieve pain or inflammation. Especially in rural areas, where medical access was limited, some believed the telephone could revitalize nerves or stimulate circulation.

3. Run for Your Lives! – Cinema’s First Jump Scare

When motion pictures were first shown to the public in the late 19th century, there were reports of audience members panicking because they believed that the projection was real and posed a threat to their safety.

Among the most notable examples is “The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station” by the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière. Even if the 1896 silent film depicting a train pulling into a station lasted only 50 seconds, it was incredibly lifelike for the early audiences.

See the train that managed to break the cinema’s fourth wall!

Confronted with moving images for the very first time, unlike anything they had seen before, the public had a strong emotional response.

Convinced a real train was about to burst through the screen and plow into them, the overwhelmed crowd screamed, ducked for cover, and even fled the theater in a stampede.

Today, the idea of running from a two-dimensional silent train might sound comical. But put yourself in their shoes: no special effects history, no cinema culture, no sense that a screen could show reality without being real.

The reaction wasn’t about stupidity. It was sensory overload, a shock to the system caused by a medium we now take for granted.

4. Martians Attack – The Night Radio Fooled America

In the early 20th century, radio was magic. A disembodied voice could suddenly fill your living room with music, news, or drama. It was miraculous, mysterious, and for many, unnerving.

Was it divine, or dangerous? Even religious leaders couldn’t agree. Some preachers called it a miracle for spreading the gospel; others saw it as Satan’s speaker system.

By the 1920s, when radio ownership exploded across the U.S., it became a kind of national campfire. But with it came a new problem: people didn’t yet have the tools to separate performance from reality, a fictional broadcast from a genuine news report.

Orson Welles‘ radio adaptation of H.G. Wells‘ “War of the Worlds”, which aired on October 30, 1938, was designed as a realistic portrayal of an alien invasion unfolding in real-time.

Listen to the broadcast that shook America!

Performed by his Mercury Theatre ensemble, Welles’ innovative format was presented as a series of fake news bulletins, complete with breathless on-the-ground reporters, scientific interruptions, and military briefings. To anyone tuning in late – or flipping channels away from the introduction – it sounded terrifyingly real: a Martian invasion in progress.

A mass hysteria spread among those who believed that the United States was under attack by extraterrestrials. The voice on the radio felt authoritative enough to override common sense.

Reports emerged of people hiding in cellars, fleeing their homes, grabbing guns for self-protection, or even dying of a heart attack. Newspapers at the time (bear in mind, they had a motif to discredit radio as a rising competitor for ad dollars) ran sensational headlines about car accidents, blocked highways, and suicides.

The extent of the panic was exaggerated, but it was an early example of fake news about fake news. Ironically, the real story might not be about mass panic attacks, but about how easily a new medium (radio) could be misunderstood, misrepresented, and mythologized, especially when the audience is untrained in skepticism.

5. As Seen on TV – Fiction Getting Real

Television, like every new medium before it, came with side effects. It didn’t just inform or entertain. It shaped perception, made the fictional feel factual, and occasionally inspired real-world action based on made-up plots.

When color TV was introduced in the mid-20th century, many viewers saw it as more than a technical upgrade. They believed color made things more real or accurate, compared to black-and-white.

When “Gilligan’s Island” (1964-1967), the American sitcom about a shipwrecked group stranded on a desert island, aired in color, concerned viewers sent telegrams to the U.S. Coast Guard, asking them to rescue the cast.

Check out if you would confuse the cast for castaways today!

In 1979, a fictional English heavy metal band Spinal Tap appeared in a parody sketch on ABC‘s “The T.V. Show”. Five years later, the group parodied a rock documentary, “This Is Spinal Tap”, which convinced many viewers that it was a real band. The film pioneered the mockumentary format, which audiences were unfamiliar with. Lacking a laugh track, people bought into fabricated interviews and concert footage. Despite the fictional history and discography, after the premiere, the actors released “new albums” and toured as Spinal Tap, once even opening for themselves as The Folksmen, another fictional band.

Watch the selection of the best Spinal Tap moments!

TV’s power to deceive wasn’t limited to the U.S. In the early 1990s, Croatia was swept up in the American soap “Santa Barbara”. While the show didn’t find massive success back home, in post-Yugoslav households, it was a sensation. So much so that when Eden Capwell, a central character played by Marcy Walker, ended up in a wheelchair after a dramatic accident, an elderly woman in the town of Sinj donated money to the local church. The reason? She wanted a Mass said in Eden’s name, praying for her recovery.

Watch when Eden surprises Cruz with “something she was praying for”!

6. Coming Right At You – The 3D Illusion

Competing with the successful TV market, Hollywood introduced the new gimmick – 3D cinema.

The three-dimensional movies exploded in the 1950s, and audiences once again forgot they were watching fiction. Viewers ducked to avoid on-screen spears, shrieked when objects seemed to leap from the frame, and left theaters feeling as if they had been somewhere else.

Decades later, James Cameron’s “Avatar” took immersion to new heights, so much so that some viewers experienced “Post-Avatar Depression”, mourning the fact that Pandora wasn’t real.

Whether it was old-school red-and-blue glasses or modern polarized 3D, the effect was the same: depth created belief.

Today, AI-generated videos use similar tricks (dynamic camera movement, shallow depth of field, lighting effects) to simulate realism and override our critical faculties. Make it move, and people will believe it.

See the trailer for the movie that got its own syndrome!

7. You’ve Got Mail – it’s Nigerian Prince

When the internet first entered people’s homes in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it arrived with a cheerful dial-up tone, a blinking cursor full of promise, and absolutely no sense of danger.

Back then, most excited users approached the web like a digital utopia: a place of free information, instant communication, and infinite curiosity. And into that wide-eyed optimism flooded a tsunami of scams, hoaxes, and copy-paste curses.

Perhaps the most innocent and persistent of these were the chain emails. They warned that if you didn’t forward a message to 10 friends, you’d be cursed with seven years of bad luck. Some were spiritual (“An angel will visit you tonight!”), others menacing (“Delete this and DIE”). But what they all exploited was the same thing AI-generated videos do today: a shortcut past your critical thinking, straight to your fear or hope.

Then came the scams. The most notorious? The 419 email, aka the Nigerian prince fraud. “Dearest Friend”, it would begin, in a suspiciously flowery tone. “I am a prince in need of help transferring $50 million…” The grammar was poor. The story made no sense. But thousands, even millions, clicked, replied, and wired away savings. The medium felt trustworthy. After all, it arrived in your inbox, addressed personally. How could it be fake?

The early web was a scammer’s playground and an honest user’s booby trap. Phishing links disguised as promotions, virus-ridden .exe files downloaded with a single click, and pop-ups declaring “YOU’VE WON!” while quietly hijacking your browser – all succeeded not because people were stupid, but because they were naive. The rules weren’t clear yet. We believed what we saw. We clicked before we thought.

And we still do it, on social media, clicking on links as soon as our friends drop a DM with a “request for help”.

Remember those legal-sounding Facebook statuses declaring “I do not give Facebook permission to use my photos”? Or the annual panic post about a new privacy policy, which users believed could be invalidated by copy-pasting a bold paragraph into their timeline? That’s not how contracts work. But millions shared those statuses, only self-identifying as susceptible fraud targets.

We’ve moved from “forward this to avoid a curse” to “watch this dolphin rescue a baby zebra from a tsunami”. But the formula hasn’t changed.

Check out how thousands of people lost money thinking they participated in lost luggage sales advertised on Facebook!

8. The New Era of Digital Deception – From Photoshop to Deepfakes

Photoshop arrived in the late 1980s, but the public had already lived through manipulated photographs – from Abraham Lincoln‘s head placed on John Calhoun’s body for the President’s most iconic portrait to Stalin airbrushing rivals out of existence.

Photoshop democratized deception. Suddenly, anyone with a mouse and patience could edit reality, and make it beautiful, dangerous, or just fake.

With manipulation getting more subtle and results more polished, audiences started trusting the perfect over the possible. For instance, retouching of models’ appearances in fashion journals stimulated a whole range of eating disorders among teenagers, who believed the deception.

Remember the viral photo of a shark leaping toward a helicopter? Or the widely circulated image of “Mars Spectacular” supposedly appearing as large as the Moon on August 27? Both were fake – Photoshop creations passed around as scientific marvels or National Geographic-style moments. Yet millions believed.

Then came deepfakes, and things got weird. In 2017, a Reddit user released a video showing celebrities’ faces swapped into porn. Not just a static edit, but a moving, blinking, speaking face, artificially generated, frighteningly realistic. Within months, Barack Obama was delivering words he never said. Then we got Tom Cruise doing TikTok magic tricks. Donald Trump got arrested. Pope Francis rocked a Balenciaga puffer coat.

Watch coin magic performed by one and NOT only Tom Cruise!

@deeptomcruise

I love magic!

♬ original sound – Miles Fisher

Unlike Photoshop, which was still rooted in manual skill, deepfakes were powered by AI, and they were getting better by the week. Audio could be cloned. Mouths could be synced. Entire videos could be fabricated from scratch, in minutes.

And it resulted in an accidental belief. People shared, liked, reposted, laughed, and panicked. Not because they were foolish, but because we’re all conditioned to believe what we see, especially when it moves.

Psychology of believing fake content

If all this sounds like a parade of facepalms, it’s worth pausing to remember: falling for fakes isn’t stupidity. It’s psychology.

Humans are wired to trust what they see and hear, especially when it mimics the physical world. This makes evolutionary sense. For most of human history, our eyes and ears were reliable sensors. If you saw a tiger, it was a tiger. If you heard thunder, a storm was coming.

But modern media exploits these same instincts with manufactured visuals, hyperreal audio, and emotionally loaded narratives that hijack our attention and bypass critical filters.

Psychologists have identified several key reasons we keep falling for fabricated content:

Cognitive ease: If something is fluently presented (clear, high-res, emotionally engaging), our brains are more likely to accept it as true.

Confirmation bias: We believe what aligns with our existing beliefs or hopes, whether it’s a diving dog or a politician’s “leaked tape”.

Emotional hijacking: Viral content often evokes outrage, awe, cuteness, or fear, all of which impair critical thinking and boost shareability.

Authority by aesthetics: If a video looks professionally produced, we’re more likely to trust it, regardless of its source.

Social proof: If thousands of others are liking, sharing, or commenting with wonder or tears, we’re more likely to join in than question. Virality reinforces belief, belief produces virality – it’s a loop!

And when the pace of technological change outstrips our capacity to adapt, we’re left running on instincts evolved for the savannah, not synthetic images of cats doing Olympic backflips.

Why We Fall for AI-Generated Videos – Conclusion

We’ve come a long way from fleeing Lumière’s oncoming train or forwarding chain emails to avoid seven years of bad luck. And yet, every time a new technology emerges (photography, radio, Photoshop, AI), humanity briefly forgets how to think. We reset the learning curve. We marvel, share, and fall for it. History repeats itself.

That’s not a failure of intelligence. It’s a side effect of being human, a recurring glitch in our collective operating system.

Today it’s Cat Olympics and dogs in scuba gear. Tomorrow, it might be political speeches and fake eyewitness footage

Our minds are meaning-making machines. We crave stories, we trust our senses, and we lean on emotional cues to navigate a chaotic world. But in the age of AI, our senses can be fooled faster than we can fact-check, and emotion can be engineered with terrifying ease.

Today it’s Cat Olympics and dogs in scuba gear. Tomorrow, it might be political speeches, fake eyewitness footage, or loved ones’ voices asking us to wire them some money.

Every generation has had its “this technology is going to ruin us” moment, and much of it echoes the same underlying anxieties: loss of control, blurred boundaries, and machines meddling in roles once seen as sacred.

We don’t need to become cynical robots. But we do need to learn how to pause before we believe, and doubt before we share.

Until we can say: a critical thinker is born every minute.

Did you ever fall for AI-generated videos?
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The post Cat Olympics & Magical Tiny Houses: Why We Fall for AI-Generated Videos appeared first on Pipeaway.

Gone are the days of thumbing through guidebooks or spending hours scrolling through forums. With the right tech tools, today’s travelers can navigate the world with confidence, efficiency, and a touch of magic.

Smarter Planning Through AI

One of the biggest headaches in travel has always been planning. Deciding where to go, when to visit, what to see, and how much to budget can be overwhelming. Enter artificial intelligence, which has turned travel planning into an intuitive and intelligent experience.

AI-driven platforms can now:

• Recommend destinations based on your preferences
• Predict the best times to travel based on historical data
• Suggest customized itineraries based on interests
• Alert travelers to weather patterns, price drops, or even local events

What used to take weeks of research can now happen in minutes, with results that feel almost tailor-made.

Technology doesn’t just entertain, it enhances the moment

Music, Movement, and the Perfect Mood

Imagine arriving in a new city, plugging in your headphones, and having a soundtrack that shifts with your surroundings. That’s not sci-fi – it’s already happening. It’s now possible to generate music with AI that adapts to mood, environment, or even physical activity. Some travel apps are incorporating adaptive soundscapes, offering playlists that change as you explore.

This technology doesn’t just entertain, it enhances the moment. Whether you’re cruising along a coastal road or wandering through a misty forest, your audio companion is curated in real time, making the experience more immersive and emotionally resonant.

Virtual Try Before You Go Experiences

Let’s face it: not all travel experiences match the brochure. To combat disappointment, VR and AR (virtual and augmented reality) technologies let travelers preview their destinations before even booking a ticket.

Want to walk through a hotel room before booking it? Curious how it feels to stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon? With a headset or even a smartphone, you can do just that.

These immersive previews:

• Help travelers make better decisions
• Reduce the risk of regret
• Offer access to destinations for people who may not be able to physically travel

It’s a leap forward in accessible exploration.

Artificial intelligence can even help you imagine how it would feel to stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon if it was made of - chocolate! Check out the imaginary chocolate world!

Sustainable Travel Through Smart Tech

Sustainability is no longer just a buzzword, it’s a necessity. Technology is playing a pivotal role in helping travelers make more eco-conscious decisions.

Some examples include:

• Apps that highlight eco-certified accommodations
• Route planners that prioritize public transport or walking
• Smart luggage that tracks carbon footprint
• Wearables that monitor hydration and energy use during hikes

By integrating sustainability into our travel habits, tech helps us leave a lighter footprint while still soaking up every ounce of adventure.

Borderless Payments and Digital Nomadism

With remote work becoming the norm for many, the rise of the digital nomad lifestyle has skyrocketed. Countries are responding with nomad visas, co-living spaces, and tech hubs tailored to mobile professionals.

Supporting this trend are global fintech solutions:

• Multi-currency digital wallets
• International bank cards with low or no fees
• Real-time currency conversion apps

These tools make long-term travel more feasible, especially for those earning in one currency and spending in another. Now, hopping between Lisbon, Bali, and Tbilisi can be as seamless financially as it is geographically.

Technology isn’t replacing the joy of getting lost in a new city

The Human Touch Still Matters

Even in a world of algorithms and automation, the human side of travel hasn’t disappeared, and it shouldn’t.

Technology isn’t replacing the joy of getting lost in a new city or stumbling upon a café that wasn’t in the guidebook. It’s simply enriching those moments, reducing friction, and offering more freedom to explore.

True travel magic lies in unexpected encounters, unique stories, and sensory experiences. Tech just helps get us there and remember it better.

Embracing the Tech Travel Balance – Conclusion

The next chapter of travel is about the balance between the digital and the organic, between planning and spontaneity. As we continue to blend real-world exploration with smart, AI-enhanced tools, travel becomes more than a vacation. It becomes a dynamic, curated experience shaped by both data and desire.

So, whether you’re planning your next remote work stint, dreaming of a solo backpacking trip, or simply seeking an escape with a soundtrack to match your mood, don’t be afraid to lean into the tech. It might just lead you somewhere unexpected in the best possible way.

What are your thoughts on technology reinventing travel?
Share your comments below and pin the article for later!

The post Chasing the Digital Horizon: How Technology is Reinventing the Way We Travel appeared first on Pipeaway.

European Union protects the rights of the passengers who experienced flight disruptions

Before you start filming a TikTok rant or mentally preparing for an airport overnight stay (which would be less of a tragedy in Singapore), know this – if you’re flying to or from the European Union, you might be entitled to compensation. Yes, actual money.

The EU protects the rights of their passengers when they experience flight delays and cancellations, so you can do more than just shrug at the inconvenience.

Here’s everything you need to know about turning your travel misery into reimbursement glory.

If we, as passengers, need to pay cancellation fees for unused flights (together with all other junk fees), it's only fair that airlines have to do something similar when they decide to not take off. Learn more about the hidden travel expenses that are lurking everywhere!

Understanding EU Regulations for Flight Delays and Cancellations

The EU has your back when airlines don’t. EU Regulation 261/2004, more easily remembered under the name Air Passengers Rights Regulation, ensures you get proper compensation when you experience significant delays, cancellations, or denied boarding (a.k.a. when your airline overbooks and suddenly pretends your ticket is an optional seat reservation).

Whether you’re stuck in Paris, Prague, or Palma de Mallorca, these rules apply to:

• Any flight departing from an EU airport
• Any flight landing in the EU operated by an EU airline

Now, let’s break down when you’re actually entitled to compensation – because, unfortunately, not every delay gets you a payout.

When Do You Get Compensation?

Before you start daydreaming about what to do with your €600, check these key factors:

1. Flight Distance

The compensation amount depends on the distance of your flight. The longer the distance, the more you can claim.

• Under 1,500 km → Up to €250
• 1,500 – 3,500 km → Up to €400
• Over 3,500 km (within the EU or flying into the EU on an EU airline) → Up to €600

2. Delay Duration

The length of the delay determines whether compensation is applicable.

• 2+ hours delay → for flights under 1,500 kilometers
• 3+ hours → for flights between 1,500 and 3,500 kilometers
• 4+ hours → for flights over 3,500 kilometers

3. Flight Cancellations & Your Rights

If you have experienced a flight cancellation, you’re entitled to:

• A full refund or re-routing on another flight (your choice!)
• Compensation, unless you were given at least 14 days’ notice, or if the cancellation is due to extraordinary circumstances
• Care (meals and accommodation if stranded overnight)

4. Extraordinary circumstances

In certain situations, airlines are not obliged to pay compensation, as long as they can prove these circumstances were beyond their control. These include:

• Severe weather
• Security risks (e.g. political unrest in the country)
• Strikes by third parties (e.g. air traffic control)
• Unexpected technical issues that could not have been avoided

Your Flight’s Delayed or Canceled – Now What?

Follow this survival guide to claim what’s rightfully yours:

Step 1: Find Out Why

Ask the airline about the cause of the flight delay/cancellation. If it’s within their control (technical issues, crew shortages, other operational problems), you’re likely eligible for compensation.

Step 2: Know Your Rights

Read the EU 261/2004. Some airlines conveniently forget to mention your rights, so it’s up to you to stay informed.

Step 3: Request Assistance

For long delays, airlines must provide meals, drinks, and even accommodation if necessary. Keep all receipts for expenses – you might need to attach them to your reimbursement request. Of course, the airline also has to provide the option of rebooking your flight or refunding your ticket.

Step 4: File the Compensation Claim

If eligible, submit your compensation request directly through the airline’s website or their customer service office. No response? Escalate to national enforcement bodies or use effective services like AirHelp, which do the heavy lifting for you. They operate on a “No Win, No Fee” model.

For more helfpful tools and tips, check out these travel resources!

Maximizing Your Chances of Getting Paid

The process of claiming compensation for flight delays and cancellations is straightforward, but there are several ways to maximize your chances of a successful claim.

• Keep all records: Your boarding pass, booking confirmation, delay notifications, receipts – save everything.
• Act fast: The sooner you file, the better. Submission delays can complicate the process.
• Know your options: Flight delay claim companies can help if you don’t want to handle it yourself.
• Be persistent: Airlines might try to brush you off. Keep following up and be persistent.

Flight Delays and Cancellations – Final Thoughts

Sure, flight delays and cancellations are annoying, but they don’t need to ruin your trip. Instead of just sighing in frustration at the departures board, take charge. If you play your cards right, you can at least get some financial justice out of the ordeal.

If they’re going to keep you stuck at an airport for hours, the least they can do is pay for your next weekend getaway

If you’re flying to or from the EU, you have solid rights to fall back on. EU 261/2004 is covering your situation – so use it! Know your rights, claim compensation, and don’t let airlines off the hook.

After all, if they’re going to disrupt your plans and keep you stuck at an airport for hours, the least they can do is pay for your next weekend getaway.

Safe travels – and hopefully, on time!

Wanna make sure to get adequately compensated when you experience a flight delay or cancellation? Pin this article for later!

AI illustrations (featured and pin image) in this article were created by Ivan Kralj, with Dall-e and Adobe.
The author of the Paris airport display photograph is slasher-fun, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

The post Flight Delays and Cancellations: How to Claim Airline Compensation appeared first on Pipeaway.

I’ve been living under a rock; what is Black Friday?

If you’ve been residing under a rock, Black Friday is the retail phenomenon that kicked off in Philadelphia in the 1950s. Just after Thanksgiving Day, everyone wanted to shop. The influx of people was so massive that the police were called to intervene and control the crowds that made shopping – a contact sport. The colloquial negative term, used by policemen, was later adopted as the name of the shopping frenzy trend.

2024 Black Friday deal chase lasts from the 29th of November to the 2nd of December. But early birds get the worms!

Today, the Black Friday pandemic broke the boundaries of both space and time. It conquered the entire world, and it also runs for an entire weekend, from Friday to Monday (also known as Cyber Monday).

In 2024, the Black Friday deal chase begins on November 29 and stretches our credit cards’ limits until December 2. However, certain sellers couldn’t wait that long, so their Black Friday kicked off like a month-long affair in the first half of November. Some sales even last until late December.

Black Friday month – the deal chase is on!

To help you out with some of the best travel deals on Black Friday, we’ve scoured the web to uncover exclusive discounts and offers from top travel operators. This Black Friday, it’s not only about discounted socks or half-priced toasters; we’re diving headfirst into offers that promise to turn your travel dreams into reality.

From Black Friday accommodation specials to the selection of essentials that will make your travel smoother than Mariah hitting those high notes, you’ll find everything you need to pack your bags and explore the world without breaking the bank.

Our list of Black Friday deals for travelers will be updated as new deals keep popping up, so make sure to bookmark or pin this page!

Ready for the biggest sales event of the year? Enjoy the best Black Friday travel deals of 2024!

11 Black Friday travel deals not to miss in 2024

1. Hotels, flights, cars, and attractions at Booking.com – up to 35% off

Hotels on Black Friday will become significantly cheaper. Booking.com offers Black Friday accommodation specials, with 20 to 35% off selected rooms and rates. Additionally, you can score Black Friday flight deals, as well as a discount on car rentals (up to 25%) and attractions (up to 20%). While this promotion ends on December 4, you can book any stay until December 31, 2025. Check out which Black Friday Deals on accommodation are currently available here!

2. Even more hotels at Expedia – 30% off

Expedia also celebrates Black Friday with a special bonus for their members. All you need is to sign up (unless you already have an account). Instead of the usual 10% discount available to all members worldwide, the hotels are 30% off if booked before December 4. From New York to Dubai, you can choose between great accommodation options, and splurge on more spacious and luxurious suites than those you would usually consider. Find your Black Friday hotel here!

3. Backpacker’s Black Friday – up to 55% off

If world hotels, even with discounts, are still miles away from your wallet, there’s good news! Hostelworld, the global booking platform for hostels, has joined Black Friday travel deals. Budget adventurers can expect discounts that range from a symbolic 5% to an eye-popping 55%. You’ve got until December 9 to snag the cheapest hostel stays imaginable, and you can crash at these budget-friendly havens until April 30th, 2025. From Lub D Bangkok Siam in Thailand that’s 25 % off to the cozy Monteverde Monkey Hostel in Costa Rica at a sweet 40% discount, you’ll be inspired by a myriad of choices. Hundreds of world hostels participate in this promotion, but the prices are subject to availability. Find your discounted (not only) dorm room stay on this handy hostel map!

4. Omio’s transport fiesta – 15% off

Whether you need to travel by land, air, or water, Omio‘s got you covered. This superhero of transportation is a convenient platform that lets you compare prices of over 1,000 providers, with tickets for trains, buses, planes, and ferries. Omio’s Black Friday travel party for first-time customers is rocking until December 3. Book your transport tickets here, and you will unlock a 15% discount.

5. Rental Cars – up to 40% off 

Rev up your excitement, because Rentalcars.com, the world’s largest online car rental service, also joined the Black Friday bonanza. Their discounts go up to 25% in Europe (Europcar and Autatlantis) and the USA (Dollar and Sixt), and 40% in Latin America (Mexico and Brazil). To snag this sweet deal, you should book before December 2. Hurry up and reserve your vehicle independence!

6. TourRadar adventures – up to 70% off

TourRadar joins the biggest sale of the year with the best deals on travel experiences. This adventure booking platform managed to negotiate the best prices with the tour operators, and their Black Friday discounts are reaching up to a jaw-dropping 70%! You’ll be saving hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Some Black Friday adventures might be gone sooner than others, so if you hear them calling your name, head immediately to TourRadar to claim your spot among the intrepid.

Here are some trending tours to consider snatching:

• Complete Portugal by train, 8 days – $2,007 (was $2,599)
• Simply Peru, 14 days – $1,750 (was $2,230)
• Nicaragua, land of lakes and volcanos, 13 days – $2,260 (was $2,890)
• Colombia uncovered, 12 days – $1,759 (was $2,345)
• Thailand highlights, 10 days – $1,539 (was $3,078)
• South Africa‘s Garden Route, 12 days – $1,976 (was $2,470)
• Japan tour, 13 days – $1,911 (was $2,730)
• Best of Italy, 5 days – $883 (was $1,038)
  
• Canadian Rockies and Northern Lights, 11 days – $4,456 (was $5,570)

For many more both budget and premium tours click on the banner!

7. Travel experiences – up to 50% off

GetYourGuide is the wizard of wanderlust experiences, your go-to booking platform with a range of amazing programs, from walking and food tours to cooking classes and very niche travel experiences. Their Black Friday promotion brings travelers’ favorite programs (from snorkeling with Oahu‘s sharks to paragliding in Rio), sometimes at half price. Check out their dedicated pages for deals in Europe, North America, and the rest of the world. This Black Friday, find an experienced travel experience guide!

8. More travel experiences – up to 35% off

Viator is another global marketplace for experiences, connecting you with tours and activities you will remember for a lifetime. While among the 300,000 offers you can find anything from wine tastings to catamaran rides, we’re highlighting some special Black Friday deals: guided tour in New York City (15% off), food tour in Paris (25% off), Christmas lights open-top bus tour in London (20% off), or skip-the-line Duomo ticket in Florence (35%).

9. Flight and baggage problems compensation – 15% off

You probably know you’re entitled to compensation when things start heading south at the airport. AirHelp will do the work for you when you’re entitled to airline compensation; that could be up to $700 for flight disruptions, up to $1,700 for delayed, damaged, or lost luggage, and up to $7,000 for extra expenses caused by the disruption. It’s a financial hug for your travel mishaps! At AirHelp, the Black Friday promotion lasts until December 2. You are entitled to a 15% discount if you use the promo code AHBF15 when purchasing the AirHelp Plus subscription.

10. Try the World of food – 30% off

You don’t have to leave your home to taste the world. Try the World lets you embark on a grand journey without purchasing a plane ticket – via their snack subscription. Select your desired box size, a subscription plan, and countries you’d like to visit, and the world is coming to you. Every subscription box is a chance for a new discovery, with delicious international treats delivered monthly to your doorstep. From dried meats in Spain to mouthwatering candy in Korea, you can taste it all.

Until December 1, use the promo code BLACKFRIDAY30 for 30% off your gourmet gift!  From December 2 (Cyber Monday) to December 6, use the promo code CYBERMONDAY30 for the same discount on your food&snack order.

Try The World Black Friday 30% Off Promo
Try The World Cyber Monday 30% Off Promo

11. Amazon rabbit hole – up to 62% off

Black Friday guide wouldn’t be complete without the ultimate abyss of online sales – Amazon.

Here’s our newest update on 8 eye-catching Amazon travel deals:

• Inflatable kayak set (15% off)
• JBL portable waterproof Bluetooth speaker (22% off)
• Potensic Atom drone (22% off)
• Garmin running watch (25% off)
• Portable electric pizza oven (25% off)
• Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 phone (26% off)
• Ray-Ban Classic Aviator sunglasses (37% off)
• Samsonite 2-piece luggage set (62% off)

Find more Black Friday deals on Amazon!

The best Black Friday travel deals 2024 – Conclusion

From flights and hotels to all those travel essentials you will need on your vacation, Black Friday (and let’s not kid ourselves, the weeks surrounding it!) brings savings one should score while available.

The best Black Friday travel deals for 2024 are your backstage pass to exploring the world

Black Friday is not only the time to snag that flat-screen TV or a lifetime supply of scented candles; it is also a shopping holiday you can use to support your travel dreams. This Black Friday, let your wanderlust take flight without burning a hole in your pocket!

The best Black Friday travel deals for 2024 are your backstage pass to exploring the world, lounging in luxury accommodations, and equipping yourself with the best travel gear – all at prices that will leave you in awe.

But these deals are like shooting stars. Blink, and they might be gone! So if you find something you like, don’t hesitate, and nab it immediately.

Start planning your next adventure today, and maybe BF can become your BFF!

Did you like this guide to the best Black Friday travel deals of 2024?
Pin it for later, as we will be updating it with new deals as they come!

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you click on them and make a purchase, Pipeaway may make a small commission, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting our work!

Also, this post is being regularly updated to reflect the most current Black Friday travel deals. If certain offers are not available anymore, sadly you were late for them.

The post The Best Black Friday Travel Deals for 2024: Discounts Reaching 70%! appeared first on Pipeaway.

Overstaying your visa in Thailand can lead to fines, detention, deportation, and even bans from reentering the country

Everyone knows, 60 days and two months are not the same (especially when one of those months is not February in a leap year). October has 31 days, so my privilege of staying in Thailand visa-free was actually expiring two days before my purchased flight.

Knowing that I bought this ticket mainly so I could show my intentions for exiting the country if asked by Thai immigration, makes the thing even more silly. Now, I was actually lucky that the officer in training who welcomed me at Phuket Airport didn’t ask for proof of exit. As, if they did, I wouldn’t be able to present one – my flight ticket to the Philippines was only proof that I didn’t plan to leave on time.

As I gazed dully at my passport, learning that my 60-day visa exemption runs out on November 30^th brought sinking feelings. Facing this eye-opener stamp, I was hitting my head and questioning my intelligence. Now, I’m stuck in the “what do I do?” zone regarding my Thailand visa overstay.

Overstaying your visa in Thailand can lead to fines, detention, deportation, and even bans from reentering the country. To avoid entering panic mode, I immediately started considering – and possibly overthinking – my options.

Comfort yourself: there are worse things than miscounting your travel days. Like some less fortunate travelers, you could have made an entire destination mix-up!

Visa Overstay in Thailand – What to do?

Option 1: The 30-Day Visa Extension (a.k.a. Extending My Stay Just for Two Extra Days)

Cost: 1,900 THB (~€53)

Process: Easy-peasy. Just head to the nearest immigration office, fill out a TM.7 form, a passport-sized photo, and pay the fee. You’ll get 30 more days in Thailand.

Where: Immigration offices can be found in Phuket, Krabi, Pattaya, Chiang Mai, Bangkok, and other tourist-heavy spots.

This is the most straightforward, safest, and drama-free option for avoiding a Thailand visa overstay. No hassle at the airport, no awkward conversations with immigration officers.

It does, however, come at a cost of 1,900 THB. That’s a lot of mango sticky rice! And technically, it covers only that 48-hour gap, just to make sure I don’t get fined or cause problems for future visits. But spending so much on two days is not the most thrilling way to burn through my baht.

Option 2: The Border Run (a.k.a. The Not-So-Wet-Dream of Malaysia)

Cost: Flights, accommodation, and food – basically the cost of a mini-vacation you didn’t plan.

Process: Fly to Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur is the easiest and cheapest from most Thai cities), stay some days (or not), fly back, and boom – a new passport stamp on re-entry.

Where: Flights from Phuket to KL run frequently, and a visa to Malaysia is not needed for Croatians.

At first, this sounded like a mini-adventure. Get a stamp, maybe grab some delicious Malaysian street food, and return with extra days. But after factoring in flights, accommodation, and poor weather in October, it’s starting to look more like an over-complicated solution for my 2-day visa overstay in Thailand. And let’s be real: I’m not going to sightsee in a downpour.

As for other Thailand’s neighbors – Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar? They’re off the table as they all require a visa. Paying for that just to pop in and out doesn’t feel worth it. In that case, I might be better off just purchasing a visa extension in Thailand.

Option 3: Change The Flight (a.k.a. The Miles and (Nothing) More)

Cost: Supposedly, 50 euros for the change fee, plus any fare differences.

Process: You’d think this would be simple, but you’d be wrong. I booked my flight using miles, and changing it has become a headache. I’ve spent weeks trying to get a response from customer support.

The flight operator, Thai Airways told me to contact Lufthansa, as I purchased the ticket through them. Lufthansa told me to reach out to Miles & More, as that’s how I paid for it. And Miles&More told me… Nothing. Zero replies to my support tickets. I’ve been literally ghosted, as this seems to be a “take the miles and run” business.

Where: I wonder too.

Here’s a tip: if you ever book with miles and need to make changes, try tagging the airline on social media. It’s not promised, but sometimes a public shoutout can work wonders. Or, if you can, head to the airline’s help desk at the airport – yes, in person – and see if they can resolve it right there.

For now, this option feels like a long shot, but it’s still in play. If I get lucky and someone at Miles&More finally responds, changing my flight could be my golden ticket to avoiding a visa overstay in Thailand.

Option 4: Buy a New Ticket (a.k.a. Throwing Money at the Problem)

Cost: The most affordable option I found is a Cebu Pacific flight from Chiang Mai to Manila for 146 euros on November 29.

Process: Book a new ticket to the Philippines or anywhere else that suits my fancy before November 30th.

Where: A quick online search shows plenty of options – if you’re willing to forfeit your original flight.

This option means I’d lose the Chiang Mai-Manila ticket I already bought for December 2^nd, which cost me 17,000 miles plus 83 euros in taxes. If I’m willing to throw cash to the wind, I could find a ticket that gets me out before overstaying becomes an issue.

It’s definitely the most costly option, but it does allow me to sidestep the headache of fines, extensions, or border runs. Plus, I could still make it to my original destination, provided I can swallow the loss of my current ticket.

Option 5: Just Pay the Overstay Fine (a.k.a. The Low-Key Rebel Choice)

Cost: 500 THB per day of overstay (1,000 THB total for two days or ~€28)

Process: Show up at the airport on December 2^nd, look sheepishly innocent, and when they notice I overstayed, smile apologetically, pay the fine, and board the flight. Simple enough?

Where: Thai immigration will handle the fine payment right at the airport.

This is by far the cheapest solution to a potential Thailand visa overstay, and while it feels a little rogue and premeditated (especially if you write an article about it first), it’s definitely legal. If I overstay by two days, the fine is 1,000 THB – far less than the visa extension or a border run.

But here’s what everyone really wants to know: Will this affect my future trips to Thailand?

From what I’ve learned, short overstays usually don’t land you in hot water – just a polite lecture and a lighter wallet. Your honest mistake might be even completely forgiven. There’s no ban, no scary “overstay” stamp in your passport. However, do it repeatedly, and immigration might not be so lenient toward your overstaying habit in the future.

It’s tempting to take this option – minimal cost, minimal hassle, and I’m not too worried about a two-day blip on my record. But if you’re the type who likes to play it completely by the rules and prefer not having last-minute airport dramas, this option might leave you feeling a bit uneasy.

Solve your problems ahead of time - learn how to get a digital nomad visa!

Thailand Visa Overstay Options – What Would You Do?

With all these options on the table, I’m still torn. The visa extension seems like the easiest route, but is it worth 1,900 THB for just two extra days?

The overstay fine is tempting – affordable and straightforward – but do I really want to risk even a minor immigration hiccup?

A Malaysia border run could be fun…

And changing my flight? Well, I might as well keep dreaming about an actual response from Miles&More customer service.

Did you experience visa overstay in Thailand on your skin? Drop the helpful advice in the comments, please!

If you’ve ever found yourself in a similarly sticky (and slightly embarrassing) situation, I’d love to hear your advice. What did you do?

Do you have any tips for playing the system (legally, of course)? Do you have a suggestion for a clever loophole I haven’t thought of yet?

Or should I just cut my losses and prepare to fork over the cash? Drop your comments below and help a fellow traveler out.

Afraid of experiencing visa overstay in Thailand?
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The post Options for a Visa Overstay in Thailand: Help, I Miscalculated My Travel Days! appeared first on Pipeaway.

The internet is currently flooded with fake moving images. Learn why we fall for AI-generated videos so easily!

Bora Bora’s box of AI deceits

It’s easy to buy into the idea of a luxurious retreat surrounded by lush vegetation. There’s even some blurred basil in the foreground so that you can feel “at home”, just about to cook a recipe for a perfect vacation, a blend of exotic and familiar.

While you could imagine Roger Moore sipping cocktails here after shooting his movie scenes in 1974, this is not Koh Tapu in Phang Nga Bay, Thailand.

The coastal villa is in – Bora Bora, more than 12 thousand kilometers away, oceans apart. At least that’s what the Facebook page Slovak Travel claimed when they shared this image, describing it as “Bora Bora Paradise🩵”. The post raked 10 thousand positive reactions, mostly thumbs up, hearts, and wow emojis.

“Awesome”, “Gorgeous”, “Amazing”, “How much?”… More than a thousand oohs and aahs poured in, with admirers expressing readiness to move, or at least celebrate their special anniversary there.

Check out the James Bond scene in which the original Koh Tapu was not modified by AI!

Facebook newsfeed is swamped with AI images pretending to be photographs, delivering the world populated with avatars, Pandora’s box of deceits

“This is not Bora Bora”, said those who visited French Polynesia. “This is James Bond Island”, said the experts on Southeast Asia. But the depicted island never starred in any movie. The dream vacation place never existed. It wasn’t even a photograph, but an AI creation in Midjourney, prompted by Maria Dudkina, an online personality known as @sunt_mrr, and then misrepresented as Bora Bora by Slovak Travel.

These days, Facebook newsfeed is swamped with similar AI images pretending to be photographs, delivering the world populated with avatars, Pandora’s box of deceits. It’s not just entertainment, but a sneaky way to monetize people’s naivety. Before image generators appeared, we had to raise our skeptic shields mainly on April Fools’ Day. Now, staying suspicious is an everyday challenge. How to not end up as AI fools?

From London Eye to Scotland AI

Fraudulent minds quickly embraced opportunities provided by AI, like low-hanging fruit. What required at least some photoshopping and copywriting effort a few years ago, was now bringing easy money with a click of a mouse.

One of the most illustrative examples of this practice was the recent case of Willy’s Chocolate Experience in Glasgow. Billy Coull from the House of Illuminati used AI visuals to promote a Wonka-inspired wonderland but served up a wonky disaster that infuriated hundreds of families. The event immortalized characters of a meth-lab Oompa Loompa (played by Kirsty Paterson), and an evil chocolate maker The Unknown (Felicia Dawkins).

In a weird boomerang effect, Facebook responded by dosing the same medicine. Alan Livie shared images of statues commemorating the Bored Meth Oompa Loompa and The Unknown, supposedly erected in Glasgow’s city center just a week after the event. These AI creations were obviously satirizing the monumental disaster. They received 12 thousand likes and over a thousand comments, mostly from people who understood the joke. Still, in an aha moment, some users felt the need to state the obvious: “More AI art people. Learn to recognize it.”

Livie’s posts were published with a different intention than that fake Bora-Bora pic. They were a sarcastic response to reality, shared in Travel Scotland Goals, a Facebook group known for welcoming clearly fake or misinterpreted photos and self-deprecating jokes about Scotland. You can find anything from Scotrail‘s time-saving Northern Line on the mountain cliffs of Fifeshire (beat that, Hogwarts Express!) to a gigantic spa hidden inside Edinburgh Castle.

Even when images are not executed perfectly, you’ll still notice intrigued foreigners planning to visit the medieval wellness facility “next time”, or at least asking “does this really exist”. But locals will also have brilliant answers, such as: “Looks like another fake photo, to me. I know for a fact that’s Whinfell Forest Center Parcs because my son used to be a lifeguard there.”

On March 10, this group was the birthplace of the now-cult post about relocating the London Eye to Loch Lomond in Scotland, after the 25-year-long lease expired. It used real photos from the Eye’s construction in 1999, but the “news” created by Paul Gilchrist sounded so convincing that it infiltrated serious circles and was debunked by numerous fact-checkers (from Snopes and Mashable to Reuters and Facebook) before being taken down. It resurfaced again like a virally shared April Fools’ Day joke.

Some of my AI images went viral on Facebook recently, gaining thousands of likes and comments. And all thanks to - Eurovision.

What’s with all the AI photos on Facebook?

Travel Scotland Goals may be a benevolent oasis of humor that Facebook’s confused algorithms sometimes propel into mainstream feeds, out of context. But there are Facebook groups, pages, and profiles that employ AI without having entertainment in mind.

So far, the risks associated with the use of AI image generators have mainly been discussed over the issues of dehumanizing celebrities (Taylor Swift’s deepfake porn), or humanizing dangerous political interests (the black community seemingly endorsing Donald Trump or AI Joe Biden discouraging people from voting).

But this March, Renee DiResta (Stanford University) and Josh A. Goldstein (Georgetown University) researched how profit and clout-motivated page owners use unlabeled AI-generated images on Facebook for spam and scams. They found not only that these posts gain unusually high volumes of engagement, but that many Facebook users don’t seem to be aware of the synthetic origin of such images.

The cybersecurity data from Sumsub‘s report shows us that AI-powered fraud is on the rise, with detected deepfakes increasing by a whopping 10 times from 2022 to 2023. The highest surge is seen in North America (1740%), with Canada delivering the largest contribution to this percentage (3000% increase). The most affected industry is online media, where the identity fraud rate had a 274% rise between 2021 and 2023.

As the largest social media platform, with over 3 billion monthly active users (and 2 billion logging in every day), Facebook became a natural breeding ground for AI scam & spam.

Today, it is almost impossible to open the Facebook app and not find the endless scroll of AI-generated images. Tiny houses by the sea, log cabins by waterfalls, fluffy unicorn bedrooms and cheese-themed bathrooms, sympathy-calling children’s handicrafts and grandma’s crochet creations, impossible food designs, non-existing wildlife, adorable babies dressed in cabbage, and why not – the most exotic tourist destinations.

With optical illusions that make you squint to see Jesus or Hitler, and even those Fibonacci locales where houses masterfully wind in a continuous curl, the AI flood is literally spiraling out of control. But where does it all lead?

Pixels gone wild in Santorini

It is one thing to just laugh at the Pope fashionista strutting down the streets of Rome in a Balenciaga puffer jacket. But beyond a Midjourney exercise of a construction worker tripping on magic mushrooms, a more sinister spam/scam scene lurks in the shadows. Forget the days of random emails from Nigerian princes; scammers have found an easier way to detect their next prey, people who would fall for anything.

The first time I noticed the AI Facebook trend with fabricated travel content taking off was in September 2023. Just a year after modern text-to-image diffusion models appeared on the scene, they were entering the mainstream but were far from refined.

The not-really sophisticated image of “vacation in Santorini“, with poorly mimicked Greek architecture connected by waterslides, was clearly made in the infancy of the image generator’s development. The architecture didn’t make sense, stairs led to nowhere, people were just skin-toned blobs… Yet, shared on the Facebook page A World of Luxury Travel, the post attracted nearly a million likes, more than 58 thousand comments, and over 84 thousand shares.

“Maravilhoso”, exclaimed Ana Paula from Portugal. “So schön”, added Heiner in German. “Tellement beau!!! 😊👍”, jumped in Annie in French. “我要去”, proclaimed Chang. One could practically advance in languages while dreaming of visiting the fantastic waterpark on the Greek island.

People were adding the place to their bucket lists, planning girl trips and honeymoons. “Maybe after Tahiti”, mused practical Michelle.

Those who had just returned from Santorini, such as my fellow Croat Mario, knew what they had to do. “We missed this🤔 Let’s go again😜😘”, he said while tagging his friend. “Oh, yes! 🥰”, Ana responded.

Even reading someone saying “This isn’t real” seemed surreal. Anyone interested in Oia, the home of magical Santorini sunsets, knew this AI nonsense had nothing to do with Greece. But the already mildly critical eye should have been able to detect that everything was nonsensical altogether.

If you want to see the Pope devouring chocolate and Vladimir Putin riding a bear, check out Pipeaway's world of chocolate, clearly labeled as AI! 

From clickbait to cash grab

The non-existent Santorini is an interesting example because the fantasy island revealed itself as fertile soil for both spam and scams.

Firstly, it showed how AI pictures on Facebook can replace the earlier tactic of clickbait titles. After social media degraded the visibility of posted links, AI-generated images, showing attention-grabbing potential, started popping up in newsfeeds like mushrooms after a rainstorm. The page admins, interested in profiting from websites overpopulated with ads, would then promote their off-platform content in the comments of the post gone viral.

The model is very similar to the one exploited by the Macedonian fake news industry in 2016. Veles youngsters used Facebook groups as a place to recruit visitors to sensationalist pro-Trump websites that heavily monetized this traffic.

In the case of A World of Luxury Travel Facebook page, their links would lead to mstfootball.com, and other shady domains, with low-quality AI-generated content and high-yielding advertising space.

Millions of people curious to learn more had an opportunity to click on these sites, see even more AI images of Santorini, and allow Google to reward the spammers with ad money.

From likes to lies

On the other hand, the Facebook home of AI Santorini revealed that it can serve as a litmus paper for identifying potential scam victims too.

When she saw Greece of her dreams, a divorced woman from Portugal named Laura commented: “Wonderful.” Robert Micheal, conveniently a widowed Ukrainian, swooped in: “Hello I’m just new to Facebook and I really like your profile can you please send me a request so that we can get to know more about ourselves 🌺🌺🌺🌸🌺”

Malinda, a single mom from Oklahoma, couldn’t contain her excitement at the sight of Santorini’s waterpark: “It’s absolutely magical! 😍” Harold Griffin – a divorced man from Texas, of course – catfished back: “Apologies..   for dropping this here but it feels too great to visit your timeline, I always enjoy what you share here on Facebook but we’re not friends yet, I have tried several times to send the friend request but it’s not going through. Do you mind trying from your side? I will be happy to be friends with you. If you find this message embarrassing please pardon my manners Thank you…”

When Niina from Finland (who had wedding photos in her album) asked “In which village is this?”, she didn’t get a version of Tinder Swindler in her mailbox. Instead, certain Clement Gabriel approached her interest in an invented Santorini by promoting his manager, a supposed expert in bitcoin mining and crypto trading: “I saw a post about his company and l decided to give a try of my 3000 pesos to my greatest surprised l make withdraw of 30,000 pesos to my gcash account he is very reliable and free to communicate with, just click on the link below and Contact her 👇👇👇👇👇👇👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼”.

We also had Ramona from Romania who used the AI Facebook post on Santorini waterpark to ask for help for her 23-year-old brother Mihai, supposedly looking for work: “Because there is not very good internet in the country, he asked me to leave his number here. (…) Please, if you need a hard-working boy, call his number.”

Scammers hardly needed to lift a finger in their search for targets; gullible people were practically lining up under the AI image, like moths to a flame. What you read here is just an introduction to asking for personal details and sometimes selling products that do not exist.

There are plenty more catfish in the sea

Why do people fall for this stuff?

Just like in the case of lost luggage scams, these Facebook pages target weak spots in human brains by presenting social proof.

Pages studied by DiResta and Goldstein had a mean follower count of 128,877. The images that came under their scrutiny received hundreds of millions of engagements and exposures. One of these AI-generated posts racked up a mind-boggling 40 million views and over 1.9 million interactions, entering the top 20 of the most viewed Facebook content in Q3 2023.

Facebook reported that, only in the fourth quarter of 2022, it removed 1.5 billion fake accounts. But among the sea of commenting bots, we can also find real people praising the AI content

Nowadays, people mostly access social networks on their mobile phones. Small screens and a general tendency to tone down or switch off critical thinking in chill mode don’t provide the best conditions for zooming into pictures or doing thorough research on something that seems benign.

There are also dozens, hundreds, and sometimes even thousands of people admiring/approving the content. In certain niches, at least my research of the culinary AI images suggests this, it’s even hard to find a person expressing doubt in the artificial content – most users uncritically drool over these fake desserts, and many will follow links to websites spitting out doubtfully doable recipes quicker than you can say ‘fast food’.

Many of the praises are left by AI bots. Some are easily detectable, such as this brainless comment under the waterslide Santorini: “Very Good !!! Very Interesting !!! Very Amazing !!! Very Awesome !!! There’s no other words that I can say other than that, all the stories, acting, drama, and actors are absolutely perfect. I love this movie and really really enjoy it.. Thanks for this movie.”

Facebook reported that, only in the fourth quarter of 2022, it removed 1.5 billion fake accounts from the network. But among the sea of bots pretending to be humans, we can also find real people. Powered by bragging rights, they are supporting a clear AI hallucination. Just read some of the comments under a fake Gaudi house that gathered 88k likes on the Facebook page I Love Spain:

“Saw this myself in Spain and it is just spectacular.”

“I saw this, there were a few houses like this. Very cool.”

“I saw this building in person in Spain and just loved it. I was there during the week that 9/11 and had to see how I could get out. My cousin sent a fax to my hotel and opened her home to me in England.”

“It is a beautiful place, I visit soo many times. Never enough.”

“Been there, the most awe struck I’ve ever been, a true trippy place. I LOVE Barcelona!! AND GAUDY!!!! 😍❤❤❤❤”

“Been there it is amazing!”

It’s one thing to fall on all those “fantastic”, “gorgeous”, “sublime” and “it definitely stands out” comments. But when there are real people claiming to have actually been at the site, well – it must exist!

Sharon, an older lady who hadn’t had the chance to visit the Disney-like nightmare of Gaudi yet, could only express her admiration: “I love it. How did they ever get someone to build it?”

The widowed orthopedic surgeon at the UN, Mark Donald, had a ready-made answer for exactly her type: “Hi! I admire your value for different perspectives, can we be pals? Add me up if interested.”

Artificial intelligence can be used for better things than deception. For instance, it can help us imagine the original 7 wonders of the world! 

Slovak Travel for your dream fauxcation

Let’s go back to where we started – the Slovak Travel Facebook page, a digital creator behind the Bora Bora-Thailand crossover viral post.

Since January, they’ve been bombarding our feeds with images of exotic-looking destinations, with Maldives, Seychelles, and Bora Bora gaining the best traction. The vacation buffet always came accompanied by colorful hearts, and brief descriptions such as “paradise” or “the vacation we all dream of”.

For a page that bears a European country in its name, it certainly prioritizes tropical getaways, from Aruba to Zanzibar. But Slovakia is one of the AI-fraud champions on the Old Continent. From 2022 to 2023, the number of deepfakes has grown 1,500%. That’s almost double the European average, and puts Slovakia among the top countries exposed to AI frauds, just behind Belgium and Romania.

Slovak Travel’s digital footprint tells us that the page was launched in 2022, but then it was named Epic Travel, just like one private aviation company.

They started posting the majority of the content visible on the page in January 2024, when the page rebranded as Tiptravel, practically leeching off TIP Travel, a legit Slovakian travel agency specializing in Mediterranean and exotic tours.

In March 2024, the administrator changed the page name again – to Slovak Travel. The new name is eerily similar to the official tourism agency of Slovakia. In fact, from Slovakia Travel, it differs only in two letters – ‘ia’. Or AI.

With the help of technology, Slovak Travel amassed more followers in three months than Slovakia Travel managed to do in 13 years.

Sunny side down – cracking the Slovak scam

After teasing us with images of exotic turquoise waters for several months, Slovak Travel Facebook page finally revealed where it’s heading.

Last week, they published three giveaway posts, advertising a spa retreat in Turčianske Teplice, a trip to Turkey, and of course, a holiday in the dreamy Maldives. All you had to do to claim your prize was share the post to other Facebook groups (over a thousand people complied), and write ‘done’ or a number of eggs (1 to 4). Don’t ask why.

When Beata chose to answer “1🥚”, handsome Christian Skari appeared to serenade her: “Hello beautiful, did you sleep well, have a nice day and you are very beautiful, I want us to be friends.”

Certain Carole Hamousin saw an opportunity to slide in with the following message: “👋 Are you looking for financial support? Take advantage of our flexible loan offers at competitive rates. Get quick and easy funding to make your projects a reality. Contact us for a tailored solution to your credit needs. 😇❤️”

But beyond just selling tinder-swindler kind of love to middle-aged women and showering financially struggling individuals with loans, Jan A. revealed the scam scheme: scammers approach “lucky winners” on Messenger and then try to clear their bank accounts.

Dana R. confirmed this: “Who could believe this? They will tell you that you have won and they ask for complete account and card details to get to your euros, cunning.”

UPDATE: As of today, the mentioned giveaways on Slovak Travel were deleted, and the new ones appeared, offering a family holiday in Mallorca, and a "4000 thousand voucher", whatever that is.

AI and Facebook – a love story gone haywire

The issue with AI and Facebook photos is that they seem to be in a monstrous marriage – a smiling princess feeding an insatiable beast. Or vice versa? Once this content enters your system, it replicates faster than a virus.

During the period of my research in the last months, I noticed that the more AI-generated images on Facebook I saved, the more they appeared in my feed. This aligns with Stanford-Georgetown researchers’s experience. They suspect the explanation could be in Facebook’s algorithm promoting content that is likely to generate engagement, even when it’s the content from the pages users don’t follow. In fact, while the visibility of pages that users follow plummeted down since 2021, unconnected posts rose from 8% of feed views in 2021 Q2 to 24% in 2023 Q3.

Last week, Meta announced the plan to roll out a “less punitive” policy for AI-generated content. Reading such a title made me chuckle, as I haven’t noticed many penalties in that field so far. Apparently, the idea is that instead of removing the problematic content (and risking “unnecessarily restricting freedom of speech”), Meta will slap a label on AI images “that it could detect”. To do that, they will rely on industry-shared signals and people self-disclosing such content (as if the lack of that self-disclosing wasn’t the essence of the problem).

Facebook AI scams are lucrative businesses, often even purchasing ads from Meta

Judging by the content it serves my feed nowadays, I can conclude that Facebook is definitely able to detect generative AI, as it continues to serve me such content from pages I didn’t even know existed.

The AI fraudsters found a cozy home on Facebook. Just like fake lost luggage pages, these scams are lucrative businesses, often even purchasing ads from Meta. Even if the company promises to “reject an ad if it contains debunked content”, they still require disclosing the digital manipulation only when it’s a political or a social issue ad. So unless we’re being served ads about elections or some earth-shattering social agenda, it doesn’t seem anything will change with all those non-existing paradises, crocheting grandmas, and crab Jesus.

Falling for AI Facebook pictures – Conclusion

With a shift of generations, Facebook may start to resemble an online retirement home. However tempting, it would be oversimplified to point fingers at baby boomers (born 1946-1964) and generation X (1965-1980) as easily fooled victims.

Not only aging users are in jeopardy from fraudsters. Earlier studies have shown that when it comes to spotting fake news, young and older adults are quite comparable. Media literacy and critical thinking should be a priority for new generations too.

Under the AI image of seashell-shaped cottages by the sea, young and old alike gush over its idyllic allure, calling it a dream destination in the comments. They’re blissfully unaware of how correctly they describe it.

The same dreamlike AI Facebook picture shared on the Maldives Islands page gained 262 thousands likes from equally impressed visitors. Natalie wrote: “Wow, absolutely beautiful. I can hear the waves and smell the fresh ocean breeze.”

But that sound and that scent – it’s all in our heads. While we were worrying about our prompts making large language models hallucinate, we failed to notice that AI made us hallucinate too.

Behind the cloak of seemingly harmless entertainment, AI Facebook content became a sneaky prelude for stealing personal details and passwords. The spam/scam industry transitioned from clickbait titles to African kids crafting the Son of God from vegetables (“made it with my own hands”) and dreamy holidays in Maldives or Bora Bora that will never become a reality.

Beware, AI fits perfectly into naivety. Just behind ‘n’.

What do you think about the flood of AI Facebook pictures?

Share your thoughts in the comments, and pin this article for later!

The post AI Fools: You Know These Facebook Pictures Aren’t Real, Right? appeared first on Pipeaway.

The young Croat didn’t need to speak Danish to recognize the familiarity of Kastrup Airport’s promotion. Just a week prior, she stumbled upon a rather similar Facebook campaign claiming that Zagreb Airport also had a problem with their “lost & found” storage capacity. To free up space in the repository, they were offering a “one-of-a-kind” opportunity to residents; buy an unclaimed piece of luggage for just 2.95 euros.

Okay, Croatian “izgubljena prtljaga” was twice as expensive as Danish “mistet bagage”. But the original price tag was €100, the website stated. So the offer was still quite a steal. As Ana and many others found out, it would literally be that – a steal.

The path from lost luggage to lost money is quick and sobering

Since at least October 2023, fake lost luggage sales have circled the globe like Barnum‘s traveling deception fairs. From Dublin Airport lost luggage scam to Air NZ lost luggage scam, false advertising on Facebook tried to prove that “there’s a sucker born every minute”.

The recipe was eerily similar: a little Photoshop magic and some enthusiastic testimonials successfully led users away to shady websites. The initial wire transfer of a few bucks would soon reveal to be the tip of an iceberg. The path from lost luggage to lost money was quick and sobering.

Even if unclaimed luggage sales are not your thing, keep reading about the experiences of people who fell for this elaborate internet hoax. You will not only learn how to steer clear of sneaky lost luggage scams but also how to detect always lurking and constantly adjusting fraudulent activity on the web!

In this era of sophisticated ways to empty our wallets, one has to be especially cautious. When seeing advertising that makes your eyes sparkle, approach it with due diligence. Otherwise, you might end up like visitors of that Willy's Chocolate Experience in Glasgow!

The web of deceit behind the baggage bazaar

Zagreb Airport, which consistently wins awards for its stellar service (the latest one praising it for the easiest airport journey in Europe), seemed to be quite overwhelmed with passengers’ baggage. The Facebook post that piqued Ana’s curiosity clarified that the expenses of taking care of all the lost and unclaimed luggage were too high. To enable more efficient operations, the airport decided to sell it all off, with a simple click on the “shop now” button.

The innocent-looking button led to fly3aga3.quest, a web domain registered just a month ago in Reykjavik, Iceland. But there was Zagreb Airport’s logo, and the message stating the following: “We are urgently clearing the warehouse at the airport and selling luggage that has been unattended for over 6 months. According to the rules, it needs to be taken care of, but we organize a humanitarian action and give it away for only €2.95.”

Participating in the call almost sounded patriotic. With less than 3 euros, one can get an unclaimed suitcase with potentially significant valuables inside, help the struggling local airport, AND support the unspecified, but still – a humanitarian cause!

A sense of urgency was created, because “the quantities were limited”, the website cunningly declared. All that stood between you and potential treasure, was “proving that you are a real person”. To do that, three questions had to be answered:

• Do you live in Croatia?
• Are you over 18 years old?
• Have you ever bought lost luggage before?

Whatever you answered, a congratulatory screen appeared, felicitating the successful confirmation that (well done!) you were indeed – human. It didn’t matter if you lived in Croatia or not, if you were a minor or an adult, a seasoned luggage buyer or a scam virgin. Your clicking made you feel in the right place.

Lost luggage lottery

“I love traveling”, Ana says. “Personally, I never lost my luggage, so that was foreign to me, but it was also interesting. I know which things people usually bring on their travels, especially for longer trips to faraway destinations.”

Our ‘phishing’ victim didn’t just jump on the hook: “I saw a couple of first comments, and none of them were negative.”

On the contrary, the fake Facebook page of Zagreb Airport had glowing testimonials of satisfied customers joyfully revealing all sorts of treasures they found in their purchased bags.

“I decided to try my luck, there was jewelry in the suitcase, I don’t know how valuable it is, I don’t understand it, but all in all it is a good promotion, I have already recommended it to family and friends.”

“I had a hairdryer and a Dyson iron in my suitcase, I’m happy, no matter what they tell me, I don’t have the opportunity to buy them. Thanks a lot!”

“I ordered 2 suitcases, one had a laptop, admittedly without a charger and with a password, but cool anyway! 😜”

Some posted photographs of their “lottery suitcases”, exposing that they have found anything from designer perfumes and high-end accessories to top-shelf whiskey.

But for the most skeptical doubting Thomases, there were also some just meh-happy customers, such as this one:

“At first I wondered why they were selling suitcases at the airport, but I ordered anyway, because it was interesting, I was contacted by a manager and answered all the questions, I can not say that I got something super valuable, but the offer was interesting, everything cost 2 €.”

Virtual vault – from Canon to Armani

Like in any sales funnel, social proof is a booster, and this one worked. “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd”, as old P.T. Barnum once said.

Blinded by the promise of riches, people from all corners of the globe joined the suitcase roulette hoping that they too would be able to earn bragging rights and show off their spectacular finds.

From the United States to the United Kingdom, Facebook users claimed to have paid a few coins and scored MacBooks, Canon cameras, iPhones, Ray-Ban sunglasses, a Louis Vuitton bag, Armani clothing, Nike sneakers, branded toiletries and cosmetics. There were even wallets stuffed with cold, hard cash. Because why wouldn’t you stash your dollars in a checked-in bag?

Photographic evidence (“borrowed” from social media such as Twitter, Pinterest, or Reddit) always showed neatly packed suitcases, filled to the brim with only the good stuff. None of the lucky winners objected to finding the most expected suitcase content – someone’s dirty laundry. There was only pure, unadulterated luxury.

Tricked on the tracks

“I was on a train, heading home after work”, Ana explains how it all happened. She’s employed in a private company as a girl Friday, a Jill of all trades, if you will. But that day at work, filled with piles of numbers and paperwork, had to be quite exhausting; it was a perfect set-up to lure an unsuspecting customer into a network of deception.

“Tiredness overtook me when I saw the Facebook ad”, the lost luggage scam victim recalls. “There was no real peace or silence around me. I didn’t pay attention to detail, I wasn’t concentrated at all. The opportunity popped up, and it was too good to ignore.”

With exhaustion clouding her judgment, Ana didn’t notice that the Facebook page ‘Zračna luka Zagreb’ didn’t even exist before February 19, 2023. The page’s original name was ‘J O L I E’ and, in 2020, it was promoting a shoe brand.

The fraudsters didn’t care about erasing the history of posts selling footwear to Colombian ladies. They didn’t try to hide the makeover. Just 12 posts down, it was clear that this supposed page of Zagreb Airport was an impersonation.

“I scrolled down and noticed that myself, but it was too late. I just never expected an airport to be involved in such a scandal”, Ana says.

The electric shock of the bargain-hunting

Mario P., an electrician from Sisak, also overlooked the fine details before succumbing to the siren song of credit card fraud. He was drawn to it like a moth to a flame, believing that it would be a shame to miss this great deal that blessed his Facebook feed.

“I was naive. Usually, I’m not. I’m truly careful, but this was a moment of inattention. I was hasty”, he admits. “Only after I gave them my card details, I saw that the comments were in Croatian, yet all of the commenters had foreign names.”

Indeed, none of the lost luggage scam victims noticed that positive feedback was published in nearly perfectly translated Croatian.

However, Stanislas Faubert lived in France, Anton Fischer was in Austria, Lenka Babičová resided in Slovakia, and Ethan Walker was Swiss. What these Croatian-speaking users had in common was that they were singing praises for the Zagreb Airport luggage sale, even if it should have been available only to Croatian residents.

All these profiles were created in a timeframe of a couple of months. Scam victims never suspected that these people might not even exist.

“Scumbags!”, Mario fumes with anger. “They nicely wrapped it up as if it’s an airport, so nothing was suspicious. And the page has existed for years. But it seems nothing is secure today.”

Besides just using Photoshop to alter real photographs, scammers on Facebook also resort to AI-generated images. Learn the details that expose them, and whether you fell for any of these!

Scam-fest with fake airport photos

The airport shown in the photographs doesn’t exist either. At least, it is certainly not Zagreb Airport. As our investigation would show, these same images had been making the rounds in earlier lost suitcase scams.

Just 11 days prior, one of these photos appeared in the London Gatwick lost luggage scam, promoting the baggage sale for £1.

Another “Zagreb Airport Image” was published in November 2023, on a Facebook page advertising the lost luggage sale at Denver Airport, charging $2 per bag.

And back in October, Zagreb Airport masqueraded as King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, offering up lost bags at the bargain price of 8 Riyals.

These were clearly not photos of Zagreb Airport. Those were not even airports of London, Denver, or Jeddah. All of it was completely fabricated.

Airports depicted by the images were actually located in Frankfurt, Moscow, and Hamburg, all scraped from online sources, and edited to add a bright yellow sign, with adjusted local currency and language. And a barcode. Because nothing makes suspicious transactions more believable than a barcode on the sign.

“I even traveled over Zagreb Airport, but didn’t pay attention to the images”, Ana admits. “Actually, I’m not even an online shopper. But this caught my attention, and I told to myself, okay, let’s do something spontaneous for once. It’s just 2 euros, so let me see. And it turned out as a curse, a global fraud.”

Welcome to the club!

“I followed the link for orders, registered through it, and paid 2 euros. That’s how it started”, Ana explains. “First, I found it strange that they charged me only 2 euros when the advertised price for a suitcase was 2.95.”

But what initially sounded like an unexpected discount opened the doors to unsolicited e-mails. “When the announcement of the membership arrived, that’s when I became suspicious”, she says.

“Hello, Ana! First of all, welcome to the club!”, the email said, courtesy of Weshopforme.com, a website Ana never even heard of, let alone registered for. “Don’t hold back – explore our wide range of high-end products and enjoy the member prices without limits.”

Mario was welcomed by the webshop on ForMyDIY.com, with an identical greeting: “Hello Mario! First of all, welcome to the club! Don’t hold back – explore our wide range of high-end products and enjoy the member prices without limits.”

Filip B., another scammed victim I talked to, became a member of  Getallsporty.com.

The websites may have been different, but each had the same terms and conditions. Our baggage hunters unwillingly stepped into a trap – membership schemes that required regular purchasing of products offered on these websites. New credits needed to be bought every 14 days, and this reload was automatic.

Cyprus connection

Each of our victims was unknowingly redirected to a different webshop, but all of them had a common guardian angel. The baggage mishandlers were protected via PrivacyGuardian, a service that, ironically, aims to protect the real owners of these websites against “identity theft, SPAM and other unsolicited outreach”.  However, according to the information the webshops displayed, there was another common thread. All of them seemed to be based in the sunny Mediterranean paradise of Cyprus. Per Cyprus Corporate Registry, the companies behind them have all been registered in late 2023. Weshopforme.com is the project of Pokrou Limited (director Ionis Iordanidis, registered in Larnaka on September 8th, 2023), ForMyDIY.com is run by Tachano Limited (director Efthymios Souroukidis, registered in Limassol on November 15th, 2023), and Getallsporty.com is the webshop of Zamazi Limited (director Artemis Messiou, registered in Limassol on November 19th, 2023). However, all webshops had contact numbers starting with (+44), which directs customer support calls to the UK.

The cost of clicking

Ana was welcomed in the Basic Membership tier, valued at 26 euros. She registered with a Visa debit card, the same card she uses to receive her monthly salary, and gave its details to an unknown webshop. “Thankfully, I have a protected card, so one cannot charge it without my authorization”, she says.

Mario used his Mastercard credit card, the one with a monthly limit. Luckily for him, he always swims in the red, so the webshop had some trouble with charging him.

“I didn’t follow emails, but I saw they attempted to take 38 euros from the card”, the electrician says. “As I was in minus, they couldn’t do it. After I transferred some money to the card, they took 17 euros for the membership.”

His membership was quickly upgraded from the allegedly Free Account (with a 17 euros balance), via a Basic Membership (valued at 28 euros), to a Prime Membership (valued at 38 euros, the amount they wanted to charge initially).

Informed that his next 38 euro top-up was coming up, Mario decided to cancel the membership he never applied for, but even that didn’t come at no cost.

“Our commitment is to provide you with the best customer service and ensure your complete satisfaction”, Emma from customer support wrote. “Please take note that, in accordance with our Terms and Conditions, the cancellation fee is a non-refundable charge. The specified fee of 6.95 eur serves as the membership cancellation fee for opting out of your 14-day subscription cycle.”

Of course, that fee had to be charged independently of the €17 credit Mario unknowingly purchased earlier, and didn’t even manage to use. The cost of his lost luggage adventure was 2 euros for the undelivered lost suitcase, 17 euros for subscribing, and 6.95 euros for unsubscribing, totaling €25.95.

Here’s what you should have done with your €2.95!

Were you tempted to invest (read: lose) a couple of dollars in this lost luggage scheme? Why not support investigative journalism instead? We, humans, easily fall for tricksters. But how often do we act in favor of those keeping us informed? If you find this article helpful, support us to continue shedding light on shady businesses by donating your €2.95 (or whichever amount you find suitable) to our PayPal account. Thank you!

Baggage bandits recruiting the naive

Filip B., who returned from Germany to Bistra, a small municipality in Zagreb County, has been disgruntled by his entire experience, so much so that he has “no intention of using any webshop but Croatian ones, from now on”.

These 2 euros for the luggage is such a small amount that it draws naive people in, like myself and my familyFilip B.

Coincidentally, even if he was subscribed to a different webshop membership, his customer support agent was also called Emma, just like the one Mario was in touch with.

“Dear Filip, Thank you for contacting us! Getallsporty.com is a shopping site, and I see you have signed up for a membership that gives you access to our products from a wide variety of brands with savings of up to 80%.”

When he gave his Aircash details for what he thought was a lost luggage sale, Filip never intended to “get all sporty” on a website that tries to sell him e-books such as “6-Pack Abs Secrets” or “100 Golf Tips”.

“These 2 euros for the luggage is such a small amount that it draws naive people in, like myself and my family”, Filip confesses.

What was supposed to be just a small speculative investment transformed into a nefarious scheme that resembled a membership in the world’s most expensive online (!) gym.

“From everyone who gives data, they take 70 euros every week. This amount is supposedly available for purchase in the Getallsporty webshop, but if you try to execute it, an error message appears. These guys are pros!”

Undisclosed fees can quickly add up in any business, tourism business especially. Here's what you need to know about hidden travel expenses! 

Goodbye to 846 euros

When he first started receiving spam emails, Filip didn’t open them, because he was suspicious of their origin. After four weeks, he became aware that he didn’t just say goodbye to 2 euros for the undelivered lost luggage, but also to 280 euros for membership fees.

“Both me and two of my immediate family members, we were all losing 70 euros per week. They were charging my Aircash, and emptying up their current accounts”, Filip shares. “And you cannot trace them. They’ve been reported, but sadly, we don’t know who is behind this. Whoever is making these charges cannot be located. How come something like that doesn’t go public? I don’t understand!”

The family that lost 846 euros in the blind hope that they would just get lucky with some forgotten suitcases, will have a hard time forgetting this unsettling episode.

“If someone could only stop these frauds! If only I knew who’s behind this, I would feel better”, Filip says. “They take relatively small amounts. In police, they told us that’s because they don’t want the issue to escalate. But if they take 70 euros from 1,000 people a day, that comes to a significant sum. They are breaking a bunch of laws, and yet nobody is taking action!”

The maze of Facebook fakes

In the past six months alone, dozens if not a three-digit number of fake Facebook pages appeared, pretending to be lost luggage bargain services, airport warehouses, or airports themselves. Some of them were registered as airport terminals, others as charities or flea markets, but there were also those classified as entertainment websites or marketing agencies.

For Zagreb Airport, there are more impostors than at a celebrity look-alike contest. At least four fake Facebook pages enable the scam at this very moment (‘Zračna luka Zagreb’ – 2.5k followers, ‘Međunarodna zračna luka-Zagreb’ – 26 followers, ‘Zagreb International Airport’– 99 followers, and another ‘Zagreb International Airport’ – 20 followers). There are also at least two dormant pages with bizarre names (‘Air/izgubljeni prtljag/zračna luka/HR’ – 2 followers, ‘Izgubljeni prtljag/zračna luka/HR’ – 2 followers).

Except for the possibly hacked JOLIE account, all other fake Zagreb Airport Facebook pages were created between the 6th and 8th of September 2022, just like the fake lost luggage sales in New York, Denver, Copenhagen, Oslo, Frankfurt… While there are pages created on other dates too, this coincidence suggests a globally coordinated effort that didn’t just happen overnight but was carefully planned for years.

Some “Lost Luggage” pages created in this timeframe are still not used for the fraud, so we may interpret them as possible plan B’s, in case the other scammy pages get taken down.

Scams in every time zone, from Dublin to Doha

The scale of this fraud is impressive. Scammers have spread their wings over all continents except Antarctica. So if you’re not a penguin, you definitely have to watch out!

Before Zagreb, lost luggage scams hit European airports such as Dublin Airport in Ireland, Heathrow and Gatwick in London, UK, Malta International Airport, Larnaca Airport in Cyprus, Geneva Airport in Switzerland, Oslo Gardemoen Airport in Norway, Helsinki Airport in Finland, Vienna Schwechat Airport in Austria, and Václav Havel Airport in Prague, Czech Republic.

Over in America, the fraudsters focused on airports such as JFK in New York, Denver International Airport in Colorado, Chicago O’Hare International Airport in Illinois, Dallas Fort Worth Airport in Texas, and Toronto Airport in Canada.

When looking for opportunities to find easy money with lost luggage in Asia, scammers turned to Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar, King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel, Bandaranaike International Airport in Sri Lanka, Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, the Philippines, Changi Airport and Singapore Airlines in Singapore, as well as Malaysia Airports.

Down under, in Oceania, the digital con artists have been tricking customers with impersonations of Sydney International Airport in Australia, as well as Auckland Airport and Air New Zealand in New Zealand.

Africa wasn’t spared either. The unclaimed baggage sale was falsely advertised at O.R. Tambo International Airport in Gauteng, South Africa, while for the supposed luggage raffle of South African Airways in Pretoria fraudsters produced even a series of videos.

Fraudsters can appear around any corner when traveling. Read about my experience on a local African bus!

Can you buy lost luggage?

If there are so many fake lost luggage sales, does it mean there are real ones too? Can you buy unclaimed luggage from the airlines? Are there secret stash auctions where you can snag yourself a mystery suitcase?

Even if they are the most common setting promoted through this fraud, airports do not typically hold lost luggage sales or auctions. Lost luggage is primarily handled by airlines who are the ones “signing the contract” with passengers to transport their belongings from place A to place B. If your bag decides to go on its own little adventure without you, it’s the airline whose responsibility is to reunite you with it.

But airlines also don’t typically engage in storing luggage that was not collected. They simply do not have capacities for that, nor it is their core business. They will do everything to get the lost luggage to a rightful owner as otherwise, they need to pay a high compensation.

Exceptionally, truly exceptionally, there could be a business selling the contents of lost bags, such as the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Alabama. They buy up a small percentage of unclaimed baggage, sift through it, clean the valuables, and then resell them in their store.

Suitcase auctions are extremely rare. If they do happen, they will not just pop up on suspicious Facebook pages. They’ll be hosted by reputable sources, and advertised on official internet domains.

How to spot lost luggage scams?

Whenever you see an ad campaign that seems too good to be true, take a step back, and rethink about it. There are a variety of clues that will let you detect whether a certain opportunity is legit, or just a scam. These are the main methods to sniff out a Facebook fraud!

1. Investigate Facebook page transparency

Every Facebook page has a history, and you can easily check it out in the section called ‘Intro’ (if you’re on desktop), or ‘Details’ (on mobile phones).

Click next to the little ‘i’ (for information), and you should be able to learn when the Facebook page was created, when it changed its name, and sometimes even in which countries the people who manage the page are based.

2. Scroll, scroll, scroll

Don’t be fooled by the most recent posts on the Facebook page. Scroll down and you may discover that your airport was advocating for women’s shoes before.

Scammers are always looking for the easiest way to take your money. As they’re busy with finding the most gullible victims, they don’t necessarily take time to erase the history of the page contents.

Whether the page was hacked by someone or was used for another fraud before, the date when the page was created or the sudden unexplainable switch in content could give away that something is off. No real airports will overtake other Facebook pages.

3. Look for a blue verification badge

The blue tick next to the Facebook page name, also known as the verified badge, tells you that it represents a brand that has been confirmed by Facebook as authentic.

Sadly not all airports (the real Zagreb Airport included) go through a process of obtaining this Meta verification checkmark. But many notable airports, such as Heathrow or John F. Kennedy International Airport – JFK, will have the verification badge.

If you look for a certain page on Facebook, the search will show a variety of results, but those with the blue stamp of approval should be the ones you should trust as truthfully represented.

4. Dive into reviews

Besides just focusing on the posts published by the Facebook page, which is always controlled by the page admin, pay attention to the ‘Reviews’ tab. This is where you will find comments from other users.

Yes, this could also be flooded with feedback like “best deal ever!”, but it could also have comments possibly exposing the page as a scam. Put on your skeptic hat!

5. Be skeptical about users’ comments

Especially if they are overly glowing, be skeptical about the comments satisfied users leave under posts. On scammy pages, their role is to convince you to “join the club”, and not necessarily to give an honest opinion.

Click on their profiles, and check them too. If you don’t see the typical activity you would find on Facebook profiles of your real friends, if you don’t see a history of usual interactions, posts, pictures, etc., you should question the legitimacy of these “customers”. Were their profiles created yesterday? Do you trust these are real people?

Also, pay attention to when the positive comments were posted. You could discover that all were posted on the same date, at the same time, all at once. If that was weeks ago, and no new comments were left in the meantime, that is a red flag that everything is staged. Scammers may be removing newer comments of discontent users. A good product will always have a steady in-flow of comments, posted at different times, and not all at once.

Another thing you could sometimes notice is that on different posts, different people are leaving identical testimonies with identical photographs. I have found instances where, even under the same post, comments are repeated by different people, which just shows the level of attention scammers invest in these scams.

6. Watch out for linguistic and grammatical errors

Even if, in the age of AI, scams are becoming more and more sophisticated, scammers are rapacious and often too lazy to put a greater effort for a small gain.

Instead of the professional language you would expect in airports’ social media communication (typically large offices where many employees take care of their employer’s marketing), you might find amateurish content on scam pages.

If they are based in a foreign country, the scammers might have telling grammatical errors that no professional organization would tolerate.

You could possibly recognize bad grammar and language errors even in the faked positive comments of the page supporters.

On Zagreb Airport lost luggage scam webpage, for instance, out of four 5-star reviews, three were left with wrongly used gender (male customers speaking in female form, and females in male form).

7. Learn how to use reverse image search

Google, Bing, and other search engines are not just places to answer verbal queries. You can also use them to look for images.

If a Facebook page shares photographs to convince you of the authenticity of their service, you can easily check if the images appeared on the web before.

You can do that directly on the Facebook page by right-clicking on the image. Depending on the browser you’re using, you will find an option ‘Search image with Google’ (in Chrome) or ‘Search the web for image’ (in Edge), etc. This action will help you find the image source or at least other web pages that include the image. You may be surprised that the photograph of that Changi lost luggage scam in Singapore was actually shot somewhere in Germany.

Alternatively, you could also save the suspectable image on your computer, and then visit your usual search engine (Google, Bing, etc.). Instead of writing a textual query, use the ‘search by image’ or ‘search using an image’ icon (next to voice search), and drag-and-drop the image whose online history you want to learn about.

8. Use the whois domain lookup

Whenever clicks lead you to another webpage, don’t just trust the content and the logos trying to convince you that you are on the official page of an airport or any other organization.

Before sharing personal information, always double-check what is written in the URL or the address bar, as you might be redirected to another suspicious page. If it looks like a mishmash of random words, it’s probably a scam.

For instance, Zagreb Airport lost luggage scam’s unwitting victims were led to suspicious domains. They had the misleading word “fly” in it, but the specific path that followed the domain name clearly had webshop vocabulary that had nothing to do with the airport.

• products/abstract-face-flower-vase
• products/automatic-rolling-ball
• products/eufy-robovac-15c-max-robot-vacuum-cleaner-boostiq-wi-fi-super-thin-2000pa-suction-quiet-self-charging-robotic-vacuums-cleans-hard-floors-to-medium-pile-carpets

While this would be an easy tell for those paying enough attention, you could also just end up on a simple domain you know nothing about. If fly3aga3.quest or fly4bamb1.shop doesn’t already sound suspicious, you can google ‘whois domain lookup’ and use any of the whois services to check who are registered users of the domain. You might not be able to find out who they are if scammers hide behind some privacy protocol. However, official websites of airports will typically not hide the registrant’s name.

9. Stay skeptical

The offer of getting a loaded suitcase for just €2.95 is a fantastic deal, but try to approach it rationally.

If the airport is trying to save money because of the expenses related to storing lost luggage, would they really:

• Give away suitcases full of valuables for practically pocket change?
• Cover the costs of creating a special website and a special Facebook page?
• Organize a photo shoot of suitcases with yellow price displays for a sale that is entirely – online?
• Mention the charity or humanitarian background of the promotion without providing any detail as to where the collected money would go to?
• Offer free shipping for all these suitcases? Is there an economical sense in delivering the product to your doorstep at no charge? Is it viable that they send it for free all the way to Lenka Babičová in Slovakia?

The great suitcase swindle – call to action

If your personal data and credit card details have been already stolen, don’t just sit and wait until things get worse.

I talked to quite a few victims of Zagreb Airport lost luggage scam, and only a minority blocked the card immediately when they started losing money without consent.

To others who gave away their card details to scammers, I suggested they should contact the institution that issued their card (bank or credit card company), and prevent future issues.

Even if I explained that some people lost hundreds of euros, it wasn’t easy to convince everyone. “It’s only 2 euros, so nothing too scary”, one lady said. “But thanks for the warning!”

“I didn’t report it to anyone”, another man said. “It’s a foreign company, police can’t do anything, I’ll just share it on scam pages. I was thinking about going to the bank, as technically they could take everything away from that account. I will consider doing that next week.”

Next week?! Only Ana, who was patiently waiting for her purchased suitcase, recognized the urgency of the action: “Thanks for contacting me, I would’ve waited for a few days otherwise. I called the bank now and blocked the card. They won’t be able to take anything anymore. It’s a tiny amount to block the card, but I prefer not to worry. Better safe than sorry.”

What to do if you become a victim of the lost luggage scam?

So, what are the steps to stay safe(r) after falling for a lost luggage scam? Panic a little, and then do the following:

1. Call your card issuer

Grab your phone, and immediately call your bank, credit card company, or service you used for sending money. Explain the situation, and if you have used a credit card, you might even be able to block the transaction. The sooner your card issuer knows about it, the greater the likelihood of getting your money back.

2. Block that plastic

Ask the issuer to block your card so scammers or connected webshops cannot use its details for future purchases. Prevent them from going on a shopping spree!

3. Unsubscribe and threaten legal action

Hit ‘unsubscribe’ on those programs and their emails. Then, flex your legal muscles and throw around phrases like “breach of trust” and “legal ramifications”.

4. No more payments

Resist the urge to throw more money at the problem, even if they tell you there is a fee for unsubscribing. You might be even contacted by a supposed agency offering to return all your lost money for a fee. That’s also a scam.

5. Report the scam as spam

Mark those emails as spam.

6. Cut communication

Stop talking to scammers. Block them on every platform like you would with a bad Tinder date.

7. Bring out the big guns

Report the fraud to the police, and to a consumer agency in your country. In the United States, that’s the Federal Trade Commission. In Croatia, seek advice from the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development.

8. Leave a review

Leave a negative review on the scammy Facebook page. Let the world know about your misadventures in lost luggage land.

9. Report the Facebook page

Don’t just leave nasty comments; hit ‘report’ on that fraudulent Facebook page. Ask friends to join you in the reporting attack. Let Zuckerberg and Co. know they’ve got some cleaning up to do.

10. Try to expose them

Report abuse to PrivacyGuardian or other services used to hide the domain owners.

11. Share this article on social media

Help others not to fall for in the same digital dungeon of online frauds. By sharing this article on social media, you’ll contribute to public awareness of this global epidemic of airport scams.

Should victims sue Facebook?

Impersonating pages and fake social media accounts enabled an enormous harvesting of credit card details and personal data. Facebook, the same platform that polices your profile picture as soon as someone objects to it, or even threatens to delete your profile for daring to not use your real name, became the playground for the worldwide web of airport scams. They actively enabled the scam artists to peddle their phony lost luggage deals, as well as the false advertising it comes with. Facebook is directly profiting from these fraudulent offers targeting over-trusting users. Sure, Facebook throws a bone now and then by flagging certain content as false information “checked by independent fact-checkers”. But they don’t remove the posts and the photos and certainly don’t act as quickly as how scammers publish new ones. While sitting back and counting its billions, Meta truly didn’t do much to put an end to a flood of fake luggage sale pages. Opening an impersonating page is easier than ever.

Lost luggage scam – Conclusion

You might be tempted to think that falling for such an obvious internet hoax deserves a standing ovation for the tricksters rather than sympathy for the victims. But hindsight is 20/20; it’s easy to dismiss the fraud after it has happened. This digital shenanigan proved to be able to bamboozle everyone from electricians to business economics specialists.

Facebook users are left to fend for themselves when facing lost luggage scams

Besides people’s wallets, lost luggage scams also damaged the airport brands. However, not all of them approached the seriousness of the problem equally.

Geneva Airport called its followers to help report the fake page.

Sydney Airport pinned the post exposing the scam as a featured post (the first thing you see).

Zagreb Airport? Since their initial warning post on January 3, they’ve been mostly waiting for Facebook gods to remove one of the fake pages. Lost in their newsfeed, this call for caution cannot protect citizens against lost luggage scams which have been, in Croatian case, popping up like mushrooms after rain. I contacted Zagreb Airport for comment on March 13, but their PR team still didn’t find time to respond.

Facebook users are left to fend for themselves, relying on gut instinct and a healthy dose of skepticism when faced with unclaimed luggage sales.

“The victims must be numberless! They never saw it coming”, remarks Ana, whose weak spot was uncovered during a train commute.

Using the railway might sound better than getting stuck in Zagreb traffic jams. But trains in Croatia are extremely slow. They offer passengers too much pastime; time one could spend scrolling through Facebook.

“I don’t play lottery, or gamble. I’m not a risk taker at all!”, Ana insists. “But there, it was a misfortune, a colossal one. It had to be me who fell for it. I should have listened to the music, and not be on Facebook!”

Did you encounter these lost luggage scams on Facebook? What is your experience?
Leave a comment and pin this article for later!

The post The Lost Luggage Scam: Click, Register, Regret appeared first on Pipeaway.

Spice up your love life with our Valentine food gift ideas, ranging from wallet-friendly to downright decadent

The phrase says that the way to a person’s heart is through their stomach. Some may roll their eyes at this age-old wisdom. But if your significant other is a self-proclaimed foodie, there’s nothing wrong with choosing a present that will appeal to their taste buds.

Whether you want to plan a great culinary adventure abroad, inject more love into your home cooking, or just solve your hunger with the most effortless solution – an unexpected Valentine food box delivery – this list should inspire memorable meals for two.

Spice up your love life with our Valentine food gift ideas, ranging from wallet-friendly to downright decadent options!

For more ideas on surprising your partner, check out these romantic travel gifts!

Valentine gift ideas for food lovers

1. Get Valentine dinnerware
Price range: from $6.99 to $39.95

If you love presents that keep on giving, dinnerware is one of the best Valentine food gift ideas. Everything tastes better if it comes in the shape of a heart! We’ve sifted through the heart-shaped haystack and plucked out 14 cupid-approved products that are bound to add some zest to your lover’s kitchen.

– Set of three reusable wine stoppers: take care of your wine bottles with heart-shaped seals, for an extended pleasure

– Heart-shaped sandwich/cookie cutters: the 6-pack that will bring a new dimension to your breakfasts in bed

– Set of two nonstick heart pancake rings: sweeten up your romantic life with American-style love pancakes

– Diamond heart-shaped chocolate mold: use wooden hammers to reveal a surprise under the heart (oh, is that a proposal ring?!)

– Reusable stainless steel heart straws with silicone tips: from bridal showers to cocktail parties, you’ll be impressing people you love while caring for plastic-polluted planet

– 3D heart ice molds: besides ice cubes, use the mold to create heart-shaped chocolate desserts or ice popsicles

– Ceramic heart egg pan: put a smile on their morning face with an egg-ceptional meal that speaks romance

– Disposable heart cupcake pans: made of high-quality aluminum foil, these muffin containers can even host mini cheesecakes or puddings, complete with lids

– Set of three heart-shaped bamboo spoons: stir up some love in your pots with these sturdy, eco-friendly spoons

– Heart-shaped cutting board: made of acacia wood, this Valentine food board allows you to serve your charcuterie in style

– Ceramic fondue set: whether it’s cheese or chocolate, you’ll be adding decadence to your Valentine meals for two

– Heart-shaped springform baking pan: mold your cake into a declaration of love

– Set of four heart-shaped ceramic plates: Perfect for salads or desserts, these will be the heart of any kitchen party

– Electric waffle maker: whip-up a batch of heart-shaped waffles, and customize your browning preferences

For even more Valentine’s Day-approved kitchen delights, check out Amazon’s special page.

Are you in love with all things shaped like a heart? You will adore these heart islands!

2. Order Valentine food boxes
Price range: from $25 to $55

Budget limitations don’t mean that your palates cannot travel far and wide. As a matter of fact, flavors of the globe can come to you – with Valentine food boxes!

Try the World is a subscription box service that will let you enjoy the decadent tastes of Italy, Thailand, South Africa, and beyond, without ever leaving your home. Curated by cuisine experts, these surprise boxes are packed to the brim with authentic artisan goodies of the highest caliber.

If you reckon your partner would enjoy a mix of deliciousness and a dash of unexpected, choose this voyage to a world of experiences.

Until February 18, you can indulge in the gourmet cultures of the world at a sweet 20% discount. Simply click on this link and use the promo code LOVE20, to take advantage of this promotion.

3. Slurp oysters in Seattle
Price for two: $218

The Pacific Northwest is the breeding ground of the best oysters in the world. If you know the aphrodisiac properties of these shell delicacies, you’ll be packing your bags for Seattle immediately.

Seattle has more than just ‘sea’ in its name. This oyster oasis offers up the freshest seafood extravaganza that’ll have you slurping with delight on a brunch-hour walking tour.

You’ll be able to sit down in restaurants and Pike Place Market vendors serving up not only oysters, but also succulent salmon, delectable Dungeness crab, soul-warming chowder, and even tantalizing Japanese treats.

Book your Seattle seafood brunch tour with Viator.

4. Savor a decadent picnic in Paris
Price for two: $242

Paris is the city of love, a perfect place to practice your “Voulez vous coucher avec moi?”. But before French kisses, your lips need a French appetizer – a decadent picnic with wine pairing.

This luxurious dining experience will be served on a picnic blanket, at a picture-perfect patch of Parisian paradise. Your host Patricia will meet and greet you with insights on food pairing before discretely slipping away, leaving you to enjoy each other’s company against the backdrop of the French capital.

Patricia’s Valentine food baskets cater to both traditional Parisian palates and strict vegetarians. You can certainly expect to find a baguette, French pastries, an assortment of cheeses, and a bottle of the finest French vino.

Book your extravagant French picnic with Eatwith.

If you are new to social dining apps, learn everything you need to know about eating with locals!

5. Tour the wine country from San Francisco
Price for two: $330

Northern California‘s celebrated wine regions are a great place to unwind with your better half. You can spend an entire day exploring the estates and wineries of Napa and Sonoma Valleys on a guided tour.

Starting from San Francisco, you’ll be whisked away to three prestigious estates where each expert winemaker will propose 3-5 tastings of their signature blends. To keep your wine-soaked stomach from rumbling too loudly, a lunch stop in Sonoma Square is included.

Besides tasting the finest wines in the heart of the wine country, you’ll also be treated to breathtaking views of the rolling hills, fascinating family histories, and the secrets behind crafting award-winning wines.

On your way back, crossing the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, you’ll end your day with romantic sunset views over the Pacific.

Join this special experience with GetYourGuide.

Wine aficionados can have great time in Europe too. Discover Italian vineyards!

6. Experience Valentine dinner in Los Angeles
Price for two: $382

If you’re on the hunt for the ultimate Valentine dinner in Los Angeles, look no further than the weekend dinner cruise departing from Newport Beach.

This leisurely 2.5-hour voyage aboard a yacht lets you savor a chef-prepared 3-course plated dinner, made from the freshest seasonal ingredients.

While drinks are not included in the package, refreshing cocktails and other beverages are available for purchase on board, allowing you to enjoy a romantic evening.

The entire experience is paired with DJ entertainment and unforgettable harbor views. You’ll be able to see landmarks such as Balboa Peninsula, Fashion Island, and Mariner’s Mile.

Book your L.A. love boat adventure with GetYourGuide.

7. Indulge on a luxury culinary tour in northern Spain
Price for two: $30,933

Now, if you really want to show off how much you appreciate your love, the 8-day culinary tour of northern Spain can provide that sense of luxury. For just over 30 grand, a private all-inclusive food expedition can be yours.

On this gourmet getaway, you’ll sleep in luxury hotels, and travel around with a private chauffeur and an English-speaking guide, all while experiencing holidays designed by locals to make you feel like one.

The highlight of the trip through Spain’s best wine regions of Rioja and Ribera del Duero is an exclusive black truffle hunting experience in the picturesque countryside.

Add to this pub crawls with mouthwatering tapas & pintxos in the Basque Country, and dining at Michelin-starred, signature and traditional restaurants, and you’ll see how priceless a week in Spain can get.

Splurge on this ultimate culinary journey fit for royalty with Tripaneer.

If you are on an extremely tight budget, check out these romantic things to do with your partner at home!

Valentine food gift ideas – conclusion

Whether you’re heading on a luxury culinary tour or simply surprising your loved one with a heart-shaped waffle maker, the key ingredient to a memorable Valentine’s Day is not a price tag.

Culinary world can help you to both reach and hook your lover

As long as you can wrap your emotions in some creativity and full-on presence, the culinary world can help you to both reach and hook your lover.

It could be indulging in oysters in Seattle, savoring a tasty picnic in Paris, or even joining the tipsy tour in San Francisco. But it could also be a homemade dinner in your backyard, strawberries with chocolate in bed, or cutting the bread in the shape of a heart with, don’t faint, simple – knife!

Our Valentine food gift ideas could be a perfect solution, but they could also stay an inspiration for crafting your own perfect dream day. Have fun, savor the moment, and enjoy your delicious adventure!

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The cover and pin images in this article have been sourced through Unsplash.
Their authors are as follows:
Studio shot (cover image) - Anita Austvika
Female eating prosciutto (pin image) - Artem Mihailov

The post From Waffles to Truffles: 7 Valentine Food Gift Ideas to Spice Up Your Love Life appeared first on Pipeaway.