At least 30 people have fallen prey to online hotel booking scams this year, with many more cheated out of concert and attraction tickets bought off the Internet, the police said yesterday.

In July alone, 24 people were scammed when they booked hotel rooms online. They fell prey to attractive reservation deals on online platforms that required them to make a deposit or pay in full to reserve the rooms. However, after payment was made, those facilitating the deals became uncontactable. One victim was cheated of $2,300, the largest sum a single victim lost among the 30 cases, said the police. The victims were duped of at least $18,000 in total.

There are also numerous reports of online scams involving the sale of tickets to concerts and places of attraction, where the victims failed to receive the tickets after they paid, or were given invalid or expired tickets. The police said 114 people are being investigated for suspected involvement in 294 scam cases involving over $1.5 million.