At least five fraud cases have been opened against Pearl Khumalo, the owner of Tshiamo Travels, a company that has been accused of scamming its clients by allegedly making fake group bookings for overseas trips.
This is the latest development following two previous articles that Sowetan Consumer ran about Tshiamo Travels’ two separate trips to Turkey in August and to Bali this month, which had to be called off after Khumalo allegedly failed to make bookings.
This led to the group of 22 people who were due to travel to Bali (Indonesia) this month serving Khumalo with a letter of demand, in which they wanted her to produce confirmation of their travel arrangements. Khumalo failed to meet their demands.
The group comes from different provinces, including a pair from Zimbabwe. They each paid about R20,000 for the trip.
Last week, five people from the group opened criminal cases against Khumalo at different police stations after she gave them the run-around which included a claim that her business bank accounts have been frozen because of an investigation into her company. Her company’s Instagram continues to advertise trips, with the latest one being this week – to Oribi Gorge in KwaZulu-Natal.
The police confirmed that three clients have opened fraud cases against Khumalo in Soweto, Sandton and in Mbombela, Mpumalanga. “Police can confirm that cases of fraud were opened at Diepkloof and Sandton police stations. Both cases are under investigation, no arrests have been made yet,” said Gauteng police spokesperson Capt Mavela Masondo.
Another customer in Mpumalanga opened her case in Mbombela last month.
“The complainant alleges that she was defrauded by someone claiming to be working for a travel agency. The complainant alleges that she paid an amount of R20,100 for accommodation and flight tickets. No arrests have been made yet,” said Mpumalanga police spokesperson Brig Selvy Mohlala.
Gill Letsoela, from Soweto, had booked the Bali trip to celebrate her birthday on September 22 on the Asian continent. She decided to go to the police after being frustrated and not getting information from Khumalo.
“On August 3 I paid her R15,000 and on the 18th I paid the remaining R4,500 and then [Khumalo] added me on the WhatsApp group with other Bali travellers and she sent us an itinerary with wrong dates. I then asked her about flight and accommodation, and that’s when she started dodging us and blocking us from the group and on her social media accounts. We then saw the reviews she was getting on HelloPeter.com and the Sowetan articles and we started to panic. We could not get answers,” said Letsoela.
Khumalo did not respond to questions sent to an email and a text sent to her last week.
It has also emerged that Khumalo also misled two companies, Your Pass To Travel (YPT) and Charimo Travel, who prepared an itinerary for her customers, who were due to travel to Turkey last month. The itineraries are booked through a software called Amadeus, whose subscribers are required to have certain licences and affiliated with a credible body. Khumalo is not known to have Amadeus.
“She [Khumalo] sent names and my colleague sent her the itinerary, but she never booked those flights. We were not aware that she was going to use the itinerary to mislead her clients about the trip that was meant to take place. We give itineraries to clients too, some use it for visa applications and return to us to book their travel arrangements,” said Nhlanhla Litabe, CEO of YPT.
She said she wasn’t aware that the Turkey trip was eventually cancelled. “I was not aware until one lady sent me a message on Instagram and another called to notify me about what had transpired regarding the Turkey trip,” added Litabe.
Charity Mahlangu, owner of Charimo, said she knew Khumalo as a colleague from their previous employer and that she started assisting her in May this year by preparing itineraries for her. She also assisted her for the Turkey trip.
She also became worried when Khumalo’s clients started calling her inquiring about a cancelled trip.
“Three of her clients reached out to me on the morning of the supposed trip on August 14... I also managed to get hold of Pearl [Khumalo] asking what was going on as I kept getting these calls from her clients. She then mentioned that they apparently had internal money issues with one of their staff members and they had to cancel the trip.
"I was concerned about my company brand being associated with such a scandal. She assured me that she was going to put out a statement clearing my company on the issues but she never did,” said Mahlangu.
Both Turkey and Bali groups have been advised by a lawyer to open separate criminal cases against Khumalo.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.