Mother says $15,000 family cruise was canceled after she posted booking details on Facebook

12.06.2024 - 16:41 / insider.com / Cruises

A Kentucky mother said her family's booking on a cruise was canceled just 48 hours before the ship was due to set sail after they fell victim to identity theft.

Tiffany Banks, her husband, and their children had spent a year planning their trip on the Carnival Celebration ship, which Carnival Cruise Line operates.

But in a post on Tiffany's TikTok account, she said she received an email from Carnival saying that two excursions she had booked had been canceled.

When she called the company to find out more, she said she was told that her entire cabin had been canceled.

"Full-blown panic," Tiffany Banks says in the video. "We'd been planning this vacation for a year, we booked on the Presidential Excel Suite," which she says is the biggest room on the Celebration ship.

Banks said a "lead" at the company told her the "online system had been logged into and it had been canceled."

She said that after talking with the employee for almost two-and-a-half hours, they offered two interior rooms in place of the suite.

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"I just can't even fathom how that they think that that's right," Banks said, adding that the family had invested almost $15,000 into the vacation — $12,000 to $13,000 for the room and the rest for flights and excursions.

Nevertheless, The family decided to head to the port on the day the ship set sail, but they had to rent an Airbnb in Miami as the booking was still canceled.

Banks later posted an update to TikTok in which she said the family had been "victims of identity theft" after an apparent scammer targeted one of their Facebook posts that contained booking information. She said the person opened a fake Carnival profile, added the family's booking to their account, and then canceled the family's cruise.

Banks said that Carnival offered her $10,000 in onboard credit if she posted on social media that the problem had been resolved.

She said that she refused the offer and that the family was not interested in booking with Carnival again while also sharing what she claimed to be audio clips of conversations with a Carnival employee.

Business Insider approached Banks for comment but received no response.

In a statement to BI, a Carnival Cruise Line spokesperson said: "While we are not going to comment about any specific incident, most cyber and consumer experts consistently advise that it is never a good idea to post personal information about your travel plans, including a confirmation number for a booking, which could allow a bad actor or identify thief to use that information in inappropriate or even illegal ways."

In January, BI reported that a tour operator had been accused of scamming customers out of more than $25,000.

Authorities said that Charles Johnson, the owner of