South Australia’s Zym Travel appears to be the latest travel agency collapse, leaving travellers stranded and out of pocket.
News broke on Adelaide’s Advertiser on Friday afternoon of the agency’s apparent collapse, but at the time ASIC said the company has not been placed into administration.
Zym Import-Export Pty Ltd was registered by agency managing director Zelika Loncar since early 2013, and appears to have specialised in travel to the Balkans. It appears some affected customers have taken to the company’s Facebook page, with one leaving the comment “scamming people”.
According to the paper, it believes more than 26 passengers have been affected, with bookings valued at around the $100,000 mark.
The paper reports some travellers had been pushed to pay upfront for overseas flights only to have them cancelled at the time of travel by the agency, forcing them to pay last minute fares to salvage holidays or miss out.
One Adelaide man was apparently set to propose on an upcoming trip to Macedonia, but after paying $5300 in airfares and $350 in travel insurance to Zym Travel, he told the paper he wasn’t sure whether the tickets were ever booked.
Another woman reportedly spent a further $6000 on tickets to Europe after discovering her Emirates bookings had gone awry, with records showing they had initially been fully paid for but on Thursday afternoon had been cancelled and a refund was collected, apparently by the agency.
Emirates are reportedly working with Australian Consumer Affairs in assisting 26 passengers affected by the “closure of Zym Travel”.
Both the South Australia Police and the State Government’s Consumer and Business Services confirmed to The Advertiser they were investigating the matter.
Travel Weekly was unsuccessful in its efforts to contact Loncar, but the Zym Travel website and Facebook page remained live at the time of publishing. Zym Travel was not an AFTA member and did not have ATAS accreditation, AFTA gm Gary O’Riordan told the paper.
