We have lined up a private guide for our trip to Iguazu Falls in February. It seems to be a very reputable company and they've even called me by phone. http://www.discoverbrazil.com/

Just as I think everything is all lined up, I'm now concerned because they are asking for a photo copy of BOTH sides of our credit card as well as a photo copy of our passports. With so much identity theft, this just doeesn't sit right with me, but they say it is a requirement. They say it's for OUR protection??

I suggested using a secure site such as paypal but they're not going for it. What should we do?

EDITING: I just found this on their website....what does all this mean?

FORGET IT. It is patently a FRAUD to get your credit card # and the authoriztion # which says that the credit card is in your hands.

I dunno, M. I'd be leery of this as well.

I wouldn't do it! Hubby works in a bank and says DON'T!!!

Babs

On the other hand, if you were reserving somthing with a credit card, they would ask for your card number and expiration. Some even ask for the 3 digit security number on the back. There isn't much difference from telling them your numbers or giving them photo copies.

But then again on the other other hand, I don't know why you can't verbally give them the info and how copies of your card "protects" you?

This is the email I received:

HOW TO FINALIZE YOUR PURCHASE:



You may purchase your travel reservations by requesting us the following documents. Please note that the signature on the CCAF must be of the credit card holder being used for the payment.


Discover Brazil Credit Card Authorization Form (print out).
One copy of your Credit Card front side, one copy of your Credit Card back side.
One copy of your passport showing your information including picture and passport number.


With these documents properly filled and signed, you fax us and we will proceed with the payment. The next step is to send you the final confirmation and voucher for your trip



Important: we do not accept American Express.



Sincerely,



Vanessa Lima

International Travel Consultant
DiscoverBrazil.com
Phone: (55) (71) 3113-4205
Fax in Brazil: (55) (71) 3113-4203

Mobile: (55) (71) 8139-8438

Fax in USA: 1-732-909-2966

Fax & Voice Mail in London: (44) 20-7900-6555

Toll Free: 1-888-4573-266

E-mail: vanessa@discoverbrazil.com.br

ICQ: 249661595

MSN: vanessa@discoverbrazil.com.br
Web: www.discoverbrazil.com

Check out the company
Are they members of a professional organization such as the American Society of Travel Agents, Association of Retail Travel Agents, or the Cruise Lines International Association? Do they belong to a local Chamber of Commerce? These are all indicative of someone who is serious about doing business with you.

Circleboy, I read the "about us" page on their website http://www.discoverbrazil.com/aboutdiscoverbrazil.cfm ) but it doesn't mention any of the affiliations you mentioned.

sounds pretty darn weird to me..
have you checked other companies who do the Iguazu falls tours? Like defrantur or even port compass?
De Frantur is all over the place in Buenos Aires ( I mean their tour guides were ) and they have a great reputation. Would contact them and see what they say. I know some companies will expect payment if plane fare is needed but how they collect it is another story. The one you are getting sounds weird Marcie.
http://www.defrantur.com/ingles/

Thanks Claudia,

I did check with them and quite a few others as well. We have already booked our own flights and hotel (many only want you if you book through them). The other limitation was that we're only there one full afternoon (5-6 hours) not a full one or 2 days. This was the ONLY company I found that fit all our needs.

I'm beginning to feel like we should just go there and do our own thing once there without any guide!

Marcie
Is there a Brazilian consulate in the LA area? I don't know if they do things like a Better Business Bureau would, but it might not hurt to call? Just a suggestion.

Marcie, maybe you could e-mail Patricia, the SA TA that Todd, Ngaire and I used on our mini-segment a couple of years ago in the Chilean fjords. From my experiece these people network with their same ilk, and she could check them out. Like the others, I am leery when I have to give a cc# in advance. While I have never been "burned", I just don't like to do it. I'm having to cancel a room I rented and paid for in Huatulco for Jes for PARTY and now she can't come. I wonder if they will refund.

You can e-mail her at patriciadufflocq@senderosdechile.com

She also had another address:
patriciadufflocq@hotmail.com

BTW, I hope you and Tom will be spending time with Patricia when you dock in Puerto Mont! She was great!

Thanks Olivia! I just emailed her.

This might be a stupid question but.... why do you need a guide to go see the Falls?

Marcie - as a former travel agent over the years I experienced a number of tour operators who would want a photocopy of the front of a credit card to protect them against fraudulent use. I don't remember if they also wanted the back side, but that's where the security code is located, but they may also want to verify the signature.

I would check them out - also, if they check out OK, you might want to see about doing a wire transfer in lieu of using a credit card.

As a final comment - you could just fly there, get the hotel to handle your transfers and set up any tours you want to do at the Falls.

----
Leslie

I can't believe I just thought of this. Some credit cards offer the service where they will give you a one time number to use for one purchase only. I know this doesn't help with the passport problem, but it might work for the other.

http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y205/m02/abu0137/s02

I guess I am reluctant to give out my CC number to on anything other than a secure website.

The other thing is, what happens if for some reason that you are not able to take the tour? Do they refund the money back to you.

My policy after a particularly bad experience in Villefranche, I will not give out my CC info to any tour or private guide.

Betty, this sounds more like it can be used with an on-line purchase but ours really isn't....they want a photo copy of the front and back of card.
Maybe I'm being paranoid....watch too many crime shows on TV! One good thing is that our passports don't have address, zip, or s.s. #.

Don, we're not talking about a lot of $...$70 per person includes round trip to/from airport and a 5 hour tour (including admittance to park). If for any reason we had to cancel, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Maybe Maria is right...maybe don't even need a guide!

Aloha Marcie:

Earlier this year I sent my sister a bottle of champagne during her stay at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas.

I had to fax over a copy of both sides of my credit card as well as both sides of my Driver's License!!

I thought this was a bit extreme, but I guess I felt comfortable because it was Mandalay Bay.

Here's the kicker -- after all that, they misplaced my faxed information and my sister NEVER got the champagne!!

I think Maria is right, I'd wait till you get there and see if you even need a guide, or in the alternative, I'd try the wire transfer route to get the funds to them.

I would be really concerned about faxing any info like this. Faxes are NOT secure and any unscrupulous person could use it to his/her advantage.

Just my 2 cents worth


Anthony

Agree with Anthony plus once they have your passport and CC photocopies, it's very easy to forge your signatures.

(when I was in HS I used to copy parents signatures so my friends could get out of classes...that is until I got caught copying my mothers..no one could tell the difference between the real one and the fake one...luckily i was smart enough to know not to use that ability to "go further")

If I recall from their website they are members of IATA. Maybe a call to that org will help

Well, my mind is now at ease. I received an email back from a very reputable TA who Ngaire, Olivia and Todd have used and she informed me that it is difficult to get secure payment sites in SA countries as we know them and that this is how the smaller companies operate. Seems strange compared to what we're use to here but apparently this is a reputable company doing biz as they know how. I guess it's kind of a when in Rome.....

Call me nuts, but I'll stick with RSSC excursions. We're certainly not wealthy folks, but the peace of mind and lack of pressure about things, such as Marcie's situation, make the extra cost worth it. Tours and such are not a profit center for RSSC. They deal with good tour operators and pay the cost for reliability. We've only done one private tour on our own and that was in Lisbon for the trip to Sintra. Toursforyou normally required much the same thing as what Marcie is describing, but they waived all of that as soon as they learned that we were cruising RSSC. No money passed hands until the actual day of the tour. There is no way that I'd pass the info they request of you on a non-secure mode and I'd surely check them out with the Argentinian Tourist Office.

Marcie,
I would definitely recommend a guide for the Falls. We were met at the airport, taken to the hotel (Sheraton), checked in by the guide and then started a part of the tour. Since you will only be there five hours, he/she will see that you make the most of your time. There are different paths to take to different sites and your guide will be sure you get to them with ease i.e. Devil's throat, the train ride, etc. Hopefully you will be able to go on raft/boat under the Falls. It is so much fun. Be prepared to get wet either from under the Falls or from the spray at Devil's Thoat. I took a zip lock bag - large to keep things I didn't want to get wet. Magellans as a great waterproof bag that is also good. You will love this trip.
Deanna

I'm curious about how faxes are insecure. I'm not disputing it, just wondered about the details. I believe that faxes, if insecure theoretically, are very low risk. That's why people fax their credit card numbers when they can't use a secure website.

Marcie:

Will be interested in your report from the falls and your impression of guide. If this works well for you, we would like to do same thing as one day trip down to PoP.

Wendy, all phone transmisions can be tapped, this includes faxes. However, it really takes advanced knowledge to do something. That is why people do fax credit card information. There are also secure faxes available that use encryption, if you want. But need to have same encryption on both ends.

Marcie,
I think it's the combination of the two
documents [CC + passport] that makes me uncomfortable. Recently, almost every
web [& some phone]purchase I have made
makes me give the 'sdecurity #'. Makes me
wonder how long that # will be meaningful!

I went to Kinko's and made the copies. I'm using a CC that we never use so if anything fishy happens we'll know. It's a card I could cancel in a minute without skipping a beat. At least our passport doesn't have SS# on it.

Marcie, it sounds like everything will work out just fine and like you said it isn't a bunch of money and you did take good precautions.

Our situation was a little different in that it was an organized private shore excursion tour that I set up for about 14 people in Villefranche. Little did I know that from early October on, the weather can be quite iffy in the Med and that we would actually miss getting into port that day.

Marcie~ As another option how about emailing/faxing the concierge at your hotel to arrange a tour? Just a thought.

Marcie, Be careful. I just had my identity stolen at my health club. The police notified me. So much information being available gives any unscrupulous folks too much info. I don't think the tour agent is necessarily not to be trusted, but some in his/her employ could be.

Don that is always one of the problems with doing private tours ahead of time, particularly for a big group of people.

I once had 100 people and about 20 cars parked on a dock in Rome waiting for the ship that came in six hours late. Cant blame the tour operator for wanting their money nor the people booked for wanting a refund. Fortunately RSSC made it right. I wont organize things like this now though except St. Petersburg because the risk factor versus payoff.

I'd go along with the letting hotel book a tour option. If you are there already and don't need to take a plane to get there ( as is usually the case when taking that tour from BA or Rio) then why even hassle this sending cc to stranger?
On the other hand.. I just received a holiday card from Pedro (aka Peter) who also does private tours ( guide) he IS GREAT. I had been trying to find his info to give you when you first posted this thread.
You might ask his opinion too.. and by the way..we did not pay him in advance.
privatetours.com.br

Ngaire, I am officially out of the tour setting business after my only attemt in 2003. On that one 7 day cruise, I had private drivers arranged for us and twelve others for the ports of Villefranche, Livorno, Civitavecchia, and Naples.
I did all the planning and made all the arrangements.

I was a complete basket case after the cruise and was so stressed out during the cruise that it was one of the most miserable experiences that I have gone through.

We missed the Cote d' Azur because the ship could not load the tenders in Villefranche due to rough seas. Called and cancelled our private tour.

We missed Livorno because a ship was damaged and sitting in the berth we were to disembark from, so theu moved our ship to La Spezia, where we tendered in. Fortunately our driver knew and drove up to meet us. Lost about 4 hours due to change, which left us with 1 hour in Pisa and two in Florence, and we almost missed the ship, because we were late getting back.

We made Rome and our driver was great, but some in our group took the wrong exit coming out of the Vatican (our last stop) and we couldn't find them. Our driver finally located them over by St. Peters. Our driver took every shortcut available to get us to the ship and we just made it.

Then we hit rough seas that night on the way to Naples. A ship was blocking the entrance to the harbor the next morning and our captain could not maneuver around it. So we missed our tour of Pompeii, Sorrento, and the Amalfi coast.

I like your idea. Just grab a cab!