I thought I had found the perfect deal for members of my Disney site - www.mywdwtrip.com, which is a guide to Disney World and saving money on Orlando accommodations. The deal offered was two free tickets to Universal Studios and the company offering this deal stated on the front of their site that they were in no way affiliated with a timeshare. Great, I thought, this would be the perfect deal for my members planning a trip to Disney World. Maybe they'd get a bit of junk mail but, it was a small price to pay for two free tickets.

How naïve I was. I signed up for the deal myself, and many of my site visitors did too. By the time I realised we had been scammed, the company offering the tickets had changed the front page of their site, admitting they were actually sponsored by a timeshare company. I was distraught. Here I was, trying to help my site visitors to get a better deal on their vacations to Disney World, and I had actually put them at the mercy of this timeshare company instead.

I Googled the said timeshare company, and the feedback was terrible. Every link I clicked on was a complaint, by a consumer who had been taking in by this deal, and suffered the aggressive marketing tactics of the timeshare company as a result.

My reputation in tatters, I decided I had to do something to put this right. So, I researched travel scams on the web. Now, I have started a travel scams section on my Disney world site, which advises people on how to avoid being scammed. I also accept submissions from my site members on warnings regarding travel scams they have come across.

Do be careful, especially when searching the web. Anyone can put up a sophisticated looking site, and if their deal sounds good enough, that site doesn't need to be there for long before they have duped lots of people, before disappearing into thin air.

If you're planning a trip to Disney World, or anywhere else in the world, there's no such thing as a free ticket. Everything comes with a price, and if a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.