Gen Zer who took ‘microretirement’ to travel the world warns of ‘red flags’ he missed before being scammed

A Gen Zer who quit his day job to travel the world has detailed the 'red flags' he missed before being scammed in an extremely complicated operation.

In recent times, some Gen Z and Millennials have decided to embark on a new career trend known as ‘microretirement’.

The trend basically refers to taking a chunk or multiple chunks of time off work to experience life and travel while you're young.

George Buckley, 23, decided to do exactly that and left his career as an estate agent after booking a one-way flight to Thailand in January 2023.

While he has made the odd trip back to the UK since, he spends much of his time in Southeast Asia creating content for his popular TikTok channel.

George has certainly been living it up and is currently back in Thailand - but that doesn't mean it's all sunshine and rainbows.

Earlier this year, he decided to visit the Indonesian island of Bali, which has become a central hub for digital nomads like himself in recent years.

However, it was in that beautiful paradise that the 23-year-old arguably had one of the darkest moments of his traveling adventure so far.

The incident took place on the Indonesian island of Bali (Getty Stock Image)

'I've used this method before'

While trying to book a long-stay accommodation for his time in Bali, George was scammed out of a whopping $650 and is now warning fellow backpackers about the 'red flags' he missed.

"There's a method of securing accommodation. Well, I'm not going to be using it anymore, but it was on Facebook groups or on the Facebook marketplace because it's widely used in Southeast Asia," George told UNILAD.

"I've used this method before, just to clarify, I know other people that have been doing remote work and looking for longer term rentals would use Facebook as a platform to search property."

George joined multiple accommodation groups on Facebook and posted details about his party, the dates he was looking for, and the type of digs he was after.

The travel content creator also put his phone number on the post, allowing owners of properties to reach out for potential viewings.

George and his friends quickly decided on one property they liked, so they decided to go and view it before putting pen to paper.

The TikToker continued: "We've gone on the inside of the villa and had a look round. We've been given the access code and everything.

"We get all of our stuff. We get on the inside, the guy sends over a contract, because I was in contact with the owner, or what I thought was the owner and we send over the money."

George told UNILAD how the scam came about (Supplied)

'Immediately our hearts drop'

However, suspicions quickly began to arise for George in relation to how the booking was confirmed.

"There is no official booking platform, and immediately red flags. There's warning signs just by me saying it out loud, but like I say, this was a trusted method that I've used before, so I had no reason to believe otherwise."

It wasn't until the next day that the content creator's worst fears came to a head as he bumped into the cleaners of the accommodation while he was doing his washing.

George went on: "All is good for the first night [before] we then wake up and go to do our washing. The next morning, we go to a local laundry place, and we coincidentally bump into one of the cleaners of that villa.

"We get chatting, and she then goes, 'There's not a reservation', because we told her where we're staying, etc. And immediately our hearts drop. She then gets in contact with the villa owner, the actual owner."

George and his pals had been scammed.

"Turns out the person we've been talking to wasn't the owner at all," the TikToker told UNILAD.

George was doing his laundry when he realized he'd been scammed (Getty Stock Image)

"What had happened was somebody had saw the post we made on Facebook and they reached out pretending to be the owner.

"So they're pretending to be the owner in the conversation with me, meanwhile, having a conversation with the real owner of the villa on Airbnb, pretending to be somebody that wanted to view it.

"Simultaneously, minute by minute, having the exact same kind of conversations, and they managed to perfectly arrange a viewing with my availability and the owner's availability, because they would get one bit of information and feed it on to the other party.

"They took that conversation from Airbnb with the owner over to WhatsApp, and the actual owner gave them the access code without verifying any of the information of who it was."

The TikToker has issued a warning after being scammed (Supplied)

'We'll take it as a lesson'

The scammer even managed to arrange the viewing for when the staff wouldn't be around.

The lads lost roughly $1,950 through the scam, equating to a $650 dent each.

George explained the whole situation to the real owner and actually ended up staying in the same villa they had been scammed out of.

The content creator was able to negotiate a lower rent with the real homeowner after being unsuccessful in his attempts to retrieve some of the money back.

"We'll take it as a lesson, and I guess educating people will be the silver lining," George concluded.