MORE holidaymakers claim they fell victim to a travel agent who conned a grandmother out of her lifesavings.
Sandra Baindridge, 70, and her daughters, Hilda Cowie, 52, and Donna Welham, 49, say they were promised the holiday of a lifetime in Turkey by Anlaby travel agent Ellen Harrison.
But they, along with family friend Elaine Battams, say they ended up £2,000 out of pocket and stranded in Marmaris after booking through Harrison's company, Turkish Riviera Travel.
"We trusted her with our lives and classed her as a friend," said Sandra, who uses a wheelchair and has heart problems.
"We couldn't believe she would do something like this and we will never trust her again."
They came forward after Harrison, 49, of Taunton Road, west Hull, pleaded guilty to fraud at Hull Crown Court for swindling Maureen Kay, 67 and her family of ten out of £7,500 by supplying them with bogus tickets to Turkey.
Sandra's nightmare began when they realised Harrison had not supplied return tickets for their £1,760 break in the Sun Smiles resort.
Concerned, they told Harrison, who reassured them she would deliver them personally once they were in Turkey because she was going on holiday there at the same time.
Because they had used Harrison's business for years, they took her word.
But when Harrison met with the party in Turkey a few days after they arrived, she told them she had forgotten the tickets and that her son Darren had them at their hotel.
She then "disappeared" and failed to reply to their calls and texts asking where she and their tickets had gone.
As the end of their holiday approached, they became increasingly worried they would not be able to get home and enlisted the help of some locals to track Harrison down.
When they found her, she claimed the holiday had been overbooked by a national travel agent and their only option was to book another flight home from Rhodes in Greece – two days after they were supposed to fly back – and to get a refund from the travel agent.
Thankfully, they are well known by the hotel staff who let them stay for an extra two days free of charge.
Sandra said: "We were getting so desperate and worried. All we kept saying was 'how are we going to get home?'
"We had to get a ship to Rhodes Airport and pay for the flights again. That, plus taxis, came to about £500 each.
"It ruined the holiday and we still haven't got our money back today.
"We classed her as a friend, she had been so good to us in the past and went out of her way to find us cheap deals.
"We had used her lots of times before and she had never done anything like this before.
"We don't expect we will ever get our money back. We have rung her since then and she is still saying it is the travel agent's fault.
"Something must have gone very wrong for her to have done this because she was so good before."
Hull Crown Court heard how Harrison had got into financial difficulty and had decided to keep Mrs Kay's money to pay for other business expenses.
She has been given an eight- month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, ordered to pay £1,000 compensation and carry out 150 hours of unpaid work.
Sandra said: "What she did was wrong but I had a lot of respect for her. We try to laugh about it now, if we didn't, we'd cry."
The Mail tried to contact Ellen Harrison several times but got no answer.
