You need to be very careful Googling airline phone numbers because scam travel agencies have corrupted the results.
- You call thinking you’re reaching your airline, but the person on the other end charges you for changes you are entitled to for free.
- When you’re getting help for a cancelled flight, they make you pay for a new one. When they help you with a seat assignment, they charge a service fee.
I’ve written about scammers taking over an old Singapore Airlines phone number and pretending to be Singapore Airlines agents when customers call.
A former boss of mine got scammed by a phone number for Delta provided to her by her travel agency. The agents pretending to be Delta charged her $1,000 to move her and her granddaughter to flights the next day when their original itinerary was cancelled. (Delta Air Lines shockingly covered the cost after 9 months.)
Scam travel agencies buy Google ads to appear that you’ve found the airline’s phone number. I’ve seen this with United Airlines, JetBlue, Hawaiian and others. You get connected to an agency with one star and an F rating from the Better Business Bureau.
It turns out there’s another variation on this scam: the agency gets Google’s search results for the airline at a specific airport changed to display their phone number. You think you’re calling your airline’s “JFK” number but it’s the same agency scam. You can’t trust Google search results for airline phone numbers. You need to go to the airline’s website itself and look up their number.
But here’s a case I do not understand:
A passenger’s flight was cancelled. His family got rebooked onto a partner carrier for the Europe trip – and he was told he’d have to pay for the new tickets, but that United would refund this to him. That’s not how this works!
He was charged $17,000 and the charge was processed by “AIRLINEFARE” not by United Airlines. It sounded like a textbook story about calling a scam travel agency by mistake. However,
- Phone records show he called United Airlines
- United acknowledges the call
- But United shows the call lasted just 12 minutes
- While his phone call lasted three hours.
So he seems to have called the right number and somehow still got redirected to a scam agency? I’m not sure what to make of this one. United won’t offer an explanation other than to say that they’re in contact with the customer and are “committed to finding a fair resolution for him.”
What do you think could be going on here?
Zero sympathy- a fool and their money deserve to be separated. An informed consumer is the only way to understand the scams, never fall for them and work only with truly authorized agents.
Cant the customer just dispute charge with the credit card used to pay?
Very odd. I read about this story 5 minutes by on Moneywise. Maybe the agent transferred to call?
Perhaps he called United and didn’t like the answer he got. If he looked up a number when he called again, rather than hitting redial, he could have gotten a scam number.
It sounds like an inside job. A United employee takes the call, seems to help, places them on hold, transfers the call, and then takes a cut of the proceeds.
@Ron: At that level I can see a call center agent deciding that a 10-20% cut on a few calls is absolutely worth the risk – even more if the call center is overseas (a 10% cut on a single call would be three months’ average wages in the Philippines).
It is pretty obvious what happened and not sure how you didn’t figure it out. I was imagining this scenario in my head while reading the article you wrote before you got down to the real story.
1. Guy calls United Airlines.
2. UA agent is not properly trained.
3. UA agent as is almost always the case with customer service agents isn’t the correct person or the correct department to handle the guy’s inquiry.
4. UA AGENT GOOGLES THEIR OWN PHONE NUMBER INSTEAD OF LOOKING AT INTERNAL DOCS
5. Guy gets forwarded to the scam agency.
I bet if you check with United Airlines you’ll find they can forward your call anywhere and not just internal numbers. If that’s the case this is your answer. And if this is the case there’s no way to really protect yourself from this. I had Geico do something similar to me at renewal time and nearly tripled my insurance rates. It wasn’t until I demanded the agent identify himself that he admitted he was with a completely different insurer I had no connection with even though I’d called the agent number on my policy.
I think @Ron called this one right.
During the 3 hours her was on the phone with United, how many times was his call transferred to another customer service representative? Maybe they transferred him to the scammers.
A vote for @Ron and a vote for @Ryan – both are not only possible but probable. A good lesson learned here!