A passenger who booked British Airways roundtrip business class tickets from London Heathrow to Atlanta found themselves checking in for their return flight with no reservations – with the airline demanding an additional US$17,511 for them to fly home.
They flew the outbound part of the trip to Atlanta on October 27, and left a jacket behind on the plane. British Airways directed them to airport lost and found. Atlana airport lost and found sent them back to British Airways. So he took to twitter for help.
@British_Airways @atlantaairport_ Left an item of clothing on flight BA 227 into ATL from LHR on Oct 27. BA website says contact the airport. ATL phone system tells me, if lost on plan to contact my airline. Would one of you tell me who is responsible for loss property? Thanks.
— Geoff Spink (@GP_Spink) October 31, 2025
There, scammers posing as the airline responded (users like “BA Claim Review,” “BA Assistance Help,” and “BA Travel Advice”), asking him to message them and provide a phone number.
- A scammer calls him on WhatsApp, offers “compensation,” and pushes him to download a money transfer app s othey can send the funds. He’s prompted to “enter a code” that would have actually sent money to the scammers instead.
- The passenger thought this was real at first, realized it was a scam, and stopped responding to their calls and messages.
- He’d provided his reservation details. And – purely out of spite – they cancelled the return portion of his trip.
While British Airways sent a cancellaton message, he assumed it was a message related to the scam and he ignored it. When he tried to check in for the flight home, British Airways had no booking. The airline refused to reinstate the ticket, and insisted he would have to buy new ones. And on a walk up basis that was going to cost about seventeen grand for the one way trip. Instead he shelled out $5,200 so they could travel home in premium economy. His travel insurer rejected the claim. A live claim is pending with American Express.
There are all sorts of variations on scam travel agencies extorting cash from passengers. 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.)
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.
Another variation on this scam is that the agency takes over Google’s search results for the airline at a specific airport, and displays their own 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. Similarly you need to be very sure you’re dealing with an airline’s official account on X (née Twitter).
However, usually when a scammer cancels your booking without authorization, the airline helps to fix things – like Delta did. In this case, the travel agency scammed the passenger and then British Airways extorted them for more money.
To be sure, BA can argue that the passenger is at fault for giving the perpetrator their confirmation number. But it’s unusual to be charged double to restore seats.
If I were these customers, I’d file a Department of Transportation Consumer Complaint arguing that I was being (1) involuntarily denied boarding despite purchasing a ticket for the flight, and (2) being subjected to a post-purchase price increase. It doesn’t matter if you win that dispute. This would escalate things way beyond front line customer service who are trained to pick and choose pre-written responses denying compensation.
Curious about how poorly Google handles searches, I typed ‘American Airlines JFK telephone number’ and sure enough, two (2) imposter leads – and crummy ones at that – showed up among the first 20 Google results.
I’mm’a give this an ‘oof’ a ‘yikes’ a ‘wowza’ and a *facepalm*
in my experience, BA does as little as is inhumanly possible for their passengers. Run away from them!
Google allows fake ads that scam people just to make a buck? No wonder they changed their slogan from “don’t be evil”.
Your last statement is on point… file a Department of Transportation Consumer Complaint.
That may or may not result in the desired or fair outcome, however this is the ONLY wait to make sure it gets past the form letter denials since each of these complaints filed with the DOT gets reviewed somewhat up the chain.
I wouldn’t bother with the US Dept of Transportation. Since the flight was LHR-ATL and return, I’d start with the UK Civil Aviation Authority, https://caa.co.uk They will likely be much more responsive, especially for BA flights.
Or file in both places.
What’s surprising is that at least on X, BA requires a lot of info including address, how many passengers on the reservation, last 4 digits of credit card used to make the purchase etc., before they will make changes.
The first rule is that when you find yourself in a hole is to quit digging. This passenger did not quit digging. Lost something an airplane? Go to the airport lost and found and if that doesn’t work, go to the airline office. Less convenient? Yes. But a whole lot less likely that you would be talking to a scammer. I don’t see why any company owes him anything. After all it was an act of negligence leaving the jacket behind. Everything after that was wrong moves and negligence. If he wants compensation, track down the scammers and take them to court.
@1990 – and here I thought you were going to take the opportunity to say that relying on AI searches is an unreliable tool and a stock market bubble…
@Peter — No, no… AI is our friend… and I, for one, welcome our AI overlords… *facepalm*
Scary! Paypal’s official website has a scam number when you press the “Call us” button.
The real number is (888) 221-1161.
I think the bigger issue is BA hates its passengers – on a flight the cabin crew forgot to give BA could care less.
BA will do nothing to “serve” its passengers.
How can one be sure they are getting a real number
I have long thought it rediculous that having a confirmation number and last name is the sole roadblock to ticket cancelation, while at the same time airlines sending email confirmations designed to be shared with others that include this confirmation number. In a word of apps and MFA, how do we not have some secondary layer, a whiff of security, around this?
Why would you put all the details on Twitter? I can see posting something generically seeking advice from other users, but surely you would send the specifics in a private communication, to the company, wouldn’t you? It seems to me he was begging to be scammed. Not that BA handled it correctly, but we always need to be alert to scammers.
@jns. Yes, totally. In the screenshot, the guy asks “who is responsible”… dude, *you* are responsible.
I also wonder why he didn’t tell BA to go pound sand, and book the return flight on another airline. He may have been holding out hope of a partial refund, but 5k is a big bet.
I think most airline’s actually hate their customers some more than others. You’re a correct British airway one of the worst. But only the airline industry treats executives first employees second and customers third when it should be the exactly the other way around
If I read this article correctly, it applies to a gentleman…singular…not plural. So, why does the author refer to the person as “he” or “him” in one sentence and “them” or “themselves” in another? Which “gender” is he kowtowing to? I agree with others that an internet search, using whatever search engine you use, puts “sponsored” or “paid” results up top. Recently, a friend booked a ticket on a major airline. She questioned me about a booking fee charged and why, when she went to the airline’s web site, she couldn’t change her seat. As soon as I looked at her reservation information, she booked it through a third party that used the airline’s name as part of the URL. Something like, http://www.XXXairline.bookingagent.xxxairline.com. She fell for it. Luckily, she was able to cancel the reservation, went to the correct airline web site and found a better price, no booking fee and able to change her seat at will. I blame the search engine, the crooked booking agents and the airlines for not prohibiting the use of their name by a booking agent. Yes, the airline can enforce the use of a trademark name.
Please spellcheck….. Atlana, cancellion. Starting a sentence with a capital And. This gave me a headache to read.
Google has a similar problem with searches for concert or show tickets. The aftermarket reseller/price gouger sites appear before the site of the actual performing/presenting organization in the results list . Can’t trust their results anymore.
Reminds me of the fools who leave their boarding pass stubs in the seat pocket – I have:
– Your name
– FF# (though some are masked now)
– Record Locator
Can easily do what the folks above did with all that – Even with BA MMB – that’s all I need to cancel a a booking
Apparently Google now intentionally doesn’t put the best results first because you see more adds trying to find the good one.
A complicating factor is that many companies make it very difficult to find a contact phone number on their website – searching with google is sometimes the only way to find it.
I have my preferred carriers on my Contact list using phone numbers I got from their websites.
Sadly this is par for the course with British Airways. After five weeks of waiting for a flight cancellation refund I raised a customer service case a week ago, which was closed within an hour a useless generic ‘help’ email totally unrelated to my request. And then after I told them to reopen it they then asked me ‘for my security’ to email a copy of the passport that I used to check in for a flight I never took. Unfortunately it’s normal behaviour for BA and, I suspect, deliberate policy in the hope that people will just give up.
An alternative course of action would be to raise a complaint with CEDR, their independent dispute resolution party. I would go with the same arguments as you are suggesting though, that the passenger did not cancel the flight and has been denied boarding. As a British airline they are subject to the EC261/2004 customer protection legislation retained on the British statute books after Brexit.
How do you know or is there a way to know you’re calling A number for an airline that is not a scam.
@johnny
RE: Address, last 4 digits etc. Those are the standard verification questions. You can get one wrong OR request a different question ( eg: instead of the last 4 digits can you ask me another question. I do this regularly).
They’re designed to protect the pax by requiring a cumulative amount of personal data that between them shouldn’t, statistically, all be in the hands of a scammer. They’re also legally required to comply with consumer & data protection laws, GDPR compliance and the likes.
Obviously anyone ever being asked for a complete card number should immediately hang up and contact BA via their website contact details as mentioned.
Even if you’re communicating via X DMs/ live chat the customer verification requirements still apply ( and are limited in what questions/ information comply )
Why do you keep bouncing back and forth between he and they? Do you have ai right this article for you or something? You’ve been doing this too long for such a sloppy example of writing.
@John Tsouris — The ‘pronouns’ aren’t coming to get you, John. Live a little.
“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.)”
There is nothing remotely shocking about this to me. I have flown with DAL numerous times and have never had a bad experience. I have been delayed overnight on two occasions, and both times was transported to a comfortable hotel and provided either meals. Delta is old-school. I never fly with any other airline if I can avoid it.
(Corrected post)
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.)”
There is nothing remotely shocking about this to me. I have flown with DAL numerous times and have never had a bad experience. I have been delayed overnight on two occasions, and both times was transported along with everyone on the flight to a comfortable hotel and provided with rooms and meals. Delta is old-school. I never fly with any other airline if I can avoid it.