Beware 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 – like a new flight when yours is cancelled, or seat assignments.
Here’s someone whose 17 year old son’s American Airlines flight was cancelled. They called who they thought was American Airlines, “and ended up paying $250 more for the ticket home.”
I’m on the phone now (on hold) with American and the next available flight they can get him is with Delta tomorrow, where does he stay for the night, will they provide lodging? He’s 17, in Boston. Thanks for any info!
Update, we got him a ticket home for tomorrow and the college where he was doing a summer music program has approved his stay there for an additional night. I messed up in my panic and thought I was calling American Airlines, and instead called a third party reservation company that was presenting themselves as American and ended up paying $250 more for the ticket home. I double checked with Delta and the ticket is legit. Thanks for help and suggestions!
I’ve written about scammers taking over an old Singapore Airlines phone number and pretending to be Singapore Airlines when customers call. The scammers charge high fees for basic services the airline would normally provide for free.
Meanwhile, 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 buying Google ads to appear that you’ve found the airline’s phone number. They’re doing this with United Airlines, JetBlue, Hawaiian and others. You get connected to an agency with a 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.
Do not trust Google search results for airline phone numbers. You need to go to the airline’s website itself and look up their number.
Great article, Gary ! Absolutely true, it’s truly sad how much Google has fallen from its origins and their motto “Do No Evil”. The fact that they intentionally abandoned this motto says all you need to know about Google.
Use DuckDuckGo or another browser instead. I have been for years.
yep i did it with Spirit once, I hung up right away of course!
Old scam new day. Also keep the correct numbers logged in your contacts. Scammers often use numbers that are just one incorrect # off from the legit.
I got burnt similarly with google search for Tanzania E-visa. Paid extra, got it late.
This scam has escalated over the years. One might Google an airline and, for instance United Airlines, and get a URL that seems to be United, ie: United.book.com which appears at the top of Google’s search list. On selecting that click bait, they get a website that looks like United but in fact is a third party. My neighbor fell for that when she searched for a ticket to Florida. When she mentioned all of the selections to me, I realized that she had been duped. We immediately called her credit card company, explained what happened and put a stop to the charge. I then directed her to the correct web site and booked the same flight and amenities at $50 cheaper. We also copied the URL and sent it to the affected airline. The airline can fight this but the sheisters will come at it again with a slightly different URL. Caveat emptor… let the buyer beware!
Beause google, as well as the entire IT industry is run by Indians and they enable their scammer buddies to post these links. India is a financial drain on the world, they rob you be it ‘legally’ or through scams. The west is obsessed with Islamophobia and hate on the other hand and Indian scamming is ignored. When will these people be labeled financial terrorists and when will India face sanctions for not doing anything about these crimes?
Happened recently to me calling an air france number. Fotunately I realized it and hung up.
Problen is they are NOT legally scammers because they offer you a product and deliver it. So no basis to make a cc claim.
Someone on htis site doesnt like Indians.Very racist comment .
Well Joseph, they ARE Indians. All of these scammy online travel agencies are based in India, nobody else in the world works day and night to cheat and scam people out of money like these Indians, just their culture.
They also do this with rental car agencies – and it never ends up well when they are unknowingly called
Even Cleveland is racist as they changed their name from Indians to Guardians 😉
It’s not just airlines. My brother almost got scammed when his laptop failed and he tried to Google Apple tech support. It wasn’t. Instead it was a scammer who even tried to rope me in when I needed to “vouch” for my brother that he was legit. Fortunately I caught them out and refused.
Hold Google Accountable for these scam numbers and they will think twice about selling these ads going forward.
Let’s be clear. 99.9% of Indians are ashamed and embarrassed that the 0.1% of their country has chosen to make a living off scams.
Cut communication capabilities from India and Jamaica and it would dramatically reduce phone fraud in America.
It’s not just airlines. I was recently checking in a hotel behind a family who had googled the hotels number and had made a reservation paid for up front by debit card. They even had received an email confirmation, though if they had looked at it carefully, they’d have noticed red flags. Anyway, they had no reservation, the hotel was full, and I’m sure they never got their money back.
AA, DL, and UA all provide phone numbers in their (of course I use Android) app, though it seemed to be buried for AA. However, I’ll make sure I have the right contact already on my phone. When travelling outside the US, I’ll make sure the local number is there, too.
It’s probably best that peoples don’t use Google thing for this, especially if something Shady like this is going about
@SFW/EWR, I understand your point but let’s be clear it’s actually far less than 0.1% as there are certainly NOT 140,000,000 of these scammers in India.
How do the people operating these fake numbers actually change the airline ticket or add auxiliary services?
If I call a scammer’s fake number and pay for a change to my flight how do they actually get into the airine’s system to make the changes?
@Andrew
.1% (i.e. .001) of 1.4BB is 1,400,000 not 140,000,000
0.1% of India’s population is about 1.4 million people (India has about 1.4 billion people.) 0.1% is one tenth of one percent or one in one thousand.
Simple solution — never click a sponsored link.
@Esaphire3 – many of these aren’t sponsored, just the top results
With all the $Billions Google has, they could clean this up, but Google has become a poor-service, scam IT enterprise!
We got scammed/stolen from by the once-premium airline Lufthansa during a June 2024 trip. Lufthansa conveniently lost our purchased upgrade to business class and we were put in economy – a theft that cost us $1,000 each, total $2,000.
Then the Lufthansa flight back to YVR was 4 hours late in departing. In addition, one of the toilets was leaking sewage into the cabin. Further, the Lufthansa crew were arrogant and condescending!
Lufthansa has become an over-priced airline with services and reliability on par with Ryan and Spirit airlines.
We got scammed by Lufthansa in June – we bought two upgrades to business class (approx $2,000), but Lufthansa conveniently lost the purchase after a cancelling two of our flights and re-routing us on an entirely new itinerary. Despite our providing the email from Lufthansa of the upgraded purchase, and our credit card receipt/billing, Lufthansa is still denying us the refund. What a scam!
I trusted google search, had so good experience before.
But i regreted it now. I fall into the cheap air ticket trick linked to me throught google, the scam site is called Tarifasodeal. I have reported them to BBB.
Google should get rid of Tarifasodeal to prevent more people from being scamed
Avoid them.