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.
Rogue phone agent at United transferred the call to scammers and got a cut.
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.
I feel that way everytime I get my called transferred to a different dept. Even though I call the correct # to begin with, how does anyone know who we are getting transferred to? Plenty of nefarious employees out there.
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.
If you look at the video in the original story that Gary linked to (https://www.9news.com/article/money/consumer/steve-on-your-side/united-airlines-customer-lost-thousands-call-customer-service-line/73-906f5a7a-92d9-4aa5-b432-d12a9dbbad87) there is a purported screenshot in the video. The caller ID shows over 3 hours, but the name shown by the caller ID is “Spam – United Airlines”
That suggests a scammer registered “United Airlines” as his caller ID. Even though that was done, the system saw it as SPAM.
United likely has a recording of the 13 minute call, and how it ended would be a clue as to how the other call went through. Most likely scenario – he was dealing with a legit United number and got disconnected. When he called United back, somehow he input the number of the scam agency. What else could it be that doesn’t involve magic?
@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!
Yeah, I think that Ron and Ryan are both possible, and that these are the only two plausible explanations.
The customers’ ignorance allowed them to be preyed upon. Sad.
“committed to finding a fair resolution for him.”
A fair resolution is to pay him for the extra charges above what he paid on his original ticket and pay him for his time talking with customer service at his overtime work rate. If he is retired, pay him at his former job current overtime work rate. If he is salaried, divide the annual salary by 2088 and multiply by 1.5. He should also have the card he used closed and reissued.
A credit card dispute doesn’t always work. I booked a three-leg flight to Mexico with Expedia in business class, or so I was told. It turned out that the final leg was coach, though business class was available on that flight. Expedia rebuffed my complaint. Delta and Aeromexico said there was nothing they could do, and I accept that as valid. These calls were all before the trip. So I called Chase, twice, before taking the trip. I asked both agents if I should file a dispute before the trip or after. They both told me after. So, I did just that. The short take is that having filed the dispute after I took the trip I had lost my right to dispute, Chase decided. As my complaint was escalated, Chase acknowledged that I had asked the company’s agents that I should travel before disputing. But tough luck. And the higher up the ladder it went (3 levels), the more nasty the Chase agents were. (I’m the fight with facts type, not the hostile type.) So, I cancelled the Chase card. (I didn’t have a specific idea about what compensation I might have been entitle to, but it would have been small.) Yes, it was Expedia’s fault, but Chase was unwilling to do anything though Expedia, Delta, and Aeromexico all agreed I had been stiffed.
Unless they have read an article about the google ad scams, I don’t know that an unsophisticated person would know not to google airline numbers. Incidentally, the hotels are even worse. Googling a hotel name will rarely even include a legitimate result on the first page. I once stood in line for a long time at a hotel desk behind a family that had fallen for one, only to find they had no reservation and they mentioned that the number had insisted they use a debit card. To prepay They’ll never see that money again. Never, ever use a debit card as a charge card. Also, I think Google should start being more responsible for these things. They know their ads are being used this way.
@ryan is likely the best plausible explanation. United workers are great people, and like all people, they are under stress. Maybe their system to look up the right number was down, and (more likely) they are provided incentives to decrease customer time… So why not Google numbers when your own internal system isn’t working? It’s a thing. I also think that United will do the right thing as well as Delta. What needs to happen is better penalties under the CPA, so we will see what happens
It amazes me how many people in this column are calling the passenger “foolish” and how he should have known better. Finding the right person to talk to at an airline, credit card company and many other places can be difficult. How nice that so many “smart” people think they can’t be duped. Wait until it happens to you.
Airlines often outsource overflow calls to contracted call centers. If one of those subcontractors (or a rogue agent inside it) funneled the customer into their own scam “agency,” it could look like United acknowledged the call but didn’t process the charge
I can’t believe someone got scammed for $17,000 after a flight cancellation! It’s crazy how easy it is to fall for these scams, especially when searching for airline numbers online. Always double-check the sources, folks!
Can confirm united hires scammers, maybe no knowingly but I also had issue that united tried to cover up until I reached to the person under the head of customer service. Long story short, my reservation kept getting cancelled and united was telling me it was my fault, they could see the ip address it was being messed with from so I asked them for the address, surprise, they wouldn’t give it to me. I was being told I cancelled my own trip to Japan (3 times all in the middle of the night) After a bunch of back and forth the lady at the top of the chain gave me the up address….it was in the Philippines. They never offered an apology. But they did offer a refund. So I took it and will never willingly fly them again.
Since UA has a record of the call they know who the agent was. Then they also would have a record of customer being transferred and to whom, supporting the best case scenarios here.
Easy (assuming the reported facts are true) – he called United for 12 minutes, got the runaround, cutoff, etc and had to call back. He mis-dialed a number a digit off. Scammers know this, somehow get access to these numbers, the call gets routed and the scam begins. Websites do this too with misspellings.
I always record my conversations with any customer service people. l live in a one-party consent state, but given that the customer service announces that they are recording the call for quality assurance, I can do the same.
BTW, my Pixel 9 has built in call recording; in addition to the recording I get a written transcript (done on phone) and a written summary of the call.
When you throw the switch to record the call it announces that you are recording the call. Depending on when you throw that switch the called party may or may not hear the message.
I’m with @kimmiea, @Ron, and @Ryan on this one. Man, I really hate scammers.
I recently had something like this happen on United, I called the 1K line which I always do. I wanted to change my flight. The person on the other end stated he would change my flight if I provided my passport number for free. I told him I was out and about and did not have my passport with me. He was insisting I provide my passport number and also wanted me to verify my home address. I said I would call back and hung up. Called United back and they confirmed they do not ask these questions. I dialed the same number both times as I rechecked my call log. I did report it to 1K customer care which basically told me to watch out for scammers. I mentioned I was calling YOUR number which would indicate to me that someone is routing YOUR calls and you might want to look into it. They did not seem bothered by it at all. 🙁