Airfare Ticketing Scams

From SmarterTravel

Travel scams have been around almost as long as travel itself, and as the travel industry has gravitated toward the Internet, scammers have moved in as well

Phony Websites

One prevalent scam hits victims with a triple whammy.

The Scam

A scamster sets up a website purporting to sell cheap air tickets – typically, at prices lower than the best available from legitimate outfits. The site looks about like any other online cheap-ticket site. The scamster “sells” a ticket to a customer, who buys with a credit card. Within a day or two, the scammer sends the victim a message saying that his/her credit card was declined and that the only way to preserve the great deal is to use an electronic transfer through Western Union or directly from the victim’s bank account. Of course, there’s no ticket.

Published reports have cited four such suspect sites: busysky.net, submitprice.net, crazytickets.net, and cheapclouds.com. As of early September 2008, none of those sites was currently active. But catchy names are easy to generate, new URLs are cheap, and honesty is not required to design a good-looking website.

The Loss

Before the victim can determine that the transaction was phony, he/she is likely to suffer up to three separate losses:

1. The amount of the wire transfer.

2. Additional credit card charges, as the scamster uses the credit card information to buy big-ticket merchandise, resold at a big “discount” to unsuspecting buyers.

3. Additional loss from his/her checking account balance, as the scamster uses the bank account information to transfer additional funds.

Phony Personal Sales

A similar Internet scam involves air ticket postings by individuals.

The Scam

A scamster lists an extremely attractive deal on a popular buy/sell website. Craigslist is apparently more vulnerable than Ebay, which screens sellers more carefully. The scamster takes an online or phone order, asks for a wire transfer of the price, uses a stolen credit card to make a reservation at the regular fare, and sends a copy of the supposedly legitimate reservation confirmation to the victim. The victim can even independently confirm the reservation through the airline’s website. Within a few days, the airline discovers the credit card fraud and cancels the booking. The airline may or may not notify the victim of the cancellation. But in any event, the scamster has the victim’s money and the victim has no ticket. Reports of this scam involved Southwest Airlines tickets, but scamsters could easily involve other lines in a similar way.

The Loss

The value of the funds sent to the scamster.

Malware in “Airline” Email Messages

Still another approach involves malware incorporated into an email message.

The Scam

A scamster sends an email to a randomly chosen victim, thanking the victim for using the airline’s online ticketing site, noting that the victim’s credit card had been charged a plausible amount for the price of a ticket, and showing an attachment claiming to be an invoice for the ticket and a credit card record. The unsuspecting victim – who probably hadn’t bought any air tickets – opens the attachment so that he/she can dispute the charge. The attachment, of course, unleashes a Trojan horse that steals keystrokes and other potentially valuable information from the victim’s computer and forwards it to an untraceable offshore computer.

The Loss

Indeterminate, depending on how the scamster used the information obtained through the Trojan.

Stolen or Fake Vouchers

As recently as 10 years ago, many air ticket scams involved counterfeit or stolen “ticket stock,” the blank ticket books that travel agents formerly used to hand-write tickets. That scam disappeared with the virtual disappearance of hand-written tickets. In its place, some scamsters now deal with stolen or counterfeit versions of the one form of paper currency still used by airlines: vouchers.

The Scam

A scamster obtains a supply of airline vouchers, such as those issued to employees or given by airlines to entice travelers to give up their overbooked seats. The vouchers could be stolen or counterfeit. Either way, the scamster advertises “discounted” air deals and sells vouchers for a fraction of their face value.

The Loss

If the airline discovers the theft or counterfeit, it will dishonor the vouchers, and the buyer loses what he/she paid; if the airline doesn’t find out, the airline loses potential revenue.

“Classic” Scams

A few scams, largely overtaken by technology and industry changes, may still linger:

• Travel agents sold highly discounted and highly restricted tickets to clients for the airline’s published fares – higher, of course – and pocketed the difference.

• Consolidators took travelers’ money in advance for promised bookings they couldn’t actually make, then left town with the advance payments.

Avoiding Scams

Avoiding these and other travel scams requires consumers to rely on suggestions that have been around a long time:

• If it looks too good to be true, it is too good to be true.

• Maintain strong antivirus protections at all times.

• Don’t ever assume that any email is genuine, and don’t open suspicious attachments.

• Don’t give bank account information or wire-transfer money to unknown and untrusted sellers.

• Buy with a credit card, which offers the potential of a chargeback in the event of fraud.