Recent airline chaos is creating more openings for online fraud. With staff shortages, high prices and flight cancellations, air travel is an easy target.
The Better Business Bureau has issued a warning about a new scam trend they’re seeing popping up across the country.
They say scammers are taking advantage of our flying frustrations by creating third-party sites where you can buy discounted tickets.
With rising rates, it seems too good to be true. It is, and it’s only getting worse.
After you book and pay, BBB says a fake customer service representative may call or email you saying you need to pay an additional fee to complete the reservation.
In other cases, they hear people say that a fake customer service representative will get in touch and say that the flight you booked just got canceled, so you have to pay something else to rebook.
But the Better Business Bureau Serving Connecticut says in those cases, there was no ticket to begin with.
While they haven’t had any reports of a victim in our state, they say it’s happening in parts of the country which they believe means it’s likely affecting Connecticut consumers.
“One victim says she later called the airline and they said they had no record of her flight, so we tell people you need to research these third-party booking sites, go to BBB.org, look at the reviews of previous customers,” he said. Kristen Johnson, director of communications for BBB Serving CT.
Johnson warns that the “customer service” rep is even stealing people’s personal information and credit card number, so be careful.
BBB says they even see people booking legitimate flights through the proper channels after they receive cancellation emails from scammers who want to help you rebook, but your flight was never canceled. So make sure you check with the airline first.
We all want to find the cheapest flight price, but there are many different third party sites. How do you know they are legit?
Search or Google the company name with the word scam, go to bbb.org to see if anyone has reported the company called, and finally go to the airline’s website to make sure the flight really exists
