It happened to me here at the office once. I wrote about it back in 2023. (https://groupsource.com/the-tale-of-the-scammer-be-careful-out-there-friends/)
That particular occasion, it was a busy day and I dialed a single digit incorrectly, but an oh so savvy scammer had counted on that misdial and had a similar number to the carrier. It ended with a conversation with the scammer, the actual carrier and a Federal agency to report the incident. This particular group was well known for their antics and theft of money from multiple customers. They were eventually caught and shut down.
Now in 2025 our agency had a similar situation occur this time with one of our clients. This passenger was a part of a group, but at the last minute he could not fly due an unforeseen circumstance. Instead of calling to cancel and reserve the ticket for future credit, he didn’t show up to airport and became a dreaded “no show.” In general the rule of the carrier is if you do not cancel prior to the flight and you don’t fly, there is no recourse. So the passenger Googled United and called the number he found. Once on the phone, he told the agent that answered what had happened and they agreed to help him. The agent told him they could reinstate the ticket for $200.00 which they promptly charged to his credit card. Sounds great right? Until it wasn’t.
The number he had called from Google was representing themselves as United but in actuality they were a third-party company. This agent called United, posed as our client with all of the information they had gathered from him and were able to have United reinstate the ticket based on the reason why he couldn’t fly. The agent returned to the phone letting him know that all was taken care of. The client then reached out to his agent here at GroupSource to find out how to use the credit. That is when our Agency unraveled what had happened.
Had he called us, or the actual number for United, he would not have paid the $200.00 fee, had his ticket reinstated and now we have an offer from United for a full refund on the ticket again due to the reason he could not fly. Our Agent stepped in and with the help of United he was squared away. Until… he received a call from “United” asking about his credit, asking for a ticket number and PNR which United would obviously have. It sent red flags up and a warning. We advised the client that they needed to not engage those calls and to alert the credit card company due to possible fraud and also the possibility that his information was compromised. Our office also called United and put a note on the ticket that no one other than our agency would be dealing with the rebooking of the ticket.
These are the things that we as agents cannot say enough: We are here for a reason. In this modern age of Google and now AI, it has made us too comfortable with what is on the internet and we accept it as truth. When you book with an Agency like ours, you have our full attention and our full service. We go above and beyond to insure these kinds of things do not happen to our clients. So when you are working online in any capacity please be careful out there. As adaptive to these changes as we all are, we can often get ourselves into situations that can cost us time and money. When you hire an expert in the field allow them to do the work for you. After all that is why you came to us in the first place!