This is a cautionary tale for anyone scrambling to fix a flight cancellation: one traveler lost over $17,000 while speaking to what he believed was United’s customer service. And he even dialed the correct number! This is a mysterious story, though we now have an update on how it happened that is at least plausible.
Traveler Calls United Airlines, Ends Up Scammed Out of $17K+ Despite Dialing Official Number
After a canceled United flight to Europe, Denver resident Dan Smoker called the official customer service line (1-800-United1). What followed was a three-hour phone call, a charge of $17,328 to his credit card, and now a long fight for answers.
First, Smoker reached a female agent concerning a flight cancellation. She put him on hold and then a male “agent” returned to the call.
The scam involved a person who identified himself as “David,” rebooking the flight and charging Smoker’s card under the promise of a refund. The confirmation email wasn’t from United, and the charge showed up as “AIRLINEFARE” on his statement. He later received this email:
After 45 days, Smoker called back the number above. “David” answered again, promised to look into this refund, but then blocked him.
Smoker has disputed the charge with his bank and wants United to absorb the loss. United Airlines confirmed the call, said it’s investigating, and stated: “We’re committed to finding a fair resolution for him.” Oddly, United says their call records show he was only on the line for 12 minutes, while his own phone shows he was on for over three hours.
Inside Job? United Airlines Says Agent Made Honest Mistake
Like many, when I first heard about this story, I simply assumed the guy googled United and got scammed by a fake number that pays Google for priority search results. I’ve written about those stories before. But as I mentioned above, he called United’s real number. While on the phone with the first agent, it appears he was transferred to “David” where they spent the next three hours on the phone.
> Read More: Google’s Shameful Promotion Of Scam Travel Agents
United now claims that in trying to facilite the rebooking, the agent googled the phone number of the (unidenfied) other airline and then transferred Smoker…so she apparently got hoodwinked too.
United is working with Smoker’s credit card company to chargeback the $17,328.00.
Well, I still may be skeptical, but at least that is plausible. Many United reservation agents work from home and I suppose googling a number could be easier than trying to find it in United’s internal system. Still, I know United trains their agents on scams like this…it’s a very disappointing error.
That said, I remain surprised by this story…I mean, watch the video above, but how gullible is this guy? Like, why would you possibly accept a $17,328 charge on your card, even with the promise of a refund? And when you say the charge came from “AIRLINEFARE” (not United), wouldn’t that prompt you to dispute the charge as fraudulent immediately?
Just for kicks, I called the number before publishing this story.
“David” answered my call…the scam continues.
Go ahead and call David…you can reach him at 301.861.3262.
CONCLUSION
A man was scammed out of over $17K despite calling United’s official number. If something about the interaction feels off, hang up, check the domain and email closely, and insist on official confirmation before you pay. I am confident that United will make this right if the credit card company does not claw back the money, but I’m a little disappointed that Smoker, who seems like a reasonable guy, did not recognize what was happening while it was happening. Same with the “real” United agent: she should have known better.
Nah.
He just called a scammer and got taken to the cleaners. He’s in denial about that and is embarassed, so he wants to blame some magic technology (which doesn’t exist) or wants to blame some rogue United employee (who would quickly be found and would lose his job…and for what?).
But it makes great clickbait.
So you’re saying he falsified his call records?
I’m saying:
1. He’s an idiot (plenty of them out there). There are SOOO many bright, big red flags in everything that he saw, heard, and responded to that it seems pretty clear this guy is not the sharpest tool in the box.
2. He’s chosen to make a big, public stink about this, so now the stakes have gotten higher – beyond the $17K he foolishly handed the scammers. Now he’s famous, too – and famous for being suckered. It’s embarrassing. It’s human nature to want there to be somebody else, something else to blame beyond his own cluelessness.
3. He (and everyone like you who’s gullible enough to make him even more famous with his clickbait story) is pointing fingers at some as-yet unknown magic technology that can hijack a phone call (yeah, sure) and/or some rogue United employee – who surely would know he would be quickly caught and would lose his job and be prosecuted.
4. Secret alien technology for scammers to intercept phone calls is a fantasy. It does not exist (unless maybe you’re in a Tom Cruise movie). Yet millions of ignorant fools believe that’s how this clown got scammed. What a crock!
5. Any United employee would know that if they discreetly forwarded a customer to a scammer, they would quickly be out of a job and probably in jail soon enough. Same for a contractor working at a foreign call center – those are good jobs in the local context, and getting fired (and probably jailed) is just not worth the risk.
6. What do you think is more likely? A secret alien technology was used. A struggling low-income phone agent was hoping he could get away with being in on the scam (even though he knows his every movement and each keystroke is being monitored)? Or some nimrod Googled “United” and called the scammer (or he simply fat-fingered when dialing and landed in the scammer’s lap)? Do you believe in magic?
7. Oh there are “call logs”. Maybe so…who has seen them and examined them and MATCHED THEM UP? I’m sure there were all sorts of “calls”. AFAICT everyone is 100% relying on what the victim is telling them – but the victim is not credible, nor is the “reporter” or other pretend “journalists” who are just breathlessly repeating the original source.
Common sense seems to be completely gone. The world is populated by simpering morons who automatically believe every bullshit lie that they see on a screen. Look around you, that’s our world. It explains a lot.
@Bobo … Agree . Ridiculous , and ultra-fishy , smell is a give-away .
Smells like a lying maga troll.
Even UA says he called them
Are you in on the scam or something?
@Matthew … Why does the e-mail address smell fishy ?
“reservations@airreservations.com”
@Matthew … Why would UA reservations employees “work from home” ? Red Flag .
Why would UA reservations employees “google” phone numbers for their own company reservations ? Red Flag .
Why would an airline come up with fishy-smelling excuses such as the above ? Red Flag .
Three Red Flags .
The only real explanation I can think of is that you haven’t tried to staff a large volume call center lately.
As an IT professional and former UA employee , my opinion is it was an honest oversight by the agent, and a gullible, hasty action by the weary traveler. UA provides its employees thorough training on how to recognize and prevent fraud. But that training mostly covers email and text scams (phishing and smishing). Dangers exposed by Googling and phone transfers need to be included in any internal cybersecurity training. United has some homework to do.
That’s small potatoes. Delta usually gets $19K in scam revenue. American barely tops $14K.
Would seem the grammar alone would be the red flag
“Oddly, United says their call records show he was only on the line for 12 minutes”
This is the most interesting part…so did contact UA, but somehow at some point was transferred to the scammer? Regardless of how gullible he is, that is still very shady.
Speaking of smokers, figured our resident Pole Smoker would comment.
Speaking of racist homophobic bigots, figured our racist homophobic bigot would comment.
Yep I’m a homophobe, certainly don’t want any AIDS invested gay boy near me spreading their deviant lifestyle around.
And 80+% of Americans agree with me fruitcake.
Ah another made up statistic by an ignorant person. Also nobody wants sex with you, gay or straight (despite your obsession with gay sex), so you don’t have to worry about. Now do us all a favor and drop dead you hateful Nazi.
Sorry ass clown, I DEFEND the Jewish people from the terrorists and their supporters like you defending them killing Jews.
You people throw that term around so much it sadly means nothing anymore. You probably called your father the same thing because he was sick until the day he died knowing his son let’s guys finish in his mouth. Imagine the grief and humiliation he took from his friends when they found out about you.
Who is the real Nazi here f@ggot?
My bad, comparing you to Nazis was really insulting and offensive.
To Nazis.
You are a far worse example of humanity. If we can call a hatefilled scumbag like you human, that is.
It really is sad how seem to live rent free in your mind, and how much I probably give your right hand a work out.
Have to admit, as one who thinks he’s virtually unscammable at that $ amount, I’d might have been caught in the original scam, assuming he did call the official UA number and stayed on the line, being transferred to David. I would have followed up sooner, yes. It’s a pretty bold scam, assuming the evidence at hand. UA presumably knows who he originally talked to. There’s no excuse for that person to transfer him outside UA. And, David still exists at that number. I look forward to a followup if one occurs.
And, now all the folks who doubted his story can apologize. UA admits his transfer to a scammer.
If true , UA has a lot of questions to answer .
Yep
He called UA, got transferred to a scammer. That’s why United is being quiet about it.
Maybe. But it stills sounds fishy, and when that is the case, it is usually because it’s fishy.
I still have some questions. For example, could there have been a 12 minute call to United, a disconnect, then he googled the number to call back and get the scammer? What did they talk about for 3 hours? What was he told the $17k charge was for? Did he challenge the charge with the credit card company, and if so, what did they say? (They’d have had a hard time collecting from me. Or did he use a debit card, which these scammers usually request, and is a dead giveaway?) What did his UA account show?
Clearly, the initial agent that answered the United call (who is most likely a United employee) is part of the grift and transferred his call to ‘David’. I would imagine United has some way to figure out who that person is, and they are in the process of documenting all they need to (which could be complicated if she works in a foreign country) document, and they also need to figure out who else is doing this and how to stop it. So they are not going to say much for a while….
Records show he called United albeit a shorter time and victim records show 3 hrs for same number. I agree it was an inside job with that United employee getting a kick back from the scammer OR United Airlines phone systems have been hacked to allow this to happen in the first place. So many of our corporations have punted their customer service overseas it isn’t beyond the realm of being an inside job. Corporations don’t have perfect “angels” working for them. No one does.
Here is hoping United is investigating with the FBI to see if this is a new way of scamming to help United be able to prevent their customers from being abused in the future. Word gets around of this happening and some will not fly United for fear they too will be scammed with a legitimate United Airlines number. It would give you pause that their systems aren’t very protective of their customers.
Matthew you are young, just wait until you are older and your mind isn’t as sharp. We don’t know how old this person may be so be careful criticizing that he wasn’t too bright to have been scammed. United needs to have tighter controls over their phone computer systems. A warning light should go off for a Customer Service Manager when a customer service rep hands over their customers to a number not attached to their system. How hard can this be?
WHY do people persist in using the telephone for issues like this? When dealing with Lufthansa (court case ongoing), everything was IN WRITING. A company may record all of its calls but most individuals don’t hafe tge equipment to do this.
Repeat after me: “AUDIT TRAIL”!
Yes, “don’t use the telephone to make changes to your ticket if you can do so on the website or app” should be a rule like “don’t use OTAs”. Little good is going to come of it. Of course, there are a lot of people out there who don’t travel much, and I think they can be forgiven for not knowing that these scams and tricks exist.
The problem is that a lot of large organisations no longer accept emails from the public. I’ve had a dispute with a telecoms company who don’t provide any email contact in order to force customers to speak to a really poor outsourced call centre. When it became clear that I wouldn’t be able to resolve the issue through the hopeless agents there, I started writing letters. They responded to every letter… with letters that had nothing to do with what I was telling them – it was literally a case of feeding the letter into an OCR-enabled scanner and letting the software paste excerpts from standard text with reference to the 2-3 words in the document that it thought had been reflecting the most important themes. It was awful, this went on for about seven letters until I lost my patience and abandoned the issue…so I suppose that from their perspective it’s a successful resolution because it’s not a complaint that’s being pursued.
The Eurobonus Gold email team recently wrote to me refusing to help with a systemwide technical issue which the call centre had told me it’s unable to help me with- because I am only Silver. There’s no way for silvers, non-elites, or elites of other Skyteam airlines to reach SK by email.
Customer service managers love the lack of easily-obtained audit trails almost as much as scammers do.
Emailing the company, when an option, is good to try just to make a record that you reasonably tried to get things straightened out, and the vendor did not make a reasonable response. I’ve also screenshotted online chats to capture things the vendor has said. These are pretty useful when challenging charges with the credit card company.
He called the correct United phone number and spoke with a UA rep about his issue. She put him on hold. Happens every time. A different person came back on the line to resolve the issue. Not unusual at all. He followed the instructions given. After all, he was on the phone with United. He correctly assumed. He was robbed. United should be on the hook for every nickel of this.
Finally something makes sense about this story. As other stated before, hard to believe the agent was in on this.
And yes, Smoker is obviously an idiot. His parents should have named him Dick to show how stupid he would be in life. Because, we all know how inferior men Dick Smokers are. Quick here comes our resident deviant behavior defender in his effeminate voice claiming it’s normal to let another man finish in you mouth or a$$.
This is a call center inside job. A setup likely. The original agent would not have the time to google phone numbers. They are monitored on call resolutions per hour. And remember calls can be recorded for ” quality assurance ” , so what happened to that proof?
That said, David is using an eastern/ central Maryland area code. With cellphone service he could be anywhere. Scammers are omnipresent.
Or it’s YOU since it’s a 301 area code.
No different than the accusation you are making against an employee of United.
ZERO proof either way. But I’m still with Matt in that this Pole Smoker is an absolute idiot. And you can’t fix that.
It’s probably a contract employee. Maybe it’s my Nigerian prince fulfilling his promises. Now calm down and I will expect an apology later. ; )
AI workers will probably be doing a lot of these call center jobs soon. They probably will be doing a lot of office jobs eventually. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens.
Let’s see UA try to work their way out of this one.
A friend of mine booked a ticket from her home town to Florida. She “googled” Delta Air Lines and called the FIRST NUMBER that popped up. This was a travel company that BOUGHT the rights to be put at the “top” or close to the top of the search list. It was not Delta! Yeah, they fly the airline’s logo and claim “Delta Air Lines”. The tipoff to me was that her ticket had a booking fee and the web site she used spelled Delta as “Delta Airlines”! The name is a distinct three words. It is tantamount to a company claiming to be The Coca-Cola Company by spelling “Coca Cola” or “Koka Kola”. The tipoff is…it is always Coca-Cola…hyphenated and always on one line. So this guy calls “United Airlines” and got scammed. I am betting that he THOUGHT that he was calling United Airlines because it was the first scam in the Google search,
Does UA even sell a flight that costs over $17k? It’s not like we’re talking Emirates First here. Even a last minute Polaris refundable flight doesn’t even come close to that cost. Shouldn’t that have raised alarm bells when he was being charged for a flight that was nowhere near his original cost?