Travel scam costing Aussies thousands

An email between a scammer and airline passenger has exposed a huge problem facing Aussie travellers as they’re warned not to search for this on Google.

It’s something most travellers have experienced – being in a foreign country and desperately needing help with travel plans.

More often than not, the first thing people will do is search the words “airline contact details” following issues with a bookings or change of holiday plans — but a travel expert has warned they’re the three words you should never Google.

Mark Trim, founder and managing director of travel agency, RoundAbout Travel, revealed to news.com.au that Google scams around airline contact details is the latest scam Aussie travellers are falling victim to as many embark on their European holidays.

“Third parties are now bidding on these keywords to appear at the top of search results and appearing to be airline contact centre staff,” he said.

Travel expert shares a stark reminder to Aussies to be aware of Google scams, following an increase in the past few months. Picture: iStock

“They are in fact masking that they work for the airline, accessing the booking details and overcharging for changes by thousands.”

He said in the last two weeks alone they’ve had three people conned into thinking their confirmed reservations were on a “waitlist” and need to pay to get uploaded when their booking was absolutely fine.

“These scammers can update Google maps listings or make up fake websites/businesses like ‘flightreservationscentre.com’,” he explained.

In an email provided to news.com.au, an Australian couple got scammed $US3585 — $A5320, before their bank intervened, reversing the charge.

The scammer, allegedly pretending to be from Lufthansa airline support, charged the customer for “new tickets”.

The scammer went as far as to say they received a dispute notification from their financial institution.

“If you filed this dispute in error, please contact your financial institution to cancel the dispute and send us a copy of the reversal letter. Alternatively, you can also contact me through my information below and I will help you resolve this dispute mutually (sic),” the email read.

He said most cases relate to a client at the airport having an issue at check-in and Googling the ‘airline’ to try and get assistance, which is where it ‘all goes wrong’. Picture: iStock

Mr Trim said the incident unfolded when the client got to the airport and had an issue at check-in with their infant’s surname different to its mothers surname (born since their original booking).

“They Googled the airline support number and got through to a scam service that was pretending to be the airline,” he said.

“The scammer was clever enough to take advantage of their stressful situation and glean key booking details from them and then let them know they would have to issue new tickets to get the whole booking corrected.”

According to Mr Trim, the scammer took the client’s credit card details and payment but they never got new tickets.

He suggested to instead get the counter staff to help – or go to the airlines website directly to find the support number (not Google to find a number). Picture: iStock

“[The email] shows the response from the scam company after the client disputed the charge on their credit card. You can see it had cost them $US3,585, but thankfully their bank intervened.”

Mr Trim said scammers use ‘flightdeskbook.com’ which is not a true URL.

“But per the disputed email shows they are masking emails from that website as if they are legit.”

“They rotate around different but similar domains (for sending emails) so they can’t get caught, as often there is no front end website active. They use a fake phone number and pretend to be an airline and then mask their emails to look legitimate to trap travellers.”

He said most examples relate to a client at the airport having an issue at check-in (late for check-in, no visa, passport expiry date issue) so they Google and call the ‘airline’ to try and get assistance.

“This is where it all goes wrong as they are not actually calling the airline but a scam number that looks right,” he warned.

“The scammer is then able to glean information from the client and use it back to them to say there are issues with their ticket or on a waitlist and they’ll need to pay extra to fix that.”

He said this generally happens through the masking of the airlines support phone number on Google.

Mr Trim recommends to instead go straight to a service counter at the airport, if your flights are delayed or cancelled.

However, if travellers have no option but to call the airline, “they should either get the number from the airport check in staff or go to the airlines website directly to find the support number (not Google to find a number)”.

“We have had three clients in the past couple of weeks being impacted by the same scam, but there have been more in the past few months which is a steady increase over the first few months of the year,” Mr Trim said.