How the scam works:
Criminals post advertisements online, on websites such as Craigslist, Kijiji, Gumtree, or Oodle, claiming to be airline employees. They explain they have transferable tickets they cannot use and therefore want to sell them. Often these tickets go for less than half price. How does the scam work?
Watch the video below to see in action the Airline Employee Tickets scam exposed:
After finding the ad and contacting the seller, he victim will pay the scammer and get the tickets, but not knowing the tickets are refundable.
After receiving the payment, the crook refunds the tickets and gets the money back. Then the victim, who already paid the scammer, will find out he/she has no valid tickets. Worse yet, if the victims don’t find out their tickets are invalid until they get to the terminal, they will end up having to pay top dollar to whatever destinations they were planning to go!
Not a nice way to start your holidays.
How to avoid the Flight Ticket Refund scam:
Do not pay cash for airline tickets. And if you see tickets online that seem too good to be true, you need to do your homework before buying. Be careful! Craiglist encourages people not to transfer money through Western Union or other overnight money transfer companies. When you buy your plane tickets, only use reputable companies.
How to report the Flight Ticket Refund scam:
Make your family and friends aware of this scam by sharing it on social media using the buttons provided. You can also officially report the scammers to the Federal Trade Commission using the link below:
How to protect yourself more:
If you want to be the first to find out the most notorious scams every week, feel free to subscribe to the Scam Detector newsletter here. You’ll receive periodical emails and we promise not to spam. Last but not least, use the Comments section below to expose other scammers.
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Is there anyway to prevent a scammer who convinces you to buy them an eticket to visit you, from stealing the airfare credit, by canceling the flight, paying the change fee and having the fare credited to them to fly anywhere they please.
For example, is there any way to book a ticket so that if the booked party does not fly as booked, the airline credit goes back to the party who paid for the ticket.
Is this different from the so called "hacked eTicket? It happened to me, I purchase a ticket bound for the US from China. But then I was at the terminal when the staff of the well known airline told me that the ticket was purchase from a hacked credit card in which the real credit card owner have blocked the transactions done. And it caused me loss of money and embarrassing moment. Nice article here.