Fake airline ticket scams flourish before Lunar New Year 2019

It was not until she arrived at the airport that Ms. T. Lien's family (Hai Ba Trung, Hanoi) discovered that the round-trip ticket from Hanoi to Da Nang that she had bought online was fake. This was a ticket that she had bought through a contact on social media 4 months before the flight.

"The airline staff said my family's and my tickets were canceled due to unpaid bills, while I had already transferred nearly 7 million VND to the ticket seller," Ms. Lien indignantly recounted.

The "airline ticket" that Ms. Lien received was actually just a 24-hour booking confirmation pending payment. After this period, the above "agents" will not make payment and will let the ticket self-destruct on the system even though they have received the money from the passenger. This is the method that airline ticket scammers often use to make a profit.

The pay later function allows scammers to create "virtual" booking codes with passenger information and booking information that can be looked up on the airline's system, within the first 24 hours, not much different from the real ticket.

Specifically, subjects posing as airline ticket agents will take advantage of the post-payment function, a feature that allows payment for airline tickets within 24 hours of booking, to create "fake" booking codes to send to customers.

Customers who are not knowledgeable about the ticket booking process like Ms. Lien will be given a "fake" booking code by these people. When checked on the airline's system, the booking information such as customer name, flight, seat number and status will still be displayed as "confirmed".

However, the payment information section of the booking ID will show as "unpaid".

"When I asked the ticket seller why it was not paid, they said that because I had not transferred the money to them, they had not notified the airline. Once the transfer is successful, the agent will notify the airline to confirm the payment," said Ms. Lien.

"After transferring the money, I felt secure so I didn't check again. Only on the day of the flight did I realize I had been scammed. When I wanted to contact them again, the other account had been locked," said the customer who lost nearly 7 million VND due to fake airline tickets.

Not only Ms. Lien, this form of fraud is becoming more and more popular on social networks, especially appearing a lot near Tet when the demand for air travel increases.

Similar to Ms. Lien's case, the pair of round-trip Vietnam Airlines tickets from Ho Chi Minh City to Vinh of Ms. D. Hong's family (District 2, Ho Chi Minh City) were not received. Fortunately, Ms. Hong discovered the suspicious details before transferring money to the scammer.

"I became suspicious and checked the ticket again. I asked my family members who are good at technology and found out that I was almost scammed out of 6 million VND," Ms. Hong recounted.

Fake airline ticket scams are becoming more and more common on social networks, especially around Tet when demand for air travel increases.

This situation happens to customers of all 3 airlines: Vietnam Airlines, Vietjet Air and Jetstar Pacific because all 3 airlines have the function of payment after 24 hours of booking.

Airlines have repeatedly warned customers about this form of fraud. Representatives of many airlines said that because this is a civil transaction between individuals, the airline cannot help handle the case, only stopping at the level of warning and consulting.

Previously, in early November 2018, using similar tricks, a subject in Vietnam appropriated billions of dong from Vietnamese workers in Japan who booked tickets to return home for the Lunar New Year.

According to the complaint of dozens of these workers, the scammer introduced himself as a lecturer at a prestigious university in Hanoi, with many connections so he could buy airline tickets at much cheaper prices than other ticket agents.

With a commitment to pay commissions of 7.5 - 10%, this subject has created a large customer network in Japan, some workers even collected ticket purchase lists with a total value of up to billions of VND.