Stop Falling For This Increasingly Common Google Scam!

Wow, that’s nuts!

My flight was also cancelled out of JFK yesterday 🙁
Good to know about these scammers!

Yes, this has happened to me too – I realized that something was super fishy before I gave over any payment info, but was still concerned about what they might do with my reservation number and name, so I called Delta and “froze” my reservation – curious if that was necessary.
It is super easy to fall for this – when someone has to contact an airline, they usually take the “easy” way by Googling the number (sometimes calling is just more practical than tweeting/chatting), not by going to the website and finding the contact number – as mentioned above, it can be really hard to find!

This happened to me about 2 years ago. Crazy to think it’s still happening.

it’s actually pretty crazy, happened to me last summer. my son was flying turkish from TLV to MIA, flight got diverted to izmir due to bad storms. long story short, i got scammed for over 2K to get him home. i was up for over 36 hours straight & was not thinking straight, just wanted to get him home on time for shabbos for my son’s bar mitzvah. tried fighting it with no luck. live & learn but the main thing is that he got home safe.

I DM Air Canada through their Twitter account 2 weeks ago…
Still waitinfor a response…

Or call from the airline’s app.

I was taken in by one of these scammers, took me 3 months to chargeback with my credit card, was only successful because I had gotten them to commit in writing to a full refund. Was terrible experience.

the regular delta number is not less of a scam

Shame on Google that they don’t crack down on these scammers!
Even worse goes when trying to apply for an ESTA or Canadian ETA. Unlearned people fall into the trap of paying exorbitant “service fees” when applying online. Why does Google allow anyone other than the CBP website to come up as the first result when searching “how to apply for an ESTA”?
The correct legit website is only the FIFTH result. Google is being PAID by these scammers to post those results first, and they get away with this…..

I never considered this type of manipulation was possible. Thanks for the heads up.

everyone should call the scam numbers and tie up their lines / resources

Similar incident happened with my brother in law when he googled Enterprise to rent a car. The number was fake and the ‘agent’ found an ‘amazing’ deal that needed to be paid with a gift card over the phone…

If anyone wants to go down a fun rabbit hole look up Mike Rober on YouTube he fights back against these Indian scam call centers, endlessly entertaining. Several other big youtubers do as well including Pierogi that shmuli tagged

I had the unfortunate experience of calling what I thought was the airline to change flights for my whole family. When the “airline rep” started negotiating the change fee, I immediately became suspicious and refused to give my payment details. However, OUT OF SPITE, the scammer on the other end of the line had my last name and booking reference and that’s all they needed to cancel my non-refundable tickets! The actual airline was completely unsympathetic as they said it was me who had canceled and in the end it was a hard lesson learned.

My wife once called hotel.com instead of hotels.com and got an Indian. She wanted to cancel her hotel room and he said she owed money to cancel and demanded a credit card. She asked me and I told her to hang up. Hotels.com does not charge to cancel a room. They already have your credit card number anyway.

Almost had a similar experience with McAfee anti-virus. It wasn’t working properly so I googled the number and called. The rep was about to remote in to my computer when I realized I was not on the phone with actual McAfee and ended the call. When I eventually found the real number and called McAfee they acknowledged that this is a problem and that their number is buried deep within their website. Many websites make you work very hard to find their phone number.

My brother was scammed a while ago because of this.

How about an airline contact directory on Dan’s deals?

Google is full of ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’, the democrats two favorite terms.

Added to flyertalk, I hope it’s ok or I’ll delete it.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/omni/2128766-dansdeals-warning-about-using-google-airline-contact-info.html#post35421560

I had a very similar experience ! I got a number for an airline online to book a bassinet seat and they scammed me. Thank Gd was only $150!

Happened to me and my family when I was sitting shiva for my mother…Our Southwest flight was delayed, my wife googled their number. Chase wouldn’t allow us to dispute the charges…

Yes! A family member was very nearly scammed out of $1200 recently. Fake United Airlines number. Fortunately he realized something was fishy at the last moment. Seems like a growing problem.

You would think a huge company like google would have better security protocols in place. How do they not have teams on this.

Yup. Happened to my elderly boss who wanted to cancel a flight at the weekend and Google the number.. He told me take their call and give them his credit card number. I said hmm his first class ticket shouldn’t have a fee to cancel …and a girl we know. We send a lot of students to Israel. She then got scammed further on her bank which we pointed out was scam and she got the money back.
My boss they called for the credit card number. I asked for a call back number, in case we got disconnected, realizing he had been scammed and called that number from a different phone and a local playgroup answered

One further point. This websites look legit. Tried them to see where it was obviously a scam. If u click in the pics eg advertising London, Paris, it takes ur straight back to the same webpage!!!

Another sign is not being on hold for an hour!!!!!
#SCAMMER

How am I supposed to know if its a scam or authentic when I call Air India????? 🙂

Same thing happened to me back in February with SwissAir. Thankfully I got my money back after I agreed to them finding me a new flight

Looks like for now these toll free numbers are closed down

https://www.insider.com/twitter-user-discovers-wrong-numbers-listed-for-airlines-scam-google-2023-7

why are these charges considered ligit

I was scammed twice. Once with United bec Google
had a number with their logo & claimed there’s no wait. Got charged Extra $250.- for each name on my reservation to change mis spelling of our last name (even though only 1 person’s name was wrong.). Another scam: booked apt in Vancouver thru BOOKING.COM & , although it looked totally legit, we got to the right address, followed all the instructions, & it was a total fraud. No apartment existed, no one answered our emails or phone calls & we got an email saying our reservation was canceled on the morning of our flight, stating that our credit card was invalid (even tho it was already paid for on my AMEX acct a month before ) I believe Booking. Com located in the Netherlands is the culprit. There has to be some accountability for these websites passing as reliable when they cause so much aggravation to innocent people. Thank goodness AMEX stand behind us but straightening out these messes aren’t fun.

Wow! Thanks for that information!

I just replied in twitter but this similar thing happened to me as well. In my case I was trying to book 6 tickets from LAX to TLV with AirCanada. There was an issue on their website (price got adjusted mid booking) so I wanted to call to see if they can give me the original price. I googled air canada and first results was “Air Canada Reservations” with a clickable 1888 to call only later I found out that it was actually a google ad. When I called the number they answered super fast which put me on alert so I asked they person if this is air canada he told that they work with air canada and that when air canada call centers are busy they route calls through them.. (figured something was up) but as we kept talking the person really tried to help us out and sent legitimate reservations and flights kept making sure everything is clear and answered all my questions. I ended up purchasing the tickets from them. the charges on my credit card showed AirCanada and the ticket numbers and everything. I got confirmation and all and even call to reserve a kosher meal. Everything was looking legit.

At the day of check-in we arrived (family of 6) to the airport 3 hours before the flight and this is when the air canada rep told me there is an issue with the tickets.. I don’t think it was a scam but something was off. I called orbtickets and had them speak to the rep they tried to explain that everything should be ok but the AirCanada system just won’t allow us to check-in.

This took forever and we ended up missing the flight. AirCanada told us we must purchase new tickets because they can’t use the existing ones (they did see them on their system but it was all mark with fraud) I still not sure what really happened I ended up disputing the original charges and got my money back but still. The AirCanada rep said it happens a lot and recommended purchasing from the airlines directly to avoid issues in the future. They even said sometimes tickets from legit places like expedia are having similar issues.

Lesson learned. With the points and stuff I assume we can trust chase travel (even though it’s powered by expedia) and for everything else just use the airlines directly.

I searched online for Australia ETA information a few nights ago and had a heck of a time wading through non-official / junk ad sites. It’s been almost ten years since my last trip down there so I couldn’t remember exactly where to apply. Be sure you’re on the gov.au website!

@Dan
Can you publish a list of the legit numbers of the 10-15 most flied airlines somewhere on your site?

Thanks Dan. Any problems using Google itself, and not the maps?

Just had that today. When Googling “Delta Airlines Customer service phone number” 800-212-1212 was the result which is an inactive number.

this happened to me too with lufthansa, actually sent them money kudos to chase and barclays for refunding me! brings back trauma just reading this post

Just see it now with FedEx. I googled FedEx International phone number

https://www.google.com/search?q=fedex+international+phone+number&oq=fedex+i&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7MgYIARBFGDwyBggCEEUYPDIGCAMQRRg8MgYIBBBFGDkyCQgFECMYJxiKBTINCAYQABiRAhixAxiKBTITCAcQLhivARjHARiRAhixAxiKBTIKCAgQABiRAhiKBTIKCAkQABixAxiABNIBCDI0NDlqMGo0qAIAsAIA&client=ms-android-samsung-ss&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

The NY Post just reported a story on this. Even if you don’t give a cc number they can still scam you.

https://nypost.com/2023/08/17/couple-got-stuck-in-maui-after-scammer-canceled-their-flight/

Get the real numbers here:

https://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=133817.0

Airlines don’t want phone calls because then they have to staff call centers. And this is naturally the result, because customers sometimes still need to call.

Cutting a pasting the “troll” free number onto Google will usually give you an idea of who you are dealing with.

Thanks so much for a very enlightening and helpful article. I once had a very similar situation with an “amazon” return. I realized something was up when they asked me to text them my drivers license to confirm my identity to process the return. They even used a Seattle number to make it look like it was actually amazon.
Point is this doesn’t just happen in the travel world

Does El Al have an American number?

My friend just yesterday had his social security # stolen. He was trying to purchase a new optimum WiFi plan.

The top Google result took him to a website which looked exactly like optimum just it was under a name like ‘optimum internet service.’

Why is Google allowing this?

my father had the same thing with a car rental company last year

Just happened to me a month ago with Iberia. Was told at counter in airport that I had ticketing issues, and needed to call airline. Used google result, it went straight to a human (which should have set off a red flag). I explained to them the ticket issue, and after hearing booking and reference number they also “saw” the issue on the computer and were able to fix it, but i needed to pay the difference in the ticket price between when I bought it and that day. I was under pressure and needed to travel, so I agreed. Gave Credit card info, and it didn’t work, so they said “you need to approve the text message from the credit card company”. this should have been another red flag, as real companies ask “did you get a SMS”, and they were insisting that i need to approve it. I approved it, and after a few minutes chopped the whole thing was a fraud.
We contacted CC company from the airport to cancel CC, and they were able to reverse the charge b”h.

I’m dealing with identity theft right now which I believe might have happened by thinking I’m calling my credit card company by calling the number I found on Google. What a nightmare

I once called Lufthansa from a Google search, I knew it was fake when they picked up right away. Went to the Lufthansa website to get the number instead.

this happened to me about 4 years ago got scammed around 5k, baruch hashem got it all back. kudos to the executive office of the president of barclays bank

It’s actually a good idea to save the phone numbers of your airlines BEFORE the flight. Heck, go ahead and save the above numbers now.

It’s not just travel!

Recently Googled the customer service number for Motorola (re: a phone under warranty). The first listed Google response was a number for Motorolla. Fortunately noticed the clever misspelling and avoided dialing the scammer.

Best policy is to find the email with the booking from any airline and call the number that is in the email. Pretty sure there is always a phone number in any email you get or at least a link to “contact us.” This is definitely easier than searching a website…