Don’t fall for this costly airline scam

Lately, I’ve been hearing more and more about people who have lost hundreds of dollars — or almost lost them — to a tricky airline scam.

The airline scam that’s costing customers hundreds of dollars

Here’s how the scam went down, according to a fellow Southwest Airlines frequent flyer in a Facebook group I belong to:

1. The flyer, who has a Southwest Airlines Companion Pass, dialed up Southwest Customer Service, punching in the number in from memory.
2. When a friendly agent answered, the flyer asked to change their companion (the person they can bring along free using their Companion Pass). Changing your companion is a service that Southwest provides for free up to three times per calendar year.
3. The agent informed the flyer that because she was changing her companion to someone with a different last name than the original companion, they would have to pay a $155 fee. (This is not a real rule.)
4. Fortunately, the flyer, outraged by being asked to pay for something that had always been free, hung up before providing her credit card number. But she had already shared the information about the upcoming flight for which she wanted to change her companion.
5. After hanging up, the flyer found that her flight had been canceled.

What just happened?

After posting about the experience, other frequent flyers helped this person figure out what had happened. She’d misdialed Southwest Airlines’ customer service phone number. And she never spoke to Southwest Airlines at all.

Instead, she spoke to an agent in a scam operation that registered a phone number very close to that of Southwest Airlines. In this case, she reached the scammers by accidentally keying in a couple wrong digits. But sometimes, people reach these scam shops by dialing fake numbers posted online by scammers. Sometimes, these numbers pop up in Google ads if you search for the information you’re looking for. Other times, scammers may have posted the Facebook numbers in various places online, so that they pop up in search results.

Once the scammers have the victim on the phone, they try to charge them for services that should be free, or to charge way more than things normally cost. In this case, the flyer knew that Southwest never charges a fee for changing a companion. At first, they were mad that Southwest had apparently changed its policy. But other Southwest flyers set them straight.

Another near victim of this airline scam

In August, another member of my group had a similar experience. Southwest had changed one of her flights, and the new time didn’t work for her. She knew that Southwest will always allow you to change your flight for free when this happens. She Googled for Southwest’s phone number, dialed, and got a customer service agent who sounded different than Southwest agents normally sound when she calls.

This agent told her that the cost to change the flight for herself and her companion would be over $900! Fortunately, she realized what was going on. Once the “agent” heard her say that she didn’t believe she was speaking to Southwest, he hung up.

This problem is not limited to Southwest Airlines

Because I happen to fly Southwest, I heard about people who connected with phony Southwest Airlines customer service agents. But the same thing is happening to customers of other airlines, too. A quick Reddit search uncovered people who have reached fake Delta and United customer service desks as well.

It happens in other industries too, including banking. So heads up: Never Google for your bank’s phone number before calling them. Look at the number on your debit card or statement.

It could be worse than paying an inflated fee

The near-victims I heard about were nearly charged over a hundred dollars for services that should have been free. But I have also heard — on the same forum — that people may be giving up their usernames and passwords in similar scams. Quite a few people have had the frequent flyer miles cleaned out of their accounts recently. While these victims may not have done anything to make themselves vulnerable — their info could have simply been stolen and sold on the Dark Web — some might have accidentally given their passwords to fake customer service lines.

Then there’s the danger of losing your flight reservation. The first victim I wrote about had her flight canceled by the scammers. Why? Maybe they were hoping she would call the same number back to deal with the canceled flight. In another case I read about, people have paid fake call centers for seat assignments that they didn’t receive.

Then there’s the fact that, if a scammer asked you for your credit card number for a bogus $900 fee, they might not stop there. They might keep on using your credit card for more purchases.

I think I found a suspect number online

I did a little investigating to try to find examples of this airline scam in the wild. When I tried Googling “Southwest” or “call Southwest” just now, I didn’t see any ads with fraudulent phone numbers. But apparently some people do, some of the time.

However, after a couple more tries, I think I did stumble upon a scam phone number online. I Googled a few related phrases people might try, like “change name Southwest.” Halfway down the search results, I found a couple of different web sites advising that people call a certain number to change the name of a ticketed passenger on Southwest. When I tried to click these links, I got “page not found” screens.

However, in the short description Google provides of each search result, I saw a phone number that did not look like Southwest’s regular number. Next, I Googled that phone number.

Guess what I found? Links claiming that you could call the same number to change your name on a United, American or Delta flight. That looks like a scam to me!

How to avoid falling victim to this airline scam

First of all, don’t Google your airline’s customer service number. (Or your bank’s!) For Southwest, the customer service number is pretty easy to memorize: 800-I-FLY-SWA. But if you don’t know the customer service number, log into your email account to get it. Or, if you have a frequent flyer card, look there. And then write that number down so you can refer to the correct number in the future.

You can also take care of a lot of things simply by using the legitimate web site. Type the web site address into your browser, then make a bookmark so you can easily get back to the real site.

If you worry you might have dialed a fake customer service center, here are some clues to watch for:

1. They pick up the phone right away. You know airlines usually keep you on hold and talking to a robot for ages before you speak to a real person.
2. They sound different than the customer service usually does for this company. I don’t mean you should be suspicious every time you speak to an agent with a foreign accent. Lots of companies outsource their call centers overseas. But if they’re using different scripts, if the background noise sounds different, etc., be wary.
3. They’re trying to charge for something that was free in the past, or charge much more than you expected. Red flag! Hang up!

Another thing you can do to secure your frequent flyer account in general is to set up two-factor authentication. This way, every time you log into your account, you will receive an email or text with a code you need to enter into the web site. This could help if a wrong-number scammer gets your log-in details out of you. Just make sure you never read the code you receive to anyone on the phone!