If a travel expert like me fell foul of this scam, so could you: When you’re a worldly-wise travel writer with 25 years of experience, who has lived in a dozen countries and travelled to dozens more, you know that there’s no way anyone is ever going to be able to scam you. That is, until they do.
It all began after an exhausting day of slow trains, delayed flights and crowded airports that turned an eight-hour journey into a 14-hour grind. With no time for breakfast and no time to buy food between flights I was relieved to finally arrive at Crete’s Heraklion Airport.
But after half an hour at the carousel, as I watched all the other passengers leave with their luggage, there was still no sign of mine.
Not that this was the first time. Over the last couple of years alone two of my suitcases have gone missing, never to return. One bag disappeared on a journey to a near-deserted island, leaving me with the same clothes for hiking, cycling, and dining for five long days (which were even longer for my fellow travellers). Eventually it turned up, covered in engine oil.
Soon after, the suitcase I bought to replace that one was left – along with the luggage of the entire aircraft – on the tarmac in Naxos and finally made its way to me three days later, minus its wheels.
“You can still drag it around,” the clerk snapped, as if I was making an unnecessary fuss.
So, when one of the ground staff at Heraklion arrived with what looked like a body bag containing what was left of my case, I had a strange sense of déjà vu.
This time, however, it was obvious that my two-month-old travel accessory had been attacked by an enraged bear. The canvas had been mauled so badly that the clothes gushed out of it like blood from a gaping wound and the wire framework, detached from the bag during the attack, had ripped most of my clothes to shreds.
I posted a few photos on X (formerly Twitter) and Aegean Airlines replied saying they would call me to arrange immediate reimbursement. Later that evening, when the call came, I did question the fact that it was from a Kenyan phone number. But my interlocutor’s response – that Aegean’s phone lines were overloaded so they subcontracted some of the work to overseas call centres – seemed perfectly plausible.
To be honest I’m still not entirely sure what happened. If they had asked for my credit card details, I would have smelt a rat. Instead, my amiable interlocutor Kevin told me that I would be reimbursed immediately via a money transfer company called WorldRemit: a legitimate site.
The site asked me to create an account, and then enter the details of the card I’d used to book the flight. I tweeted Aegean to confirm that they used WorldRemit. Of course, they replied saying “yes”: I was talking to the scammer who had usurped Aegean’s identity on X via a fake account.
“Even if you took a taxi, you should add that to your estimate,” the customer assistant, “Kevin”, said eagerly. At that point warning bells rang somewhere deep inside my ancestral brain. An airline that advises you to ask for more compensation? It didn’t sound quite right.
But I was exhausted by all the fiddly admin, and the penny didn’t drop until I was told that the card hadn’t worked and that I would need to use a different one. When I checked with my bank online I discovered to my horror that the sum which should have been credited to me as compensation had been taken from my account. I had been scammed.
I contacted my bank who opposed the payment immediately, but when I finally managed to get through to WorldRemit, after waiting for more than an hour on the phone, they said that the payment had already gone through and there was nothing they could do.
Meanwhile Aegean Airlines’ official account direct messaged me on X to say that they were “taking all necessary measures to stop the illegal and misleading actions of fraudulent accounts,” but were unable to explain why their official X account does not have the “blue tick” which guarantees that the account has been verified. Many airlines, such as British Airways, have a “gold tick” which accredits verified organisations.
It seems I’m not alone in being scammed by fake airline customer relations teams. In July of this year NBC news reported that several people were fooled when scammers managed to substitute their own phone numbers for those of major airlines in Google search results, whilst in September, Elliott.org related the case of Laurie Mannino who was bilked of several thousand dollars by someone claiming to be an agent for a major airline.
Of course, I felt stupid for being taken in by these tricksters – and I would have loved to use “Kevin’s” amiable head as a punch bag – but I was lucky. I only lost €600 (AUD 1200), and my pride. It’s been a tough lesson, but it’s taught me to avoid tweeting about problems and to always go through official channels instead. I’ve also learnt the hard way: if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
