By now we are all used to the Internet scams involving Nigerian princes and various other ways to separate people from their money, from their personal information or simply send a virus to infect computers and steal data.
The latest, however, is a series of scams going after already stressed airline travelers.
The emails may be slightly different but the sample below was sent to one of my clients. There are reports of similar emails being sent purportedly from Delta, Midwest, Northwest, Sun Country Airlines and new airlines may be added.
The first sign that the email may be bogus is that there are are probably misspellings, and the email could look sloppy.
Original Message—–
From: Amy Brennan Frontier Airlines [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2008 9:35 AM
To: Jim Banes
Subject: Your order N3809979Good afternoon,Thank you for using our new service “Buy airplane ticket Online” on our website.
Your account has been created:
Your login: Jim
Your password: pass4O71Your credit card has been charged for $464.24.
We would like to remind you that whenever you order tickets on our website you get a discount of 10%!
Attached to this message is the purchase Invoice and the airplane ticket. To use your ticket, simply print it on a color printed, and you are set to take off for the journey!
Kind regards,
Amy Brennan
Frontier Airlines
BEWARE. The basic advice is simple — if you did not purchase a ticket from an airline who sends you an email, do NOT open an attachment. In fact, be careful before you open the attachment even if you did purchase a ticket recently.
This particular scam contains a nasty virus. According to cyberinsecure.com the virus is a “Trojan horse that steals information, including keystrokes, from the infected Windows PC and transmits that data to a server hosted in Russia.”
If you only book your travel through one agency or website, it is easier to spot fraud. Otherwise, there is a simple way to make sure if someone really did use your card to purchase a ticket or to purchase any other travel services. Call your credit card company to check whether a charge has gone through recently. If there is a fraudulent charge the credit card company will be able to help you, and if not, you can rest assured and delete the email.
With so many publicized instances of credit card fraud and stories of airline cutbacks and snafus, these scammers are counting on the fact that passengers may be nervous enough to open an airline email without looking at it carefully. A few extra minutes making sure an email is legitimate now may save days of grief and an infected computer later.
Janice Hough is a California-based travel agent a travel blogger and a part-time comedy writer. A frequent flier herself, she’s been doing battle with airlines, hotels, and other travel companies for over three decades. Besides writing for Travelers United, Janice has a humor blog at Leftcoastsportsbabe.com (Warning, the political and sports humor therein does not represent the views of anyone but herself.)
