Denver Man Scammed out of $17,000 After Fraudsters Hijack Call to United Airlines Customer Service: Report

A Denver man is lamenting the loss of thousands of dollars after rebooking a United Airlines flight following the cancellation of an earlier one, according to a 9News report.

9News says Denver resident Dan Smoker called United Airlines to rebook the flight to Europe for his family and friends in late May.

A customer service agent named David informed him that the cost of the new flight, $17,000, would be charged to his credit card and he would later be refunded by United Airlines, according to the report.

Smoker and his family were subsequently booked on another United Airlines flight and their seats were upgraded to premium economy.

However, after failing to get a refund for months despite having been informed by David in a confirmation email that it would take 45 to 50 business days to process, Smoker called David and was reportedly told to wait at most 24 hours.

The 24-hour period elapsed and with no refund yet, Smoker called David again. This time, the call wouldn’t go through, according to the report. That’s when Smoker contacted the 9News consumer investigations program, Steve on Your Side.

Upon scanning the confirmation email Smoker had received, consumer affairs investigator Steve Staeger noticed a couple of red flags, including the fact that the email wasn’t sent from a United Airlines email address.

On the credit card statement, the charge of $17,000 was to a generic firm known as AIRLINEFARE, though the upgrade charges were to United Airlines.

9News cites Smoker saying,

“The more I looked into it, the clearer it became that it was a scam via United’s system somehow. Now, how did that happen? I have no idea.”

While United Airlines confirmed that Smoker had called the aviation giant’s customer service phone number, the call log showed he had only been connected with David for 12 minutes, though he had been on the phone with David for around three hours.

Smoker says,

“They have a system that people are supposed to trust. I trusted that system. There was no reason that I shouldn’t have trusted that system, and I was scammed as a part of it.”

Smoker has reported the $17,000 to his credit card firm as fraud and is awaiting the outcome of an investigation. According to 9News, Smoker hopes United Airlines will refund his money if the credit card firm rejects the claim of fraud.

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