A United Airlines passenger claimed he was scammed out of $17,000 while attempting to rebook a flight with the airline.
Dan Smoker said that he called the United customer service number to rebook a flight for him and his family after it was canceled due to a mechanical issue in May — and believes the customer service agent accidentally transferred his call to a scammer.
Smoker, from Denver, said that he first spoke to a United agent and explained that he’d like to be rebooked on a flight with Lufthansa, a partnering airline. After explaining the situation, the agent put David on hold to transfer him to the German carrier, ABC News reported.
He was then connected to someone who identified themselves as “David” — who turned out to be the scammer — and Smoker explained the situation again to David, asking to be rebooked on a flight on United’s codeshare partner Lufthansa from Denver to Munich, Germany.
David reportedly told Smoker that he couldn’t change the booking, but if he was willing to pay for a new booking right then on the phone, he would get a refund for the new flights later.
Smoker agreed in a desperate attempt to get on a new flight, believing he would be refunded shortly. He was put on hold and said that when David came back on the line, he was informed that there were no seats available on his preferred route, but he got them onto a flight to London from Denver with one stop in Newark.
“It turns out David called them [United] that morning and worked with their call center people to ultimately get me rebooked. So he put me on hold. He called United and then worked with a United agent to rebook me and my family,” Smoker told ABC.
David provided Smoker with a payment link — which Smoker assumed was a legitimate United link — and he paid $17,328 through it.
On Friday, the airline confirmed to local Denver news station 9News that the agent transferred Smoker’s call to an external number without validating it, unfortunately sending him to a scammer.
“The customer was transferred to an external number and the agent was not using our internal tools to validate the number,” a spokeswoman said.
“We will do everything to make this right,” a United representative said in a voicemail to Smoker.
“We’ve been in direct contact with the customer to understand what happened in this case, and we are investigating this matter thoroughly. We’re committed to finding a fair resolution for him,” the airline told The Post in a statement. “Additionally, we have reached out to the credit card provider and offered to assist in their investigation.”
Looking back at the situation, Smoker realized that the URL supplied by “David” was different the payment links he had been sent by United in the past.
Smoker said that David told him the refund would be processed within one billing cycle, and Smoker received an email that had all the payment and refund information enclosed, noting that the process could take 45 to 50 business days.
When the refund had still yet to be processed and Smoker had to pay the bill, he attempted to reach out to David with the direct number he provided — and was told that he should’ve been refunded and that David needed 24 more hours to look into it.
Smoker never heard back from David, and when he tried to call him again, Smoker’s number had been blocked.
He contacted 9News, which initially reported the story, and consumer investigator Steve Staeger found a number of red flags in the email — most notably that the email wasn’t sent from a United Airlines email address.
As for the credit card statement, the $17,000 came up as a generic “AIRLINEFARE” charge rather than stating it was from United.
After realizing he’d been scammed, Smoker reached out to United and was informed by the airline that the last charge they had on file from his card was made three years ago and was just $17.
United initially said that he must’ve called the wrong number, but Smoker insisted he called the correct number and sent the airline a PDF with his call logs.
A spokeswoman for United confirmed to 9News that several calls from Smoker’s number were made to the airline’s call center on the morning in question.
“I know it. I know I called the right number,” Smoker told ABC. “Because it’s one thing to call, call the wrong number entirely and get scammed. It’s another thing to call a trusted source, or what you think is a trusted source, and get scammed. And if it’s happened to me, I can pretty much guarantee it’s happened to other people.”
Smoker said that a representative from United called him to confirm that there was a matching call from when he was connected with David — but there was a big inconsistency. The call where Smoker had connected with David for more than three hours showed up in United’s call log as a 12-minute call.
“They say that at that point I had dropped off and they don’t have any further recording,” Smoker told 9News.
“They have a system that people are supposed to trust,” Smoker said. “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 reported the $17,000 charge as fraud to the credit card company, and they are currently processing his fraud claim. If the credit card declines the fraud claim, he’s hoping United will cover the costs.
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