I wonder if anyone else has experienced this. I have a flight book on May 23 from Newark on Lufthansa, and because of the craziness in Newark right now, I wanted to talk to someone at Lufthansa about whether I should reroute it. Of course on Lufthansa's website there was no phone number listed for customer service. So I googled it and found a number, which turns out to have been fake. When the person answered, I told them my situation and they got my confirmation number and last name (that's all it takes to look up my ticket on Lufthansa's website!) and told me that there was an error in my booking and that because one of my layovers was too short, I would have to upgrade and pay another $800. That seemed bad, but not totally wrong to me--I didn't get any sense that this was a scam until, when my credit card didn't go through, I told them I would deal with it later. They insisted that I would be left without a flight if I didn't finish the transaction in that phone call. But I still did it, even though it seemed very strange! Of course there is no upgrade on my ticket now, and I've since looked this whole thing up and sure enough, it's a thing--sometimes a fake customer service number is listed for Expedia, sometimes for airlines. Taking advantage, of course, of the fact that it's very difficult to get someone from the airlines on the phone, which is why I was googling the number...I contacted my credit card and I'll get my money back, but damn. Big waste of time and potential security risk.
Posted by
Freedonia
17163 posts
Look at all the spam coming into this forum under the "Greek" section.
Posted by
Rhode Island, USA
257 posts
I have not had your problem but I have had good luck contacting the airline through the airport we fly out of. We make all our international flights from Logan Airport in Boston. They have a page of the airlines that they serve and each of these have a click thru to their website and also a toll free phone number posted. I have called Lufthansa two or three time at this number and quickly got a human being. The same with Swiss, though you can reach a real person on their web site through the chat feature after a short try. I'm not sure how much information other airports may provide for the companies they serve.
Posted by
Seattle, WA, USA ☔️
6993 posts
The OP may not be aware of it - because such scams and spam are routinely scrubbed from this forum as quickly as possible (this morning's poopstorm being a perfect example) - but the situation described by the OP is (sadly) a very, very common scam.
Some airlines do a good pretty job of burying their phone numbers on their website in hopes of getting you to NOT call (and shame on them for that), but if you dig deep enough (on their actual website - those are spoofed, too), one can almost always find a number to call that's merely a frustrating and disappointing call-center experience, rather than an absolute scam like the one the OP encountered. Lucky that your credit card siffed it out and prevented the scam from going through.
Remember: The internet is filled with lies, cheats and scams, people. Go there with your eyes open and the understanding that it's the most common place and the best way to steal from people.
Posted by
Edmonds, WA, USA
1063 posts
Nicole,
RSE Webmaster here. Sorry to hear that you've been caught up in that.
You should definitely alert Lufthansa to where you encountered the fake phone number. Let them know what the number was, the website it came from, or if it was part of a Google listing or another listing service (Yelp, Expedia, etc). Obviously calling them is out, but I'm sure they have a written contact form on their website.
Fake airline phone numbers (and for other industries) are a big deal right now due to newer online spamming methods. If you've been around our forum for the last few years, we're constantly dealing with fake posts with fake phone numbers in an attempt to get Google and other indexing engines to ingest the phone number and automatically list it somewhere.
Help fight back (and help others!) by letting Lufthansa know so that they can track it down and fix it. (Expect that they'll also remind you to only use the contact methods they post on their website).
Posted by
Los Angeles
5050 posts
Just to add that apparently this is very common on Twitter ... excuse me X as well. You think you're dealing with the official airline or hotel or whoever contact and it's fake. Trust yet verify, as good ol' RR used to say.
Posted by
Canada
7 posts
One way to guard against such scams is to join the airline's or hotel's rewards program, even if you're flying/staying with them as a one-off. Once logged into the official site (or using the app) you should have easy access to official phone numbers and other contact methods. I know signing up for everything is a bit of a pain but I find there's usually some benefit to it. With hotels for example, typically the member rate is about the same as the best rate from third-party sites. And with a couple of different hotel chains I've found I can convert otherwise useless hotel points into frequent flier points.
Posted by
34 posts
Whenever we travel out of the country, or even domestically, before leaving, I compile all airline, hotel, theatre booking, tour booking, etc. legitimate contact information and keep with me. In case I need assistance, i can easily reference my cheat sheet. You can also usually text messages to your airline which was very helpful last time I needed help with British Airways thru Alaska Airlines.