Flight delay claims are a scam! Be careful when receiving a "cancel or change" compensation call
Recently, some passengers have encountered telecom fraud related to “cancellation or change of booking”. Before the plane took off, passengers received text messages such as "flight cancelled", reminding them that they could receive compensation. When the passengers believed it, they downloaded the designated app according to the requirements of "customer service", turned on screen sharing, and remotely operated according to the requirements of "customer service". Only to find that all the deposits in the card had been emptied.
What are the tricks of this kind of scam? Who leaked the booking information?
"Refund or change" fraud occurs frequently, and the routines are surprisingly similar.
Recently, a netizen posted that after purchasing a ticket on a travel ticketing platform, he suddenly received a call from someone claiming to be a relevant staff member, who accurately reported the netizen’s flight information. The other party said that because his flight was delayed and he had purchased delay insurance in advance, he could receive a compensation of 600 yuan. The other party also showed him the airline's official payment account. However, during the compensation process, there was a problem of payment failure. The other party asked him to download an app called "Quanshi Tong" and asked him to record the screen to provide the process of the failed transfer. He also asked to open the Alipay page to check the netizen's personal information. information. The netizen believed that doing so would risk personal information being stolen, so he rejected the other party's request.
The other party asked passengers to download the "All View" App and record the screen on the grounds that the compensation failed.
This is not an isolated case. Many netizens also posted and commented that they had encountered similar "cancel or change visa" scams around this year's National Day Golden Week, and the routines were surprisingly consistent. The caller number is usually a mobile phone number, and the other party can accurately report the flight number and personal information on the phone, and use excuses such as "flight canceled", "flight delayed", "the plane has a breakdown, change the flight to the next flight". Passengers can be provided with corresponding compensation, or can receive compensation in their designated payment software. However, during the compensation process, the other party often requires passengers to download screen recording software, present Alipay payment codes, enable screen sharing, and even require passengers to enter bank card account numbers and passwords on designated websites. According to reports, on the eve of the National Day, a tourist lost more than 2 million yuan due to "cancellation or change of ticket" fraud.
In fact, this type of fraud is not new to this year. According to industry insiders, the "cancellation or rebooking" scam has appeared more than 10 years ago. It is only with the increase in the number of passengers traveling by air that more and more passengers have encountered this scam. This type of fraud often seizes on travelers' worries about changes in their itinerary before traveling, and then uses temptations such as refunds and compensation, as well as complicated operating procedures, to induce travelers to fall into the trap.
Because fraudsters can accurately report flight numbers and personal information on the phone, and the "cancellation or change of booking" text messages are also sent very accurately, netizens suspect that the platform has leaked customers' personal information.
However, most platforms deny this.
People familiar with the matter said that it would indeed be difficult to trace without professional technical expertise. The ticket booking process is cumbersome and involves many parties. A ticket actually involves various intermediaries or terminal systems such as ticketing platforms, airlines, agents, TravelSky, and operators. Any link may have the risk of data leakage. In addition, as the services provided by the platform increase, a piece of air ticket information may also involve other service parties such as insurance companies and car rental platforms. Personal information may be leaked in these links, and regulatory authorities need to increase the investigation and crackdown on information trafficking and jointly strengthen the security protection of user information.
As the tourism industry recovers, the travel sector is also being focused on by fraudsters. Passengers must remain calm if they receive relevant calls or text messages, and please keep the following precautions in mind:
If the other party says that compensation can be made and asks to download the app, it can basically be judged as a scam;
If you are told that you need to "cancel or change your ticket", you must verify the flight information through official channels such as the airline company and the platform's official website;
The most important point is that you must not perform screen sharing assistance operations as requested by the other party, and you must not randomly enter your bank card account number, password, verification code and other important information related to property security on unfamiliar websites.
![Flight delay claims are a scam! Be careful when receiving a "cancel or change" compensation call](https://a5qu.com/upload/images/cbe7aeff25b7c8c91982d8c35dea8533.webp)