Fraudulent use of credit card to buy airline ticket?

Perhaps they ordered the tickets in their real name (but with *your* CC#)?

Forged passport with your name but his photo? Perhaps insider job. Sales guy want to chalk up sales figures to meet sales target increase his bonus? He might do a refund at the beginning of next month. LOL...okok....I'm talking rubbish.

I'm assuming they did, which is my point. So now its known who they are, and the fact it was an attempted fraid is also known. Like I say, am I missing something here, such as some other way of obtaining the money via the tickets where a false name would do.

Who says he is flying?

Full price airline tickets are as good as cash, you buy them and then cash them in. Buy a few tickets at Heathrow using fraudulent credit cards, cash them in in another country 4 hours later - before the fraudulent use has materialised.

Used to be an easy way to transfer money out of countries with exchange control regulations, buy a 1st class Round the world, go to a country with a strong currency and cash in the ticket. The airlines even had a rule that said they had to refund in local currency.

Mark BR

But then you'd have to have pasports in the name you bought the tickets for, and also run a low chance of getting the transaction authorised since you'd be buying tickets for Mr X, using Credit card in the name of Mr Y. Its much higher risk I'd have thought than trying to buy a stero at Dixons where no ID is required.

I certainly didnt say they were flying, but ISTM that they would still have to produce ID to get the refund. FWIW the transaction wasnt authorised AFAIK, or if it was, then Iberia or the issuing agent took the hit rather than my cc company since the cc company didnt authorise it online.

--SNIPED--

Having 'bought' a few tickets you fly out on a genuine ticket, probably a highly discounted one to save money!

Airlines are very lax, they will refund with no ID since the ticket is treated as cash. Or you can get it converted to MCO (miscellaneous cash? order) and that can be in a different name, however it might leave a paper trail but again can be cashed. Even if you need ID I have a few 'genuine' ID's (all happen to be in my name). They are very easy to get even in the UK, try google on fake ID and/or driving licences. From memory it was 10 for photo ID cards.

And no, airlines often don't do proper authorisation. My last ticket was bought by cheque and I had used half the ticket before the airline presented the cheque a month later. Could easily have stopped it............

Mark BR

Even if you need ID I have a few 'genuine'

£10 novelty id's arent going to get you on a flight these days, you will need a drivers licence and I agree that they can easily be bought, but not for £10. I wouldnt ever try and use a fake one to get a flight though, I only use them for banking purposes.

I didnt report it, it was picked up by the cc company, AFAIK even before tickets were issued.

I didnt realise that, in which case the (attempted?) scam makes sense.

That's not the point, the fraudsters won't have any intention of actually going on the flight - it would make it a bit easy to catch them! I doubt that you need a passport just to get a refund on a ticket.

I suppose they'll change that if this pactice becomes prevalent. Its an obvious loophole.

The fraudster can pay for the ticket on your card, and fly on the flight and get away with it.

If he is flying within EU to another EU country this is easy. When he books, he has to give the name of the person who will be flying so he will give his own name. he DOESNT need to give the address of the person flying.

When you fly within EU there isnt going to be any record of your passport number etc after you fly, so all they will have to go on is a name. For example if I done it, they would know the fraudster is david jones, there must be thousands of people with my name in UK. Obviously its still a bit of a silly thing to do, as if they realise in time that its a fraudulent transaction they could easily send police to arrest the person as they check in as they would know exactly were/when to get them.

I think thats very unlikely I'm sure they keep the passport details for some considerable time. For example there have been several recent public cases where they have looked at records and backtracked to find where people have gone. All they need is a passport number and name to get to the unique dave jones as per below.

Yes, which is why the idea that soemone just turns up and says 'I'd like a refund on this ticket' and never flies, sounds more sensible.

It might have worked in some countries but in many (most?) with exchange controls, the purchase of international air, rail and other tickets was part of the exchange control mechanism. Not just to prevent the scheme above, but also because buying an international ticket incurred some expenses in foreign currency (landing fees, taxes, fuel, etc.), even if travelling on that country's own airline. Many of those countries also had restrictions of foreign travel, you couldn't just walk in to a travel agent in Moscow and buy a 1st class round the world plane ticket.

Steve

From what I recall, you could go and see Intourist or Aeroflot and buy a ticket in Roubles. That was easy. The difficult bit was getting a passport and an exit visa, and even more difficult was getting the entry visa to the UK. You could probably get most of the way round the world with Aeroflot, Cubana and CAAC. It helped if you were nomenklatura.

But surely when a person makes a credit card transaction, any refund is placed back on the card?

Axel

I know people some years ago who regularily 'earned' extra money by downgrading from business class to economy and pocketed the difference which was paid to them in cash by the airline. It might have been via a voucher or a cheque rather than cash at the desk, but it was payable to them and not their company which had originally paid for the ticket.

On the occasions when I've had a refund on a ticket, due to extending the stay and getting a cheaper fare as a result, I've been issued with an MCO, which is as good as cash, although it had to go back to the company as they had paid for the fare.

I doubt it. The ticket doesn't know how it was paid for, and you don't need a receipt to get a refund. The value is intrinsic in the ticket itself.

Indeed. It has on occasion been recommended that buying full-price (and therefore fully refundable) air tickets, and either taking or mailing them abroad and getting a refund in the local currency, is a reasonably good way of converting one currency to another without taking a hit on exchange rates or commission.