ontheroad
Jun 20, 05, 7:29 am
From Colloquy.com
June 17, 2005
An alleged scam artist, who never left the ground, is accused of amassing more than $600,000 worth of frequent-flier points after stumbling onto an "irregularity" in Qantas' mainframe computer system.
Australian Austin Perrott, working as a Singapore Airlines customer services supervisor in Melbourne, has been accused of amassing 16 million frequent-flier points by manipulating Qantas reservation system.
The scam, which occurred over a 6 ½ year period, took placed when Perrott is alleged to have set up fake frequent-flier accounts and entered the information into flight lists that showed up as "open" in Qantas' flight system. When the flight list "closed," the mileage and points eventually transferred to his frequent-flier systems, set up amongst a number of oneworld alliance partner airlines.
Perrott is accused of profiting from the tickets by selling the frequent-flier award tickets to unsuspecting friends and family members. Authorities say his 29 fake frequent-flier accounts caused losses of $117,000 to 10 different airlines, including American Airlines, British Airways, Qantas and Air New Zealand, according to The New Zealand Herald.
Watson told police the he "tried it on one airline and then tried it on several others and found that it was, you know, quite easy to create the accounts and subsequently credit them with...points and it basically got out of hand."
Source: USA Today
June 17, 2005
An alleged scam artist, who never left the ground, is accused of amassing more than $600,000 worth of frequent-flier points after stumbling onto an "irregularity" in Qantas' mainframe computer system.
Australian Austin Perrott, working as a Singapore Airlines customer services supervisor in Melbourne, has been accused of amassing 16 million frequent-flier points by manipulating Qantas reservation system.
The scam, which occurred over a 6 ½ year period, took placed when Perrott is alleged to have set up fake frequent-flier accounts and entered the information into flight lists that showed up as "open" in Qantas' flight system. When the flight list "closed," the mileage and points eventually transferred to his frequent-flier systems, set up amongst a number of oneworld alliance partner airlines.
Perrott is accused of profiting from the tickets by selling the frequent-flier award tickets to unsuspecting friends and family members. Authorities say his 29 fake frequent-flier accounts caused losses of $117,000 to 10 different airlines, including American Airlines, British Airways, Qantas and Air New Zealand, according to The New Zealand Herald.
Watson told police the he "tried it on one airline and then tried it on several others and found that it was, you know, quite easy to create the accounts and subsequently credit them with...points and it basically got out of hand."
Source: USA Today