Originally Posted by
Stranger
That;s ot what the other poster was saying. But makes sense.
The information is contained in the CBC story in post #1 , it helps if you actually read it:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfou...lict-1.4115596
Originally Posted by CBC
In December, Earle and his wife Claudia booked a five-week round trip from St. John's to Portugal through Air Canada's website for about $2,400. They paid by credit card.
It's pretty clear you don't even have a basic grasp of the facts.
Originally Posted by
Stranger
Not so quick.
First, this is now the third report of cases where the (new?) AC fraud dept stood in the way of somewhat traveling. AC claims that's what the issue was too.
And the relevance of previous reports of such fraud detection to the case at hand is what exactly?
Originally Posted by
Stranger
Second, this is *the AC fraud dept,* not the CC fraud dept. Which would get into action before the CC is deemed to be compromised by the CC issuer. Precisely to avoid a situation where someone buys a ticket fraudulently and flies. With the true card holder later filing a complaint, the charge getting reversed and the airline being on the hook.
I am well aware of such process since I have been on the receiving end of such charge back before, I can assure you. This kind of cases is a concern for the merchant as the rules of VISA/MC/AMEX are heavily in favor of the card holders as long as the cardholder claims the charge was not authorized by him/her. So yes, I can appreciate why AC or any airlines would be rather careful about these chargebacks. I also know in this kind of cases, CS is duty bound to contact the affected customers and try to resolve the situation, not unilaterally cancel the contract. While the TorStar article used "suspended", the original CBC article clearly used "cancelled":
Originally Posted by CBC
"We go to check in, and we were told, 'Air Canada has cancelled your ticket. You have to go to customer care,'" he said.
Earle said they spent the next three hours getting the runaround from airport agents. Multiple calls on a pay phone to Air Canada and Star Alliance's customer care lines didn't resolve matters.
Fraud detection does not summarily cancel a partially flown ticket. Doing so could potentially be stranding actual customers overseas and that would be a major no no for any competent airline. If fraud is suspected, verification needs to be performed. The cardholder can be contacted based on the information provided by the CC issuer, not whatever the passenger filled in online, including their address. If no verification has been performed even on a genuinely suspected fraud, then the company cannot use it as a legitimate defense since the merchant has a duty to validate that information before summarily cancelling a contract. Since AC clearly did not do that and did not inform the stranded pax while they were in LIS, giving them a chance to address the airline's concerns, there is no reason to believe fraud was the real cause of the ticket cancellation. Suspicion of credit card fraud is not difficult to resolve when airline has a chance to intercept and validate the identity of the passenger especially when the card member is one of the passengers.
Originally Posted by Stranger
Indeed. Would be AC anticipating a situation where the charge would have been reversed after they had flown. Not a blocked CC.
That explanation still does not make sense, the ticket was already partially used at that point.
This is not a case where things could go either way. AC has no credibility here.