Originally Posted by
canadiancow
People can be ignorant, or tired, or both, and mistakes happen. I'm happy that in over 1200 flights, I've never encountered a true poacher. And as I've also never encountered anyone who said no to anything remotely reasonable (the worst I got was a "no" for a window to aisle request on a 5 hour flight), I will also continue to say "yes" to basically anything within the same cabin.
I had a pass poacher once. I had connecting flight back home through ORD which was a last-minute booking so I wasn't able to get an F seat on the final leg. I was already GS by then so I got on the plane and took a seat in E+. I refresh the app and lo and behold someone must have missed the flight as I had been upgraded seat to 4A. I grab my carry on and head up only to find someone in it.
I politely say, 'you're in my seat'. He claims it's his and whips out a boarding pass....with my name on it. I call the Purser over and she confirms it is the correct pass and person for that seat. I tell her to hold up and take out my NJ driver's license which obviously has my name and photo. She makes the guy hand over his (my) pass and sends him on his way back to steerage.
Turns out he grabbed it off the gate desk when the GA was trying to locate me. He claimed that he was me and probably figured I was a no show instead of having pre-boarded.