JS:
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">According to Webster's:
fraud:
1, a: Intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right. b: an act of deceiving or misrepresenting.</font>
The practice of assigning the same flight number to a different connecting aircraft is done for marketing reasons, i.e. a direct flight will be listed on the computer reservation systems before a connecting flight, giving the connecting flights a competitive advantage over competing connecting flights.
Some years ago some airlines would assign the same number to more then one flight connecting with an international flight with, yes, the same number! ATC, of course, doesn't permit 2 flights with the same number in the air at the same time, so the aircraft are assigned different numbers for that purpose.
I never said it would have helped my wife, but having been in the position in the past of trying to arrange transportation on real "direct" flights for elderly relatives it's a very sore point for me.