canopus27

@DrunkCargo I suspect you're mistaken ... AC "legal" employs only the very sharpest knives in the legal kitchen ... no dull blades there.

They are right every time. Well, kinda.

tcook052

No indication of that in the linked article so that seems a bit of a reach in MHO as a poster.

I can't but find the cover story of 'employee pricing' on business class seats ironic given the number of flyers on these pages who have over the years alleged staff is upgraded ahead of elites.

Santander

It's much easier to feign innocence when you're ostensibly a student trying to get home. I wouldn't be so sure.

m.y

Sorry, I've actually seen people posting about CaptainCooll on my Wechat moments years ago where they boasted about how they bought business class tickets for 50% off and successfully flew. Yes, you can buy things on Wechat, many brands, retailers, travel agencies have official presences on Wechat, and you can pay with Wechat wallet. But there are also many unofficial resellers of goods and services that do not have business licenses, physical presence or any other verification other than word of mouth, so caveat emptor. There are some that are do legitimate business but there are also many news articles from China about consumers being scammed by these unofficial resellers, including airfare scams. If I had to guess, the woman probably did a Wechat personal transfer to the account, similar to sending an interac etransfer, but unlike e-transfer that's tied to a bank account, oversea Wechat wallets do not have mandatory ID verification nor are they tied to a Chinese mobile number that requires ID verification. Scams like this has been going on for many years, other examples include discount Uber rides, utilities, school tuitions, and gas cards where you transfer cash via Wechat and they pay on your behalf using stolen credit cards. It is difficult to believe that a 25 year old would not have read about these scams. People who buy these are complicit in that they enable these scammers by providing ways for them to cash out on stolen credit card info.

moondog

Assuming the account is verified, and most people would never buy anything of substance from an unverified OA, then it passed muster with Tencent at some point in time (their review process is semi-stringent).

It's extremely easy to check this:

m.y

Many of these resellers (including legitimate ones) use personal accounts with no verification, I could go update the information my account and claim to be a travel agent offering discount airfare right now.

moondog

All that I know of have OAs and/or MiniPrograms, but the ones that aren't verified get minimal business. In any event, the image in the OP's article is almost certainly an OA, though it's impossible to tell whether or not it's verified from the image.

moondog

Are you kidding? Almost all airlines and large TAs distribute tickets via Wechat.

DragonSoul

But they don't sell on WeChat.

moondog

I realize that not all airlines flying to/within China sell on WeChat, but I suspect those that don't are in the minority.

Insofar as travel agencies go, I know that both Ctrip and Agoda do. I honestly don't have recent experience with many others.

Fiordland

If Ctrip and Agoda are legitimate WeChat business names then why not MrCool. We live in a world today where business try to be friendly online, so I think the name is not that unusual.

The issue here is she paid money for her ticket. She is not profiting from crime. If AC was on the ball they should have gone to her and said: "We don't want people selling our tickets on Wechat by taking the money of our customers and paying us with stolen credit cards. We want you to help us catch this person."

They should be able to follow the financial trail of where here money went. That the person they need to go after.

frogster

Not sure if it’s that clear cut.

Good faith regulations vary widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and I’m not sure which regulations apply here (depending on the exact circumstances it could even be argued that the transaction took part in China).

Can it be convincingly argued that the traveler believed to have purchased the ticket in good faith? With the arguments above about the prevalence of WeChat purchases in China and the fact that employee pricing is made available to customers in other industries that can certainly be argued. If they could identify the reseller he would definately be primarily responsible but I would not discount the chance that the coustomer would be found liable if the reseller could not be identified or is unwilling / unable to pay.


I assume even Air Canada isn’t quite sure that the customer is legally responsible for the fare – which is why they haven’t sued her and “only” blocked her from taking further flights with Air Canada.

mapleg

Obviously there is no such list. It would be a staggering list size if it covered agents in the whole world.

Most people with a clue buy direct from airlines or legitimate travel agencies that have some kind of consumer protection based on their country/province/state of residence.

moondog

This might be your opinion, but to me, saving thousands of dollars by buying bulk fares from bucket shops well justifies a bit of calculated risk.

sunzi

Again, you are making an assumption that she knew this was a scam. People read about scams all the time. It's in the newspaper, on the internet, on the radio, on tv but people still fall for it. Everyone is different. Not everyone has the same level of due diligence. Just because you might be very careful doesn't mean everyone else is like you.

Without further information, I am not going to just assign guilt to her.