AAdvantage Miles Program - Cracking Down (on fraudulent activity?)
Feb 21, 2014, 10:50 am
#16
Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 37
Your brother is trusting the word of someone with whom he engaged in activity that violates the Aadvantage T&Cs and who, later, was identified by AA as having engaged in fraudulent activity and passed on Brother's name to AA? Such a person would be the last guy I'd go to for advice.
Jdiver and JonNYC offered expert and correct advice, in my opinion. I would pass on their comments to your brother and tell him to ignore anyone telling him to further engage in T&C violating activity.
As for opening a new Aadvantage account with a new name and possibly a new address: True, there are fathers and sons who live at the same address and have the exact same name. My father and brother have the exact same name and, until my brother's marriage, lived at the same address. But they do not share a birthdate. Twins could live at the same address, share a birthdate, but do not share first and middle names.
What Jon said about these kinds of things being reviewed by humans, not just some easily-tricked computer algorithm, is true. I work as a database administrator, but not for an airline. I look for "irregularities" all the time as part of my job.
If the airline were to hire me and task me with finding people who have accounts closed, and have opened new accounts, I could easily imagine the steps to find such people. I'd design general queries to locate a bunch of needles in a giant haystack (accounts with the same or similar name and same birthdate), then look at each needle in detail, with my human eyes and human judgment and decide if it needs to be escalated to a more senior manager. That senior manager would most likely attend meetings with other senior managers, where account fraud is the topic. If a committee of senior managers all agree that Joe Blow is engaged in fraudulent activity (violating T&Cs), that matter would be passed on to a legal department who would send the boilerplate "You've been busted" letter to Joe.
False positives would be so noted in a "Notes" field of the account records, so similar positives in the future can be discarded. ("Joe Blow #123XYZ is not the same Joe Blow #444ABC whose account was closed 1/1/14. Signed by QofC 2/15/14, countersigned by SeniorMgr 2/16/14.")
Jdiver and JonNYC offered expert and correct advice, in my opinion. I would pass on their comments to your brother and tell him to ignore anyone telling him to further engage in T&C violating activity.
As for opening a new Aadvantage account with a new name and possibly a new address: True, there are fathers and sons who live at the same address and have the exact same name. My father and brother have the exact same name and, until my brother's marriage, lived at the same address. But they do not share a birthdate. Twins could live at the same address, share a birthdate, but do not share first and middle names.
What Jon said about these kinds of things being reviewed by humans, not just some easily-tricked computer algorithm, is true. I work as a database administrator, but not for an airline. I look for "irregularities" all the time as part of my job.
If the airline were to hire me and task me with finding people who have accounts closed, and have opened new accounts, I could easily imagine the steps to find such people. I'd design general queries to locate a bunch of needles in a giant haystack (accounts with the same or similar name and same birthdate), then look at each needle in detail, with my human eyes and human judgment and decide if it needs to be escalated to a more senior manager. That senior manager would most likely attend meetings with other senior managers, where account fraud is the topic. If a committee of senior managers all agree that Joe Blow is engaged in fraudulent activity (violating T&Cs), that matter would be passed on to a legal department who would send the boilerplate "You've been busted" letter to Joe.
False positives would be so noted in a "Notes" field of the account records, so similar positives in the future can be discarded. ("Joe Blow #123XYZ is not the same Joe Blow #444ABC whose account was closed 1/1/14. Signed by QofC 2/15/14, countersigned by SeniorMgr 2/16/14.")
My advice is to create another account if you want to fly aa once again but don't violate the T&Cs.
Feb 21, 2014, 10:57 am
#17
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2013
Posts: 4
Thanks all for the information. It's an eye-opener.
Feb 21, 2014, 11:04 am
#18
Suspended
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: FIND ME ON TWITTER FOR THE LATEST
Posts: 27,730
I'm not a DB expert in any way, I'm an expert in this, exact area with this, exact frequent flier program. And no one who's ever followed my advice has ever been anything but very happy they did. And that's exactly what this person should do as well.
Feb 21, 2014, 11:49 am
#19
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: California
Programs: AA EXP...couple hotels and cars too
Posts: 4,548
Just to add, they can track your IP address and may use cookies to track transactions.
SOmeone was busted creating fake first class reservations to 'hold' space so he could be assured of upgrades. They can 'see' many more things that the 'things' you tell them.
SOmeone was busted creating fake first class reservations to 'hold' space so he could be assured of upgrades. They can 'see' many more things that the 'things' you tell them.
Feb 21, 2014, 12:10 pm
#20
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: STL/ORD/MCI/SAN
Programs: AA CK MM, AC SE100K, BA Gold, UA 1K, DL Plat, Hyatt Globalist, Hilton Diamond, Marriott Platinum
Posts: 1,990
I have to admit that, since joining FT a couple of years ago, I have found these fraud detection topics to be some of the most intriguing threads here.
Without hearing the stories, it would be difficult to imagine that AA actually has a very sophisticated "Revenue Integrity" program.
It's just the type of thing that I think the average flyer would never even consider. Average Joe decides, "Gee I have a few extra miles that are going to expire, why don't I try to sell them and make a few bucks?" Frequent Flyer X says to himself, "Hmm... if I make a couple of dummy bookings for F seats, AA won't be able to sell them to anyone else, so I'll be more likely to get my upgrade."
I think someone else posted the following link at one point, but I'll repost it, because I'm sure many of you reading this topic will find it interesting.
http://www.arccorp.com/gfpf/2010_day3_2.pdf
Without hearing the stories, it would be difficult to imagine that AA actually has a very sophisticated "Revenue Integrity" program.
It's just the type of thing that I think the average flyer would never even consider. Average Joe decides, "Gee I have a few extra miles that are going to expire, why don't I try to sell them and make a few bucks?" Frequent Flyer X says to himself, "Hmm... if I make a couple of dummy bookings for F seats, AA won't be able to sell them to anyone else, so I'll be more likely to get my upgrade."
I think someone else posted the following link at one point, but I'll repost it, because I'm sure many of you reading this topic will find it interesting.
http://www.arccorp.com/gfpf/2010_day3_2.pdf
Feb 21, 2014, 12:12 pm
#21
Moderator: American AAdvantage
Join Date: May 2000
Location: NorCal - SMF area
Programs: AA LT Plat; HH LT Diamond, Maître-plongeur des Muccis
Posts: 62,948
JonNYC knows: I would follow his advice. I know a retired person from "AAudits" and as moderator have seen a lot of water flow under the bridge from various perspectives. New address, newish name - but names must conform to TSA, GE, etc. and maybe there are credit card numbers and other lovely little crumbs the pigeons can snap up (my serious initiation into computerized databases began o/a 1972). This could be a temporary patch - and if they are caught again, well... "PNG" doesn't just stand for Papua-New Guinea. 
I would never advise any members follow your cousins' path, unless one genuinely enjoys risk. Anyway, thanks for sharing.
metallo, thanks for that; that's the tip of the tip of the iceberg, btw.
I would never advise any members follow your cousins' path, unless one genuinely enjoys risk. Anyway, thanks for sharing.
metallo, thanks for that; that's the tip of the tip of the iceberg, btw.
Last edited by JDiver; Feb 21, 2014 at 12:19 pm
Feb 21, 2014, 12:23 pm
#22
Suspended
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: FIND ME ON TWITTER FOR THE LATEST
Posts: 27,730
NOW who ya' gonna' listen to?
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...l#post18112992
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...l#post18112992
Feb 21, 2014, 12:30 pm
#23
Moderator: Coupon Connection & S.P.A.M
Join Date: May 2000
Location: Louisville, KY
Programs: Destination Unknown, TSA Disparager Diamond (LTDD)
Posts: 57,955
