1dash1

Any truth to the rumor that AA is cracking down on unauthorized miles trading?

I noticed that Rewards2Cash took down their AA offer.

P.S. If there's already a thread discussing this, can you point me in the right direction? (I searched and couldn't find anything.)

P.P.S. I just noticed that, although I've been a member for over a year, this is my first post!

miamigrad

As this pertains to the pre-merger American Airlines operation, it is being moved to that forum.

As noted in the Welcome to the New American Airlines Forum! PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING, questions and information pertaining to the existing AA or US operations should go in those forums as it will be quite some time before the two entities operate as a single airline.

Your understanding is appreciated.

/Moderator

Mod hat off: AA has a fairly sophisticated auditing group. If you search this pre-merger American Airlines forum using terms such as "audit," "account locked" (I can't recall the exact terms), I believe you find threads that cover this subject. I'll see if I can find a few in the interim.

JonNYC

AAdvantage has the smartest, quickest and most active departments in this area (trading and selling.) There are so many accounts frozen every week that I'm surprised anyone still does it ever.

JDiver

A little searching here reveals AA Corporate Security - AAdvantage Fraud has been cracking down for some time. They use people (who read TT, not to mention craigslist etc.) and software that "sift" various AA related procedures using algorithms developed to catch violations of AAdvantage Terms and Conditions.

I doubt the "new American" will slack off - and I suspect the Parker administration will be no less active in its interest in stanching losses through fraud.

And... welcome down from lurkerspace!

JonNYC

"Active as ever" would be even a slight understatement. I'd go so far as to say that anyone who deals with a broker WILL get caught-- they all get busted eventually.

And of course those who've dealt with people who've dealt with said broker will be kinda guilty/kinda innocent until proven innocent.

sosewso

AA sent my brother a warning message that they noted fraudulent activity. He had sold the miles in that account and had just a few miles left.
He sold the miles privately but the person he sold to probably flipped it and told him, just open an new AA account, doesn't matter if it's the same name and same address how will they know, could be 2 people with the same exact name.
Can he open a new AA account if he ever wants to accumulate AA miles again, and should he send it to a different address?

JonNYC

Absolutely will not work with -any- certainty. This process is not handled by computers, it's handled by humans. And, trust me, those humans have the ability to understand (and pinpoint) exactly what you're talking about-- not that it's even hard at all.

"Just open a new AA account" does not work. If he wants to accumulate AAdv miles/status in the future and have any confidence that that account won't get frozen as well, he has to make a deal with them.

sosewso

Thank You, that makes sense. I told him it made absolutely no sense that he could open another account with same name and address. I bet the buyer told him that, so he wouldn't chance telling AA who he sold it to.

Do you recommend that he 'admit' he sold miles. He did it one time, in his account and one time in his wife's account. He wasn't a habitual offender.

Or should he try to find out who the broker sold the tickets to and claim that he gave it to them?

JonNYC

The latter will definitely definitely NOT work. Don't even think about it.

Yes, only and best approach is full confession.

SuperTraveler001

You are so wrong. You CAN open a different account. Just add a different address. I did this, my cousins and 3 other friends who were caught at one point and had our accounts suspended.

JonNYC

Hilariously bad advice to give here.

OP, trust me, or "ask around"-- I know more on this subject than anyone here.

QueenOfCoach

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.")

QueenOfCoach

The good old "take advice from a criminal who was stupid enough to get caught on how not to get caught" routine. Brilliant.

sosewso

Thanks for the advice. I think he needs to come clean or at least list his home address as living with my parents or something.

QueenOfCoach

He needs to come clean. Period.