Unbelievable aa reply to account closure for fraudulent credit card use
Apr 2, 2019, 1:48 pm
#76
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: USA
Programs: Chase Sapphire Reserve, WFBF
Posts: 1,573
Whether or not the OP is an April Fool's joke, it certainly sounds believable. Either way, the poster is not likely to be sued by AA. Rather, it sounds like AA is basically saying "we see how you've been behaving and we don't want to do business with you anymore".
In this situation unless one has millions of miles, it would be better to just walk away. Honestly based on the OP's travel patterns it sounds like he or she would be very happy over at Southwest. No change fee, you can book, cancel, and rebook as many times as you want out of any inventory bucket and nobody will care. Just be sure to start an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of all those travel credits.
In this situation unless one has millions of miles, it would be better to just walk away. Honestly based on the OP's travel patterns it sounds like he or she would be very happy over at Southwest. No change fee, you can book, cancel, and rebook as many times as you want out of any inventory bucket and nobody will care. Just be sure to start an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of all those travel credits.
Apr 2, 2019, 1:54 pm
#77
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: PNS
Programs: DL FO, UA, AA
Posts: 700
Question. OP stated that it was an AA CC that was expired and still in his account. From the DL Amex perspective whenever your get a new card from Amex for whatever reason(lost, coming up on expiration date, etc) it automatically updates in the DL system "wallet". If you close your DL Amex card IIRC the card is automatically removed from your DL wallet as the preferred method of payment. I would assume OA's do the same with their co branded cards? You would think that once this card was closed, cancelled or whatever it would be automatically removed as the payment method and wouldn't be stored unless it was some sort of system bug.
Apr 2, 2019, 2:10 pm
#78
Join Date: Jun 2011
Programs: United Premier Platinum
Posts: 638
Question. OP stated that it was an AA CC that was expired and still in his account. From the DL Amex perspective whenever your get a new card from Amex for whatever reason(lost, coming up on expiration date, etc) it automatically updates in the DL system "wallet". If you close your DL Amex card IIRC the card is automatically removed from your DL wallet as the preferred method of payment. I would assume OA's do the same with their co branded cards? You would think that once this card was closed, cancelled or whatever it would be automatically removed as the payment method and wouldn't be stored unless it was some sort of system bug.
Apr 2, 2019, 2:28 pm
#79
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: PNS
Programs: DL FO, UA, AA
Posts: 700
The only reason I brought it up as airlines have a very close relationship with the banks of their co branded cards and their systems are intertwined more than most people think so there is a lot of data sharing. Now with a credit card from Okey Dokey bank who knows...
Apr 2, 2019, 3:25 pm
#81
Suspended
Join Date: Sep 2006
Programs: AAdvantage PP
Posts: 13,913
I'm really confused on AA's technology. If I go to Best Buy and buy $700 of merchandise on a credit card the card must be validated open and sufficient credit available before I walk away with the merchandise. Otherwise the card is declined and no sale. Wouldn't AA's technology do the same? When I book a flight on DL I immediately get confirmation presuming that the charge went through on my card. This of course is outside of the scope of whether the actual authorized user made the charge.
The fact that someone could use a closed card for 3 years to book flights is truly astounding. Is AA's technology that bad?
The fact that someone could use a closed card for 3 years to book flights is truly astounding. Is AA's technology that bad?
Apr 2, 2019, 3:26 pm
#82
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Programs: UA 1K 1MMer & LT UC (when flying UA); Hyatt Credit Cardist; HHonors Diamond; Marriott Gold via UA 1K
Posts: 6,956
I’m a UA flyer. Former US Gold whose parents are both EXP, hence I hang out here a bit. The AA fraud/account locked thread is my FAVORITE thread on Flyertalk, bar none. I think that this one is now my second favorite.
Apr 2, 2019, 3:30 pm
#83
Join Date: Jan 2017
Posts: 805
Apr 2, 2019, 3:34 pm
#84
Suspended
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: FIND ME ON TWITTER FOR THE LATEST
Posts: 27,730
Hey, I'm a DL flyer myself at this point and I feel the same
Apr 2, 2019, 3:42 pm
#85
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Oct 2014
Posts: 10,904
It just sounds implausible because whenever I have used an expired credit card by mistake - usually when it was saved in an airline account, on Amazon, or to pay my garbage bill every month, if it has expired it immediately tells me the card has expired/was closed and to give them a new card number.
There is a difference between closing an account, and having it expire. The expiration date is entered when you enter the card information. So of course they should know that a card is expired.
Citi AA cards do not automatically show up as payment methods on AA when they are opened (I have 4 of them and none of them show up in my payment methods). Do they disappear when they are closed? That sounds like it would be beyond AA's abilities.
Hell, yesterday UA was showing one of my Amex cards as expired, even though the expiration date is 12/19. 8 months early...
Apr 2, 2019, 3:43 pm
#86
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Las Vegas
Programs: BA Gold; Hilton Honors Diamond
Posts: 3,228
I have to say I agree with the comments from those posters who find it hard to believe that AA's IT is so poor that it couldn't detect that the credit card being used had expired. One of the key pieces of information in any CC transaction is the expiry date and it should be very easy to incorporate some logic into the web page that checks whether the card is still valid before you're allowed to use it. There is also the Luhn algorithm that will confirm whether the CC number entered isn't invalid. It shouldn't really matter whether the card number is being entered manually into the payment page or whether it's being used from an online wallet - you'd still want to check that the CC hadn't expired before you submit the payment request.
Apr 2, 2019, 4:00 pm
#87
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: Stockholm, Sweden.
Programs: BA, JAL
Posts: 689
I dunno if it's been suggested or how plausible a defence it could be, but if the OP has security concerns about airlines holding his credit card information, it might be seem reasonable to a lay person such as myself to have this held on file with a booking until he/she progressed a purchase. Only last year BA was hacked and credit cards held on file were compromised. If the OP benefited by booking tickets after the 24 hour hold period then maybe that would be a problem to defend. Similarly if there was an initial payment (non-refundable deposit) that was never received. Good luck to the OP. Although he looked to leverage a benefit, many others have in many similar situations would always look to find an advantage.
Apr 2, 2019, 4:08 pm
#88
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Philadelphia
Posts: 2,506
I agree with some posters saying that the 68k/21k is AA telling the guy to screw off, but it would be interesting to see what would happen if AA did sue the OP. I doubt they would be able to recover much that way as it sounds like the tickets were cancelled well before departure, effectively negating the contract.
Apr 2, 2019, 4:20 pm
#90
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: PNS
Programs: DL FO, UA, AA
Posts: 700
The OP did not say that the card was expired. I'm not sure why everyone is saying that. The OP stated that he closed the account.
There is a difference between closing an account, and having it expire. The expiration date is entered when you enter the card information. So of course they should know that a card is expired.
Citi AA cards do not automatically show up as payment methods on AA when they are opened (I have 4 of them and none of them show up in my payment methods). Do they disappear when they are closed? That sounds like it would be beyond AA's abilities.
Hell, yesterday UA was showing one of my Amex cards as expired, even though the expiration date is 12/19. 8 months early...
There is a difference between closing an account, and having it expire. The expiration date is entered when you enter the card information. So of course they should know that a card is expired.
Citi AA cards do not automatically show up as payment methods on AA when they are opened (I have 4 of them and none of them show up in my payment methods). Do they disappear when they are closed? That sounds like it would be beyond AA's abilities.
Hell, yesterday UA was showing one of my Amex cards as expired, even though the expiration date is 12/19. 8 months early...