Jul 29, 2014, 10:15 am
Last edit by: Prospero
This thread is dedicated to issues around American Airlines Corporate Security, AAdvantage Fraud division (AKA "Revenue Protection Unit"), and its enforcement of the AAdvantage Terms and Conditions - particularly to selling, buying and bartering awards, miles, upgrades and other instruments - and related issues.
It is okay at this time to gift awards, upgrades, etc. as long as there is absolutely no quid pro quo (no buying or selling or offer to do so, no barter or trade "you give me one now I'll give it back" or anything smacking of prohibited activity. AA is probably the strictest of the US airlines about this. They have a very active and expert AAdvantage Fraud division of the AA Corporate Fraud department, and they can both be aggressive and, some might say merciless - clawing back one's miles and instruments, even closing one's account and terminating status and ability to participate in the AAdvantage program n the future.
There are other ways to commit fraud in AA’s eyes, such as fictitious or fraudulent bookings to try to block seats to increase one’s chances if upgrades, generating tickets to access airside facilities (e.g. lounges) when there is no intent to fly, etc.
To read an example of how the US Department of Transportation has rules on punitive actions by AA, read Joel Hayes vs. American Airlines here (PDF).
Please read on for information and the consensus of knowledgeable members.
Also see AAdvantage Program Terms and Conditions and
American Airlines Conditions of Carriage.
The typical email from AA Corporate Security can not be addressed by calling AAdvantage Customer Service or other methods - you must reply to the email address given. It likely will look like this:
Excellent summaries of information (based on the sum of experiences we have seen in this thread over time) of how to respond:
From JonNYC, our resident expert on this:
Older posts have been archived to the
archived thread.
A number of posts regarding AA's confiscation of 60,000 miles from "Mr. Hayes" for allegedly making "fictitious" bookings in search of whether his upgrade would be likely to progress or not, AA IT issues that might have led to this (or not), AA's replies and the USDOT complaint have been moved to a new thread: Hayes, USDOT and AA: "fictitious bookings" and checking upgrades.
NOTE: Posts about members experiencing account security breaches, fraud, theft of awards and instruments have moved to Account fraud / breach: my account compromised, awards stolen, etc..
It is okay at this time to gift awards, upgrades, etc. as long as there is absolutely no quid pro quo (no buying or selling or offer to do so, no barter or trade "you give me one now I'll give it back" or anything smacking of prohibited activity. AA is probably the strictest of the US airlines about this. They have a very active and expert AAdvantage Fraud division of the AA Corporate Fraud department, and they can both be aggressive and, some might say merciless - clawing back one's miles and instruments, even closing one's account and terminating status and ability to participate in the AAdvantage program n the future.
There are other ways to commit fraud in AA’s eyes, such as fictitious or fraudulent bookings to try to block seats to increase one’s chances if upgrades, generating tickets to access airside facilities (e.g. lounges) when there is no intent to fly, etc.
To read an example of how the US Department of Transportation has rules on punitive actions by AA, read Joel Hayes vs. American Airlines here (PDF).
Please read on for information and the consensus of knowledgeable members.
E.g. AAdvantage Terms and Conditions excerpt: "At no time may AAdvantage mileage credit or award tickets be purchased, sold, advertised for sale or bartered (including but not limited to transferring, gifting, or promising mileage credit or award tickets in exchange for support of a certain business, product or charity and/or participation in an auction, sweepstakes, raffle or contest). Any such mileage or tickets are void if transferred for cash or other consideration. Violators (including any passenger who uses a purchased or bartered award ticket) may be liable for damages and litigation costs, including American Airlines attorneys’ fees incurred in enforcing this rule." (This extends to other AA instruments such as Systemwide Upgrades, etc., selling of extra AirPass seats or baggage allowance, etc.)
American Airlines Conditions of Carriage.
<snip>"While you may consider the AAdvantage Miles in your account to be *your* property, they are actually the property of AA, and AA permits you to redeem them within the program rules set by AA. If AA detects any impropriety (real or perceived) in the use of AAdvantage miles, they reserve the right to confiscate the miles and/or close/delete the account."...
My name is Fname Lname, and I am an analyst with American Airlines. One of my responsibilities is investigating possible instances of fraud, misrepresentation, and violations of the General AAdvantage Program Conditions. Today, I’m writing you about your AAdvantage account # XXXXXXXX
We have reason to believe that the transactions listed below violate one or more of the AAdvantage program conditions. This includes, but is not limited to, prohibition of purchase, sale, or barter of mileage credit and or award tickets. As a result, American Airlines has suspended your AAdvantage membership privileges and use of AA.com® in conjunction with your account – and may terminate your account as a result of our findings. We are in the process of completing the investigation into this matter, and I would like to hear the events as they occurred from your perspective. Please respond to this message by <date> with complete and accurate information regarding the activities listed below:
<specific activity /activities in question>
Required Information:·
To protect and retain the integrity of the AAdvantage program, it is vital that firm action be taken as a result of any violation of the AAdvantage Program Conditions, whether intentional or not. Failure to respond completely and accurately by <insert date>, will result in the termination of your AAdvantage membership and all its benefits, including all remaining AAdvantage miles in your account and any award tickets issued from it. Please, understand that our overall motivation is to preserve the benefits of the AAdvantage program, rather than to take punitive action against individuals. To that end, it’s not unusual for us to release the AAdvantage account suspension once we receive all the detail we request and reconcile it with the results of our investigation. We hope to hear from you soon.
Regards,
Fname Lname, etc.
We have reason to believe that the transactions listed below violate one or more of the AAdvantage program conditions. This includes, but is not limited to, prohibition of purchase, sale, or barter of mileage credit and or award tickets. As a result, American Airlines has suspended your AAdvantage membership privileges and use of AA.com® in conjunction with your account – and may terminate your account as a result of our findings. We are in the process of completing the investigation into this matter, and I would like to hear the events as they occurred from your perspective. Please respond to this message by <date> with complete and accurate information regarding the activities listed below:
<specific activity /activities in question>
Required Information:·
- Passenger name·
- Origin and destination cities on the travel itinerary·
- Purchaser name (individual, company and/or website), including:·
- Copy of any advertisements to which you responded offering to purchase/broker the use of your AAdvantage miles·
- Purchaser contact information, such as:·
- Mailing address·
- Email address·
- Telephone number·
- Website profile name·
- Your statement fully disclosing the details surrounding the sale/barter transaction referenced above·
- Copy of all communication between yourself and the purchaser·
- Documentation that you received payment
- Copy of all communication between yourself and the purchaser·
- Your statement fully disclosing the details surrounding the sale/barter transaction referenced above·
- Website profile name·
- Telephone number·
- Email address·
- Mailing address·
- Purchaser contact information, such as:·
- Copy of any advertisements to which you responded offering to purchase/broker the use of your AAdvantage miles·
- Purchaser name (individual, company and/or website), including:·
- Origin and destination cities on the travel itinerary·
To protect and retain the integrity of the AAdvantage program, it is vital that firm action be taken as a result of any violation of the AAdvantage Program Conditions, whether intentional or not. Failure to respond completely and accurately by <insert date>, will result in the termination of your AAdvantage membership and all its benefits, including all remaining AAdvantage miles in your account and any award tickets issued from it. Please, understand that our overall motivation is to preserve the benefits of the AAdvantage program, rather than to take punitive action against individuals. To that end, it’s not unusual for us to release the AAdvantage account suspension once we receive all the detail we request and reconcile it with the results of our investigation. We hope to hear from you soon.
Regards,
Fname Lname, etc.
Blogger Gary Leff: "If you made that mistake and got caught, American usually will go light on first-time offenders provided that they ‘come clean’ and are forthcoming about whom a systemwide was sold to or purchased from and what the terms were. They are most interested in serial brokers and are willing to ‘plea bargain’ with minor offenders to get the Evip-lords. There may be a consequence but it should fall short of account shutdown and forfeiture of miles." Link
I am going to try and provide a summary of the advice. For the record, this is 90% from Jon (JonNYC) and a little bit from other comments and circumstances, I am just trying to provide an easy summary, without all the explanations and reasons. I am happy to have others update/correct.
1. Respond to the questions in the email which you received. Don't try to call or email that person, or anyone else, at AA or DOT or whatever. Just answer the email.
2. Answer every question, in detail, with the facts. Don't use sarcasm or "you should know" or anything else that sounds like to you are avoiding the exact question being asked.
3. Assume that they know more about the true facts than you do. It might not always be true, but in most cases they have way more information than you might assume. So go back to #2, above.
4. If you did ANYTHING that was wrong (not under your interpretation of what you think the rules should be, but based on what the rules actually say) then, if you want to continue to participate in the AAdvantage program, tell them about your error and tell them that you are prepared to pay a correct penalty for your mistake (miles/status/etc) and then go back to #2, above.
1. Respond to the questions in the email which you received. Don't try to call or email that person, or anyone else, at AA or DOT or whatever. Just answer the email.
2. Answer every question, in detail, with the facts. Don't use sarcasm or "you should know" or anything else that sounds like to you are avoiding the exact question being asked.
3. Assume that they know more about the true facts than you do. It might not always be true, but in most cases they have way more information than you might assume. So go back to #2, above.
4. If you did ANYTHING that was wrong (not under your interpretation of what you think the rules should be, but based on what the rules actually say) then, if you want to continue to participate in the AAdvantage program, tell them about your error and tell them that you are prepared to pay a correct penalty for your mistake (miles/status/etc) and then go back to #2, above.
Perfect and 100%.
<snip>
The analysts that do this for a living have the same reactions that any humans do to being lied to and/or condescended to. Therefore, as well as being 100% truthful, go out of your way NOT to be:
-condescending
-brusque
-sharp, terse and/or sounding like you're being inconvenienced
-insulting
-just generally slippery, aloof, evasive and unforthcoming. As mentioned; they know more than you think they do. Always.
DO be apologetic, contrite and extremely cooperative.
Finally, any version of "...in which case, I'll be emailing [insert name or department here] to tell them how I, a [insert years flying AA, status, MMer, $$ spent, etc] customer is being treated" and/or mention of your lawyer, DOT, Chris Elliot (
), this forum, any blogger, etc. DO NOT DO THIS.
<snip>
The analysts that do this for a living have the same reactions that any humans do to being lied to and/or condescended to. Therefore, as well as being 100% truthful, go out of your way NOT to be:
-condescending
-brusque
-sharp, terse and/or sounding like you're being inconvenienced
-insulting
-just generally slippery, aloof, evasive and unforthcoming. As mentioned; they know more than you think they do. Always.
DO be apologetic, contrite and extremely cooperative.
Finally, any version of "...in which case, I'll be emailing [insert name or department here] to tell them how I, a [insert years flying AA, status, MMer, $$ spent, etc] customer is being treated" and/or mention of your lawyer, DOT, Chris Elliot (
), this forum, any blogger, etc. DO NOT DO THIS.archived thread.
A number of posts regarding AA's confiscation of 60,000 miles from "Mr. Hayes" for allegedly making "fictitious" bookings in search of whether his upgrade would be likely to progress or not, AA IT issues that might have led to this (or not), AA's replies and the USDOT complaint have been moved to a new thread: Hayes, USDOT and AA: "fictitious bookings" and checking upgrades.
NOTE: Posts about members experiencing account security breaches, fraud, theft of awards and instruments have moved to Account fraud / breach: my account compromised, awards stolen, etc..
Account audit / blocked / fraud: award / miles / SWU / sale, barter, etc.
Mar 11, 2017, 6:24 pm
#181
Join Date: Mar 2015
Posts: 1,620
Clearly, AA is good at detecting true nefarious customers from rule abiding customers, but I am sure that they do make mistakes from time to time and if it negatively affects the customer I would hope that AA makes it right.
To be clear, a sincere apology is perfectly acceptable if say the customer had some miles deducted and after investigation AA returns them, but if it is not that simple, I would think a sincere apology plus AA making the customer whole is appropriate.
I guess it all depends too on how AA goes about the investigation, do they cancel awards and downgrade passengers before opening the investigation or do they do so only after determining that the passenger acted in bad faith?
To be clear, a sincere apology is perfectly acceptable if say the customer had some miles deducted and after investigation AA returns them, but if it is not that simple, I would think a sincere apology plus AA making the customer whole is appropriate.
I guess it all depends too on how AA goes about the investigation, do they cancel awards and downgrade passengers before opening the investigation or do they do so only after determining that the passenger acted in bad faith?
Mar 11, 2017, 6:26 pm
#182
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: SFO
Programs: AA EXP
Posts: 5,270
Mar 11, 2017, 8:34 pm
#183
Moderator: American AAdvantage
Join Date: May 2000
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Extensive speculation about what AA might or might not do is becoming dilatory and less valuable to those seeking advice on how to proceed. Let's return to the questions, practicalities and instances please.
/Moderator
/Moderator
Mar 11, 2017, 10:00 pm
#184
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Melbourne
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I was just trying to point out that the scenario put forth by the other poster would require a series of unlikely steps, namely:
1. AA audits the account of a person who's done nothing wrong, and
2. They decide to preemptively lock the account and cancel awards/upgrades, and
3. This happens while the account owner is in the middle of an award trip, and
4. Despite receiving the requested information from the member, AA is unwilling or unable to reinstate the tickets in time,
...
* if I remember correctly, something like steps 1-4 did happen to a member once -- probably the one you're referring to -- but he claimed to be completely happy and satisfied with AA's compensation, so I wouldn't file that as someone who'd ultimately been wronged.
1. AA audits the account of a person who's done nothing wrong, and
2. They decide to preemptively lock the account and cancel awards/upgrades, and
3. This happens while the account owner is in the middle of an award trip, and
4. Despite receiving the requested information from the member, AA is unwilling or unable to reinstate the tickets in time,
...
* if I remember correctly, something like steps 1-4 did happen to a member once -- probably the one you're referring to -- but he claimed to be completely happy and satisfied with AA's compensation, so I wouldn't file that as someone who'd ultimately been wronged.
Last edited by serfty; Mar 11, 2017 at 10:06 pm
Mar 12, 2017, 7:33 am
#185
Suspended
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: FIND ME ON TWITTER FOR THE LATEST
Posts: 27,730
Mar 12, 2017, 8:37 am
#186
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: SFO
Programs: AA EXP
Posts: 5,270
Nice find, but note that in my hypothesized scenario, step (1) is AA conducting an audit and then (2) locking the account, not the other way around. I'm honestly not sure what it would mean for AA to take action "before opening the investigation" -- they'd have to go nuclear the instant the computer flagged possible misbehavior, or something like that. Seems quite unlikely.
Mar 12, 2017, 7:36 pm
#187
Join Date: May 2000
Location: Houston, TX, USA
Programs: UA 1K, AA Lifetime Platinum, DL Platinum, Honors Diamond, Bonvoy Titanium, Hertz Platinum
Posts: 7,970
I think people are confusing "sending the first email to the account holder asking for details of a T&C violation" with "beginning the investigation." In several cases, it seems that the account holder receives the investigatory email nearly simultaneously with learning that there is any issue at all and with the locking of their account. But this does not mean that's the beginning of the investigation. Rather, I suspect that this usually means the investigation is well under way and in fact almost at an end. The list of questions may lead some people to believe that they are just getting started and have just a suspicion of a violation, when in fact they may know much more, including the actual answers to many of the questions they ask. One reason for asking these questions is to assess whether the account holder is being honest in their responses, not for fact gathering.
Mar 12, 2017, 7:38 pm
#188
Suspended
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: FIND ME ON TWITTER FOR THE LATEST
Posts: 27,730
i think people are confusing "sending the first email to the account holder asking for details of a t&c violation" with "beginning the investigation." in several cases, it seems that the account holder receives the investigatory email nearly simultaneously with learning that there is any issue at all and with the locking of their account. But this does not mean that's the beginning of the investigation. Rather, i suspect that this usually means the investigation is well under way and in fact almost at an end. The list of questions may lead some people to believe that they are just getting started and have just a suspicion of a violation, when in fact they may know much more, including the actual answers to many of the questions they ask. One reason for asking these questions is to assess whether the account holder is being honest in their responses, not for fact gathering.
Mar 12, 2017, 8:09 pm
#189
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: LAS/DXB
Programs: LH HON
Posts: 1,193
I had to deal with Corporate Security twice, and from my personal experience, as long as you can provide the necessary information they ask for and don't make a fuzz about it, they are also pretty quick in closing the case. Sometimes it's algorithms triggering investigations. My phone calls with them have been pretty friendly and the issues got sorted out within a day max.
For the record - both cases were about gifting a SWU to third persons I had no previous relations with - heck, one of that was even gifting an expiring SWU to a FT member.
For the record - both cases were about gifting a SWU to third persons I had no previous relations with - heck, one of that was even gifting an expiring SWU to a FT member.
Mar 12, 2017, 10:13 pm
#190
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: ATL
Programs: DL PM, 2+MM, AA Gold 1+MM, HH Diamond, MHG Silver,
Posts: 233
I think people are confusing "sending the first email to the account holder asking for details of a T&C violation" with "beginning the investigation." In several cases, it seems that the account holder receives the investigatory email nearly simultaneously with learning that there is any issue at all and with the locking of their account. But this does not mean that's the beginning of the investigation. Rather, I suspect that this usually means the investigation is well under way and in fact almost at an end. The list of questions may lead some people to believe that they are just getting started and have just a suspicion of a violation, when in fact they may know much more, including the actual answers to many of the questions they ask. One reason for asking these questions is to assess whether the account holder is being honest in their responses, not for fact gathering.
My thoughts are that if you are involved in buying / selling / or doing something questionable - by the time the email shows up in your inbox, the gig is up and you are busted.
Now, let's get back to some posts from some actual perpetrators / victims instead of all this wasted speculation about the rights and wrongs of the internal process.
Mar 19, 2017, 11:25 am
#192
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: SFO
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Posts: 5,270
Mar 19, 2017, 12:23 pm
#193
FlyerTalk Evangelist
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Posts: 11,329
I thought fees on award tickets needed to be paid by account holder (to prevent fraudulent bookings). Personally, I wouldn't risk it, pay it yourself. AND make sure friend doesn't do any bragging about getting a cheap trip.
Mar 19, 2017, 2:32 pm
#194
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ID pay yourself even if allowed to have them pay. This way there's no doubts that you're paying/providing the ticket.
Mar 19, 2017, 2:50 pm
#195
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: NYC
Posts: 1,756
I trust him to tell the truth on this.
Thank you.
He is willing to give me his CC with me being the authorized user.
So is there any risk causing trouble from AA? Sounded like there could be?
He is willing to give me his CC with me being the authorized user.
So is there any risk causing trouble from AA? Sounded like there could be?