Exec Club account hacked - Avios gone
Jul 3, 20, 1:52 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: London, UK
Programs: BA Gold, Hilton Honors Lifetime Diamond
Posts: 52
Exec Club account hacked - Avios gone
Hi guys,
Just looking for a bit of reassurance!
Overnight I received an email from BA confirming an invitation to someone completely unknown to join my Exec Club account. As soon as I saw this morning I logged in, and saw that over 350,000 Avios had gone on a wine redemption. I obviously took the immediate precautions of removing the phantom person from my account and changing my password.
I have already received an automated email from BA stating that my account has been locked due to suspicious acitivity, and I have spoken to someone on the phone who assured me that it will be investigated.
Has anyone else experienced anything similar? Can I expect my Avios back? I fear they may have gone for good.
Thanks in advance, guys.
Adam
Just looking for a bit of reassurance!
Overnight I received an email from BA confirming an invitation to someone completely unknown to join my Exec Club account. As soon as I saw this morning I logged in, and saw that over 350,000 Avios had gone on a wine redemption. I obviously took the immediate precautions of removing the phantom person from my account and changing my password.
I have already received an automated email from BA stating that my account has been locked due to suspicious acitivity, and I have spoken to someone on the phone who assured me that it will be investigated.
Has anyone else experienced anything similar? Can I expect my Avios back? I fear they may have gone for good.
Thanks in advance, guys.
Adam
Jul 3, 20, 2:07 am
#2
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: London
Programs: BA Blue, Hyatt, Marriot, HHonors
Posts: 370
Was your password the same for BA Exec Account to any of your other Accounts?
I would change them as well.
If the Account has been locked then you should get your Avios back as most likely the order has not been fulfilled.
I would change them as well.
If the Account has been locked then you should get your Avios back as most likely the order has not been fulfilled.
Jul 3, 20, 2:15 am
#3
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Henley-On-Thames
Programs: BAEC Silver (but only temporarily) AVIS Presidents Club, Starbucks Gold
Posts: 486
Exec club account hacked
Having just read this thread I then checked mine. Thankfully all still there. Might be an idea if anyone else reading this checks their account just to be on the safe side.
ML
ML
Jul 3, 20, 2:22 am
#4
Ambassador: Emirates Airlines
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Manchester, UK
Posts: 17,977
<m3red>
What sort of wine was it?
</m3red>
Seriously - this has happened a few times and been noted on here. From what I remember, it may take a while, but you'll get the points back.
Normally - the points are used for flights.
What sort of wine was it?
</m3red>
Seriously - this has happened a few times and been noted on here. From what I remember, it may take a while, but you'll get the points back.
Normally - the points are used for flights.
Jul 3, 20, 3:07 am
#5
FlyerTalk Evangelist, Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Somewhere between 0 and 13,000 metres high
Programs: AF/KL Life Plat, BA GfL+CCR, Aclub Plat, Hilton Diam, Marriott Gold, blablablah, etc
Posts: 28,752
There is of course never any harm in being careful, but note that the modus operandi was clearly the culprit finding ways to "Invite" themselves as nominated person on the victim's account, so you would expect that anyone similarly targeted by the same culprit will be in the same manner and will thus receive/have received an email from BAEC confirming that xyz has been added as a nominated person on their account. If you receive such a message then yes, obviously, do (very much) worry!
Jul 3, 20, 3:11 am
#6
Join Date: Nov 2004
Programs: BA Gold, Marriott Titanium
Posts: 553
Jul 3, 20, 3:13 am
#7
Join Date: Aug 2017
Location: Nottingham
Programs: Hotels.com Gold, BA Exec, 1M Green Sheild Stamps
Posts: 93
This must have been Speedbird Julie
Jul 3, 20, 4:07 am
#8
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: Vale of Glamorgan
Programs: BAEC Gold
Posts: 2,655
This must have been Speedbird Julie
Jul 3, 20, 4:51 am
#9
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Cold Wet England
Programs: BAEC - Blue - How the once mighty have fallen
Posts: 362
They simply pose as Travel Agents and sell on the fradulent purchased tickets "cheep" to unsuspecting punters looking for a bargain.
If anyone is nabbed at check-in it would be the poor punter who thought s/he had secured a bargain for their "cheep" ticket
. No point is subjecting them to the humiliation of being nabbed at check-in in addition to losing their hard earned cash.
Jul 3, 20, 5:04 am
#10
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: UK
Programs: British Airways Executive Club Silver
Posts: 87
This must have been Speedbird Julie
She does love the bubbles and vino...suspect numero uno for sure
She does love the bubbles and vino...suspect numero uno for sure
Jul 3, 20, 5:27 am
#11
Join Date: Jul 2018
Location: Glasgow, UK
Programs: BA GGL, HH Diamond
Posts: 120
This must have been Speedbird Julie
She does love the bubbles and vino...suspect numero uno for sure
She does love the bubbles and vino...suspect numero uno for sure
I hope the OP gets his Avios back. Online fraud is so frustrating.
Jul 3, 20, 5:14 pm
#12
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: ORD/MDW
Programs: BA/AA/AS/B6/WN/ UA/HH/MR and more like 'em but most felicitously & importantly MUCCI
Posts: 19,390
I cannot speak to Avios breaches per se, but last year I and many other Hilton Honors embers had our points stolen by a person or persons unknown exploiting a backdoor vulnerability relating to an Amazon redemption channel. I had an email out of the blue confirming an 800k+ points transfer to Amazon, and when I pinged my account it showed zero balance. Nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach but Hilton were very good about restoring all lost points and changing my account number -- as I assume they were for all victims. So there is precedent / benchmark behavior for this and I expect BA would have difficulty behaving any differently.
Jul 3, 20, 6:07 pm
#13
Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club; FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: TPA/ABZ
Programs: BA Lifetime Gold. GGL/CCR.
Posts: 12,178
Seriously though I suspect the Avios points will be returned and with any luck it might be possible to trace the culprit through the wine order (even if the recipient is an innocent third party).
Jul 3, 20, 7:12 pm
#14
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Juneau, Alaska.
Programs: AS 75K; BA Silver; AA G
Posts: 15,019
Some of the other account hacked threads:
I've been hacked!
Executive Club Account hacked
BAEC Account Hacked. Over 100K Avios Spent
Household account hacked and Avios stolen
Members whose avios are stolen seem to consistently have them returned by BAEC following an investigation.
I've been hacked!
Executive Club Account hacked
BAEC Account Hacked. Over 100K Avios Spent
Household account hacked and Avios stolen
Members whose avios are stolen seem to consistently have them returned by BAEC following an investigation.
Jul 3, 20, 7:50 pm
#15
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: UK
Programs: Bonvoy Lifetime Titanium Elite
Posts: 816
Hang on...
How come this member is automatically suspected?
Wegie stereotypes?
This must have been @Speedbird Julie
This must have been Speedbird Julie
She does love the bubbles and vino...suspect numero uno for sure
She does love the bubbles and vino...suspect numero uno for sure
Wegie stereotypes?
