flyhub.com SCAM
 

Don't know if this belongs here but mods please move to the proper forum.

Here is a what happened to me recently. Danielle form Flyhub contacted me and asked me to sell my miles on their website, flyhub.com. I was a bit apprehensive at first but then since I had her cell phone number, I thought they would be legit.

It has been more than 2 months now and they have yet to pay me. Everytime I called up in the beginning they said they sent a money order. Then they asked to deposit directly into a bank account. I opened a new bank account (since I only had online accounts) and gave them that account #. Still no money. Now Danielle has stopped answering my phone calls.

Oh and their customer service is a joke. They have some kind of an offsite agent who knows nothing and will only take down your name, number and a message. A quick google search showed me theie office address in San Francisco. Being close to that, I drove only to find out they no longer exist there.

I will be filing for my money in small claims court and also see if the local cops can help me. I am trying to read more on how to handle this since it never happened before.

:(:(

Incorporated in CA, but the corporation's status is currently suspended.

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/628/flyhub.jpg

Good luck tracking these guys down. How many miles did you sell them?

Selling miles or awards is against the rules in every frequent flyer program that I know of. If caught many FF programs will lock your account. There are many fly by night places that rip off folks since there is little they can do if stiffed.

It's too bad you didn't research before you sent the miles.

Selling miles is against the rules of ff programs; it is not illegal. The OP clearly is a victim of fraud. :(

You should contact the CA Attoney General's office and the FTC, but they will probably have the same problem you did, the inability to find them. And since they deal with all sorts of scams, they might be too overloaded to help you much.

Yup. Although the OP should definitely have his or her frequent flyer account closed (although I doubt it matters since the account is empty anyway) or possibly be liable for civil damages, the OP didn't break any criminal laws and she/he is entitled to the money.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/illegal

:rolleyes: you know what he means

Selling miles isn't against the law, but using a ticket obtained for sold miles could be. It might run afoul of a California law that prohibits using a ticket for transportation in violation of its terms and conditions. This has been discussed elsewhere on FT. I don't recall if the lawyers and/or wannabe lawyers reached a conclusion as to whether it covers this situation, but it may be something to keep in mind.

Has the award ticket issued from your account been used yet? Do you have the information on who ticketed using your miles?

sucks....its never a good idea to get into the selling & buying of miles to any 3rd party....

Did the OP say their account is empty? Perhaps the OP sold 200K of a total balance of 300K. So if the account is closed by specific airline the OP would lose another 100K.

flyhub.com is still in business even if CA suspended their corporate status. I went to their website and on the home page I saw Customer Service Agents Are Available 24/7 At 1 877 435 9482. I called and a real person answered after 3 rings. First thing out of her mouth was "Thank you for contacting FlyHub. Are you looking to buy or sell miles today?"

OP, you stated that Danielle from FlyHub contacted you. How did she contact you? by phone? email? snail mail? I am curious as to how Danielle even knew that you had miles that you might want to sell. If she cold called you then someone out there is either giving or selling information about FFers - specifically their miles balance(s)! Do you have a points.com account? Do you use a miles tracking service like acruw.com, mileport.com, Tripit.com, mileageMANAGER.com, AwardWallet.com, etc?

As a WAG, I'd say that perhaps a Craig's list ad for selling miles, or some other public source was the method of their meeting.

I'd guess that the ticket was a few weeks out, hence why she was still talking to you and dragging their feet. As soon as the ticket was completed, no more contact.

PT Barnum, my boy, PT Barnum.

In California it is a crime. I don't know of anyone ever being charged, but the law is on the books.

Yes I posted on craigslist to sell the miles. Danielle contacted me through email and then by phone. I have her phone number and I will be contacting the local PD on Friday (I am out of town) to see my options.

Yes Flyhub is still in business and the girl that answers the phone only takes the message and says she will forward to Danielle.

I will update on Friday after my visit to the local PD.

That sounds like an answering service to me.

Craig's List
 

Do I pick 'em, or do I pick 'em. :)

I hope you don't have any more miles in your account.

BBB has them listed as being is San Francisco.


Name: Flyhub, Inc.
Phone: (877) 435-9482
Address: 71 Stevenson Street #400
San Francisco, CA 94105
Original Business Start Date: September 2007
Principal: Mr. Hughes Nyonda, VP-Sales and Customer Care
Email Address: [email protected]
Entity: Corporation
Incorporated: September 2007, CA
Employees: 3
Type of Business: Airlines - Ticket Agencies
BBB Accreditation: Flyhub, Inc. is not a BBB Accredited business.

Does anyone have a link to this statute or the thread where it's discussed?

The mobile number she game is another red light.

Sounds like a variation of the Nigerian Craig's List scam.

A Craig's List add reply with an offer to buy whatever you are selling. Normally, they end up sending you a fake "money order" for more than the sales price and ask you to Western Union the extra cash back to them.

Your bank will accept the money order and put the funds in your account. As the bank deposited the money in, you think it is okay and Western Union the extra funds back to them. It will take a couple of weeks before the money order turns out to be fake and the bank pulls the money out and leave you holding the bag.

For some reason, they are more greedy and thought they could clean out your bank account as well.

not a good idea....

I went to that address. Apparently they moved out. ALso Flyhub lost its BBB accredition on 7/13/2010. I did my research before selling miles to them. It looked legit at the time. Yes I am aware of the Nigeria scam and the money order scam.

What was the name of the movie that was out about 15 years ago, with Jim Carrey, Lauren Holly and Jeff Daniels?

I'd say that you needed to search just a tad better:

http://www.ripoffreport.com/Travel-A...-t-w-z223f.htm

Any person can incorporate, and get some sort of mail drop address somewhere for a small amount of money.

Too bad you didn't search Flyertalk about selling miles in the first place. Tons of threads here would have told you that it's a bad idea.

It seems they have a Twitter account too. I think I'd take a little bit of guerrilla action to tell other folk what you think of their service.

hilarious....:D

Disposable prepaid cell phone number: $50 or less
Getting people to believe you are legitimate: priceless

:D

Pay up, or shut up.
 

I was contacted by someone else who had problems with flyhub.com, and was owed about $6k or so. Luckily the flights had not been taken yet, and a "Pay up now, or I'll cancel the flights" situation arose, and the "Pay up" option was taken by Danielle.

If the original flights have not been taken by the person the OP used his miles for, I would recommend the same approach.

If I had to guess, I'd say the business started out legit, but has either hit cash flow problems, or has turned into a semi-scam. Only when forced to, do they do the right thing.

Sorry to hear that you got into so much trouble to solicit miles sale on craigslist. If you had read enough threads about this on FT, you would have known better.

If you haven't, you may want to read these threads. You should learn a lesson or two from what happened to this once-self-claimed-pro-miles seller ;) :

Loyalmatch, sellingmiles.com, flyhub.com: has anyone used all three to sell miles

Selling miles?

Please do keep us posted. Your experience will be a good testimony to fellow FTers who are taking, or considering taking, similar path as you.

What's the lesson that flyerd learned?... post about selling miles and get your FT account suspended? I've looked through the threads referenced and I did not see anything indicating that flyerd went to jail, had his accounts closed, lost miles through confiscation by an airline, or any other "lesson" (other than FT suspension).

Mind you I am not advocating trying to scam the system or break any airline rules. I really would like to know what makes flyerd a "once-self-proclaimed-pro-miles-seller" and not just a pro miles seller! I was expecting to read a story reminiscent of the Scared Straight documentary of the 70s where flyerd now lectures would-be miles sellers on the dark path that led him to horrible consequences. I don't see it. Please point me to the posts about these consequences he suffered.

so was i....

First things first. Based on my public exchange/posts with him, I don't know what lesson, if any, flyerd had learned. To be frankly honest with you, I don't care if he learned any lesson at all. If you read how many roll-eyes comments toward him from our established fellow FTers, you'll know how welcome he'd been on FT. :p

I also doubt you would be able to see any "confession" from said FTer what lead him from selling tons of miles to be in desperate need of buying 140,000 AA miles within 24 hours. Maybe he had been so successful and decided to become a mile-broker himself. Maybe he had taken airlines to court, as he seems to know what he's talking about. I am not a fortune-teller and simply don't know.

What I do know from his posts is how little respect he had with TOS (for both FFPs and FT). I am actually not surprised to find out just today that he had been suspended (on FT. btw, it has nothing to do with his talking about selling miles, if I read the mod's note correctly). I can only assume it might be just a matter of time before the airlines track him down and take whichever action toward his FFP accounts.

From reading our AA, CO, Delta and UA Forum/s over the years, I know there are FTers hunted down by airline legal/anti-fraud department for selling miles (I am too lazy to dig up those threads right now). Not everyone who gets caught red handed will come forward and "publicize" their (wrong)doing on Internet bulletin boards but there are enough incident reports on FT that all FTers, let it be newbie or not, can learn a lesson or two from.

Maybe I was too subtle, but I was expecting our savvy FTers would be able to put together the (the-road-you-should-never-travel) puzzle. I was mainly trying to point out the (deep) trouble one could get himself into when selling miles via all those legit-or-not websites. It will be much more challenging to fly under the radar if you are selling (or buying) in a large scale.

I've learned enough from our FT University and know how unwise it is to sell your miles, let alone so righteously.

Flyhub is not a scam
 

That's total BS, that company's not a scam. I've been using them to buy First class tickets to Asia for under $3000. My last purchase was two months ago and everything went well. I'll never pay full price for a ticket again, at least not as long as these guys are in business.

welcome to ft crazyjony....

sorry but i have to disagree with you....there is nothing that seems right about these guys....

why does it say my posts are hidden until moderator
 

flyertalk won't let me post without moderator aproval.

You must be including a link to a web site. First time posters can't do that to avoid spammers.

Welcome to FlyerTalk :)

Awfully weird that your first post upon joining was to give a testimonial in a thread that hadn't seen action in 3 months. ;)

I take it the PD did nothing for the OP which is why he's never updated the thread..

From what I can tell of how flyhub run their business, signing up accounts to sites criticizing the the company and pretending to be happy customers is part of their M.O.

Hardly the behavior of a reputable company :rolleyes:

The ripoff report site is hilarious and the reply so blatantly conceived and disingenuous that it's hard not to smirk. They even get the customers name wrong (Doyle for Drew????) in their response.

Received the money
 

I am the OP and thought I would update this thread. I received the money end of July thanks to a FT'er who mentioned about this post to Danielle from flyhub and then only they started to contact me back. Below are the details which I meant to post in July itself but forgot. This is a copy-paste of what I wrote back then.

"I finally got in touch with Danielle from Flyhub and looks like there had been some misunderstanding. I told them I would come in if need be to pick up the money since my bank accounts are online only or out of state branches. Someone read it as 'Don’t have a bank account' and triggered a fraud alert. I got my money now that things have been cleared."

One thing that comes to my mind though that I asked again for the money in cash since they again delayed the payment by a week after things were settled and I was told they don't do cash since its a business. Apparently they are fine depositing cash directly into my checking account (which I was told would be a check deposit).

i was thinking the exact same thing....just didn't want to be the first to say it....:D

Look friend its not possible that every consumer will suffer the same situation that you had suffer. I guess u must have been cheated by some unauthorized person, so please take care in future. I am doing business with flyhub since from past two years. Seriously I will not found any kind of problem.Yes I know there is some technical issues but it doesn't mean that we consumers have to face. Over all I don't have any kind of complain with flyhub.