Fraudalent collection of miles
 

What would you do if a friend told you of a great way to collect FF miles into your account, but at the end of the day it is fraudalent? I am not specifically sure if it is against the law, but it definitely violates the TOS for the airline FF program.

Do you just talk to them, do you report them or do you do nothing?

(Note to Mods - not sure if milesbuzz is the right forum, but since it relates to miles I thought it should go here, if not feel free to move as appropriate)

I certainly would not participate.

I would tell them of the potential consequences if they get caught.

Of course, if they are getting miles fraudently (spelling?), then there could actually be some legal ramifications.

William

I would definitely not snitch on anyone. The only crimes I might report are those involving death or grievous bodily harm (incl. rape), and I would not be sure whom to report them to, considering the level of corrupt police(wo)men -- especially the marauding murdering morons in the so-called intelligence and secret services of all countries.

I probably would not participate in a fraud unless it is obviously once in a lifetime option.

I might participate if it is an airline/miles granting body I do not plan to use legitimately ever in the future, but even so only if it is only against the agreement, but by no means against the law. But the motivation would have to be truly substantial.

This is not because I have higher moral standards than the others, but because it takes an effort to take part in a fraud. -- Much easier being legal.

Sounds like a moral dilemma. To fraudulently collect miles - well, for me, it would be a bad idea. If nothing else, the guilt or the concern over being busted would almost certainly overshadow almost any benefit.

I agree with Master - it's much easier being legal.

But in the end, what can you live with?

It is not a question of me collecting the miles fraudently, I only collect them legally (Divinity student here :) ). My main question was do I talk to this friend, ignore it or go as far as reporting him to the airline?

Right now I am leaning to letting him know my thoughts and counsel against it, but not reporting him. It never crossed my mind to join him and pad my accounts, as much as I would like to.

As you know. Everything is open to interpretation and the airlines are the final judge when it comes to their Terms and Conditions. At times things will put up on this board that some call fraudelent, some call unethical, and others call normal.

My feeling is this. If it truly is fraudulent it won't take long for the airlines to figure it out. Miles are not FREE, whoever is "giving" them to you has to buy them from the airline. I am sure there are ways to illegally "buy" these miles, like hacking into the airlines computers, but generally they have pretty good systems to prevent that.

I think if I were you I would discuss it with your friend and make sure that his understanding and your understanding of the situation are the same AND that his/your understanding of the situation is accurate. Go to the website or view the material or whatever he is using to get the miles. There might be some fine print your friend has not read or understood. When you both fully understand it; if you still feel it is fraudulent I would explain to him that he could loose his account and any legitimate miles he has earned.

Then I would forget about it and go on with life.

It truly is a no-win situation for you.

I agree that I would not participate and you already said that that never was an issue. Even if he was a not a friend of yours, I would not report him to anyone because you could don't have proof that he actually did what he proposed (unless he showed you the mileage statement.)

I would definitely counsel him about the situation. You are in a better position than most friends since you are a divinity student as well as his friend. It would bother me as an individual that he was thinking/ planning on doing this. You need to be prepared to lose him as a friend, even if you did absolutely nothing. I certainly would have trouble looking at him straight in the eye and continuing my friendship, under the circumstances, even if I tried to forgive him. That's just me, though!

I think it would help if you could give us the details of how your friend is getting these miles fraudulently. If you could just give us the step-by-step procedures along with some weblinks to make it easier for us (to understand), it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

The consensus seems to be that this behavior is wrong, or unethical, or (at the least) "dangerous" in the sense that your FF account could be terminated. In fact, if you asked this question of most FTers in the way posed here, I suspect that most (myself included) would respond negatively to the idea.

That being said, the Coupon Connection forum has lots and lots of people trading all kinds of items that are, no doubt, listed as "non-transferrable" or selling/trading things that aren't supposed to be bartered. (There seems to be a line drawn at the outright selling of miles, but my impression is that there's a lot of other trading going on that clearly violates stated rules.) So it seems that some folks, in general, are willing to bend/break terms & conditions to some degree. I'm not talking about interpretations of convoluted or vague rules -- we all know that these are rampant in the industry and everyone has their own take on these. But more often than not it's clear that something is against the rules and folks do it anyway.

I don't bring this up to accuse anyone, lay blame, or even state a moral objection. My point is simply that many people who, at first blush, would object to "stealing" miles or other subversive tactics, might have some tolerance level for going outside the strictly allowable.

i was in a similar situation with a friend who was involved in some shady retail
practices. he knows it's illegal but he can justify it so there is not much use
talking sense to him, and believe me i've tried. being a man of loose morals
myself i didn't report my friend's fradulent activities, but i can see how someone
with strong beliefs might struggle with this dilemma.

now if i was an enterprising individual, i might find some way to blackmail this
supposed friend ;)

Illegal vs. Wrong
 

There are many people out there who know of ways to beat the house when playing at a casino. Technically, it's not even cheating, and I personally think there is nothing wrong or illegal about counting cards, you're not hurting any of the other poor folks playing, you're just cutting into the casino's profit, which has been coming from my wallet for years. But, if you do it and get caught, the casinos will ban you from even walking in to any of their establishments.

If you do actually cheat at a casino, by either having an inside man, palming chips, etc. Then you'll be arrested along with your cohorts and still be banned from the casinos.

My guess is your friend's system is wrong but not illegal. These gaps tend to be figured out very quickly by the airline, so it probably wont last. If you really feel a need to take some kind of action, call the customer service center for whatever company your friend is taking advantage of and ask them if it would be alright to do what he's doing. If they have any common sense, they'll fix the glitch. If they don't mind, then you can go publish his system here on FT.

Just my two cents.

-Matt

Part of the problem is that everyone has a different definition of "fraudulent" unless it's specifically against a law, which the OP said this isn't. For example, suppose you're rerouted involuntarily on a different airline than the one you booked, and you are also a member of that airline's FF program. You give them their number and get miles for the flight you took. Then you ask the first airline for miles for the flight you booked and probably get them too. Some would call this fraudulent. Others would call it "playing the game" or fair compensation for the inconvenience of the reroute. I'm not coming down on either side of this example, not saying that people who won't take double miles have the moral high ground, just saying that my fraud may not be yours or vice versa.

So it is with a lot of the mileage-earning schemes that have been discussed here and elsewhere. Is buying a gift certificate with a mileage-earning credit card and redeeming it for cash (perhaps minus a trivial purchase) fraudulent? It isn't what the people who set up the rules had in mind, it's taking advantage of them, it's costing them whatever they pay for miles or for accepting a credit card, but is it fraudulent? I don't know. In this case I'd say it isn't as long as the rules allow each individual step in the process, even if the end result is to get miles that the store didn't plan to give you at its expense, but others would differ.

What this comes down to is, without knowing more about the scheme/scam, I can't say how hard I'd be on the person who proposed it. If I thought it really crossed the line with no wiggle room, I'd probably say "I just wouldn't feel comfortable doing that" and drop it.

The sad part is that this might end the friendship by revealing a side of the "friend's" character I hadn't known about previously.

Maybe you could elaborate. I cannot tell if I think that something is fraudulent without knowing a bit more (and perhaps collecting few miles for myself too ;) ).

Quite often people have different opinions what is "fraudulent" and what is not. Do you think that it was fraudulent to purchase $20 tickets to KEF or $20 tickets to all European destinations? Is it fraudulent to puchase gift cards to get miles and then cash the giftcards? Someones dog took a test drive last year to collect 10000 BA miles in his masters account. Was it fraudulent?

I tend to agree with the poster above. The airlines/companies have total control over their respective programs.

Quite often people have different opinions what is "fraudulent" and what is not. Do you think that it was fraudulent to purchase $20 tickets to KEF or $20 tickets to all European destinations?

No. Offer and acceptance.

Is it fraudulent to puchase gift cards to get miles and then cash the giftcards?

No. Offer and acceptance of a legal transaction.

Someones dog took a tst drive last year to collect 10000 BA miles in his masters account

Yes a fraudulent activity. The Dog never drove and the Flier purposely misled to earn the stated points.

Yes, it's a very fine line.

Last year there was a mistake made on Best Buy or Circuit City (one of those similar stores..). Anyway, you could purchase a digital camera online for $500 and when you added it to your Shopping Cart you got a 100% discount for it, meaning you only had to pay for S&H.

Was it legal? Yes. It was purely an 'offer and acceptance of a legal transaction'

Was it ethically right? Probably not, since it was not the intention of the seller.

PS The company in question received hundreds of said orders and cancelled them all once it realized the mistake - they did not honor any of them...