spirit airlines - fake cancellation- have you ever heard of anything like this?
May 1, 2016, 6:35 am
#1
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spirit airlines - fake cancellation- have you ever heard of anything like this?
The day before I was supposed to depart, I received an email indicating my flight was cancelled so I called into customer support.
To make a long story short, the customer service representative (CSR) indicated that someone claiming to be me called in and cancelled my flight.
I was astonished that someone could call in and just cancel a flight. After speaking to this CSR for 45 mins and asking him to reinstate the original flight, we concluded that he could not. He could only sell me a new ticket which was 3x what I paid.
I was transferred over to a US based representative and after explaining my situation, she was able to track down a recording of the call. Typically, an investigation takes 24-48 hours but they expedited it for me because my flight was the following day.
The US based CSR sided with me only because the CSR who took the cancellation call did not ask for 4 pieces of information to verify the caller – they only asked for 2.
In the end, it took me 2 hours and 47 minutes to restore my original ticket at the original price.
Nevermind that this happened on Spirit, has this ever happened to you or anyone you know on any airline?
To make a long story short, the customer service representative (CSR) indicated that someone claiming to be me called in and cancelled my flight.
I was astonished that someone could call in and just cancel a flight. After speaking to this CSR for 45 mins and asking him to reinstate the original flight, we concluded that he could not. He could only sell me a new ticket which was 3x what I paid.
I was transferred over to a US based representative and after explaining my situation, she was able to track down a recording of the call. Typically, an investigation takes 24-48 hours but they expedited it for me because my flight was the following day.
The US based CSR sided with me only because the CSR who took the cancellation call did not ask for 4 pieces of information to verify the caller – they only asked for 2.
In the end, it took me 2 hours and 47 minutes to restore my original ticket at the original price.
Nevermind that this happened on Spirit, has this ever happened to you or anyone you know on any airline?
May 7, 2016, 12:07 am
#2
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The day before I was supposed to depart, I received an email indicating my flight was cancelled so I called into customer support.
To make a long story short, the customer service representative (CSR) indicated that someone claiming to be me called in and cancelled my flight.
I was astonished that someone could call in and just cancel a flight. After speaking to this CSR for 45 mins and asking him to reinstate the original flight, we concluded that he could not. He could only sell me a new ticket which was 3x what I paid.
I was transferred over to a US based representative and after explaining my situation, she was able to track down a recording of the call. Typically, an investigation takes 24-48 hours but they expedited it for me because my flight was the following day.
The US based CSR sided with me only because the CSR who took the cancellation call did not ask for 4 pieces of information to verify the caller – they only asked for 2.
In the end, it took me 2 hours and 47 minutes to restore my original ticket at the original price.
Nevermind that this happened on Spirit, has this ever happened to you or anyone you know on any airline?
To make a long story short, the customer service representative (CSR) indicated that someone claiming to be me called in and cancelled my flight.
I was astonished that someone could call in and just cancel a flight. After speaking to this CSR for 45 mins and asking him to reinstate the original flight, we concluded that he could not. He could only sell me a new ticket which was 3x what I paid.
I was transferred over to a US based representative and after explaining my situation, she was able to track down a recording of the call. Typically, an investigation takes 24-48 hours but they expedited it for me because my flight was the following day.
The US based CSR sided with me only because the CSR who took the cancellation call did not ask for 4 pieces of information to verify the caller – they only asked for 2.
In the end, it took me 2 hours and 47 minutes to restore my original ticket at the original price.
Nevermind that this happened on Spirit, has this ever happened to you or anyone you know on any airline?
May 7, 2016, 11:37 am
#3
Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: SMF
Posts: 1,251
Glad it ultimately got resolved, but its ridiculous that somebody would actually go to those lengths just to ruin somebodies day. If I were you, I'd be trying to figure out how somebody got your confirmation number or other details and who it could have been. Did you ever post your boarding pass or anything on social media?
May 10, 2016, 2:18 pm
#4
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Glad it ultimately got resolved, but its ridiculous that somebody would actually go to those lengths just to ruin somebodies day. If I were you, I'd be trying to figure out how somebody got your confirmation number or other details and who it could have been. Did you ever post your boarding pass or anything on social media?
I was running through various scenarios and came up with the possibilities:
- Someone hacked my email and wanted to make my life difficult (I changed my password after this incident)
- Someone hacked my friend's email. He was the only person that I sent my confirmation to so he could pick me up from the airport.
- Disgruntled employee at Spirit Airlines that had access to the information and tried to make them look bad
May 10, 2016, 2:20 pm
#5
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Posts: 264
I have heard stories about cancellations of flights (no way to verify the authenticity of the stories). But in principle most airlines would allow cancellation of a flight online as long as you have the PNR and the last name of the traveller. While there are some pranksters around who would get a kick from doing this, I think the number of cases are very limited.
Think about that, someone would have to go out of their way and take 10 mins out of their day to do something terrible like this. What would they even get out of it?
May 15, 2016, 1:28 pm
#7
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They did not change the email address on file so I got the notification a day early and was able to rectify everything. If they wanted to make it really sting, they would have made sure that I was left hanging at the airport. That would have been truly terrible.
Alls well that ends well I suppose.
Jul 16, 2016, 12:44 pm
#10
Join Date: Sep 2005
Programs: Northwest, United
Posts: 3,256
Given the details you provided, it sure would appear that someone must have gone out of their way intentionally just to screw with you. On one hand, they were not terribly thorough (as you pointed out, if they had thought to change your email contact info, it would have become a much bigger hassle for you to fix) so hopefully this will be the extent of the harassment, maybe just kids being a PITA, etc. On the other hand, they did go to a bit of trouble to do this. I'd be a little worried about who, why and what's next. Can you think of any "enemies" you may have made recently? I agree it's really weird.
Sep 16, 2016, 1:24 pm
#12
Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 194
Yeah it has happened:
http://deadspin.com/........-jaguars...ets-1670307120
http://deadspin.com/........-jaguars...ets-1670307120