Scammed by a fake UA call center {Consoldiated}
 

Hey friends, let me know if this is the wrong forum but I need some advice. Back in late August, I was in Hawaii, and need to get home a couple of days early to avoid being stuck in Hurricane Lane. I called United Airlines reservation number and spent 4 hours on the phone with an 'agent' who I thought was very helpful. Over the course of that call, 'Ryan' exhausted all United options (there weren't any) then eventually found a flight out on a partner. The catch, it was going to cost ~$1400 for the two of us. However, he insisted multiple times that we would receive a ~$950 flight credit for the canceled original flight, in my United Account that I'd have 1 year to use.

It was 6:00am hawaii time and I'd been up all night trying to figure out how to get home (for a number of reasons I couldn't risk getting stuck). So I eventually agreed and paid the ~$1400 for the new flight and got home.

However...as I'm sure you can guess. While our original flight home was canceled immediately...no credit ever appeared. I have not been able to get ahold of the original agent...and United Customer Service hasn't been terrible helpful yet (I would assume they record calls but maybe not). The credit card charges for the new ticket include a hefty 'agent fee' (nearly half the flight cost).

Anyone have advice about how to go after getting my credit? Is there a particular contact at United I should try? Should I call my credit card company and claim fraud and ask to dispute the agent fee on the partner flight home? Am I just screwed?

Thanks in advance for your help.

-Adam

Not sure what you mean by "credit." If you canceled the ticket, you should be able to apply the value to a new ticket simply by referencing the PNR, possibly subject to a change fee (though I would think there would have been a travel waiver due to the hurricane such that any change fee would be waived).

More generally, it's not clear to me why you would have used new money to buy a ticket, rather than applying the value of the old ticket to the new itinerary. And I have no idea what you mean by "agency fee."

Finally, I don't really see evidence anyone "lied" to you. The agent may not have been particularly competent, but that's a far cry from dishonest. Suggest mods change the thread title.

I didn't get that either. Did OP really speak to UA?


OP, go to: https://www.united.com/web/en-US/app...n/default.aspx and select CANCELLED; maybe your flight is still there and you can use its value for a future flight if it gives the option of: "Use future flight credit".

look in your UA account under manage reservations and lick on "cancelled" you should see it there and click on change flights

Sorry if the title is misleading. I'm pretty frustrated so may be reacting more strongly than appropriate. The 'lied to' part is referring to the customer service agent telling me I have to purchase the new ticket separately through them since it's not a united flight...then will receive a flight credit for the value of the original return flight...but that credit never appearing. Hopefully there's just an honest mistake somewhere that can be corrected...but it's been nearly 2 months and I haven't been able to get it resolved or recover anything.

If there's a way I can change the title of the post, and you think it's more appropriate to do so I'd be happy to change it. (I don't see an obvious edit post button...but while I'm a long time reader, I don't post often so I'm not super familiar with it).

Again, a misunderstanding might be in play. The credit you are expecting may be the unused remaining value of the original ticket, which is already sitting in your account. As several other have pointed out, if you go to past/cancelled reservations you will find the original booking. To make it easy for you, call United and ask what the remaining value on that ticket is. That is the value you have left to use on a future UA flight. When you book a new flight using the value, it will have that same confirmation code. United IS NOT going to send you anything in that case. The value is already sitting there in your account waiting to be used.

Don't call the CC company about a chargeback, your course of action is to call UA back until you get someone competent. Do you have status with UA? That can help in getting something accomplished.

Starting with perhaps the obvious, calling your CC issuer and "claiming fraud" when there was no fraud is fraud. So, don't do that.

Any UA agent ought to be able to pull up the ticket number (take a look at your original e-ticket confirmation and find the number beginning with 016-) and locate the status of the credit and also explain how it is arrived at. The agent will also be able to advise whether there is a fee associated with its use (hopefully there was a weather waiver in place and there won't be one).

It would be helpful to know the exact routing of our new ticket and the name of the "partner" carrier. Also helpful to know the breakdown, including the "phone fee" which, while annoying, ought to be very small.

If this was properly canceled, see https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...le-flight.html for the process. However, you need to make the change within 1 year of the original booking, not 1 year from now. And it needs to have been properly cancelled.

This is concerning.
UA fees at most are $35 per ticket. UA was waiving any change fees in response to the Hurricane.

There are bogus United Airline (or any other airline) help sites/phone numbers. They are scam "travel agencies"
They thrive on this sort of situations
Does you phone have a record of the specific number called?

And the booking of a new ticket on a different airline would be exceptional unusual for UA. What was the ticket number for the new ticket. Did it start with 016.... or something else? UA agents can only book 016 ...

There are a number of hints in your OP that this was not a true UA agent.

In addition to the excellent summary of fraud indicators:
1. What does your CC statemetn show as the vendor for the new tickets you purchased. Is it United or something else?
2. Do you remember where you found the customer service number you called and if so, post it here.

Thank you @WineCountryUA, that's super helpful. I've got another call in with United and they're looking into it. I'm increasingly alarmed that in my frenzied state I fell victim to one of the bogus UA help numbers you referenced and was conned into believe I was talking to an actual United rep. Other feeling incredibly stupid, and trying to take a life lesson from it, once I hear back from UA I'll try to figure out what kind of recourse if any I have with the scam travel agency if that is indeed what happened.

Thanks again for taking the time to suggest what might have happened, I really appreciate it.

But if they were part of this fraud scheme, how would they have been able to access your PNR and tell you the amount to be refunded? That's strange.

The other part is the hefty agent fee, that would been my first clue that something was off.

If OP believed they were talking to a legitimate agent they no doubt at some point gave them the PNR and a name, armed with which anyone could pull up the reservation through "My Trips" and view the receipt etc.

What was the new routing? carrier?
UA has no partners that fly Hawaii - USA.
AC flies Hawaii-Canada but AC would not be able to book Hawaii-Canada-CONUS (continental USA) - using AC aircraft. www.aircanada.com will not accept a booking Hawaii-USA.