Coordinated police raids in Germany and Sweden have resulted in the arrest of two individuals suspected of running a cyber fraud gang that used stolen payment card data to book hundreds of airline and train tickets to help smuggle people from the Middle East into Europe. The EU’s law enforcement intelligence agency Europol, which helped […]
Search Results for: airline fraud
Agents warned of airline ticketing scam
Travel agents have been warned of an airline ticketing scam that has forced at least one business to close and fleeced the industry out of millions of pounds. Industry body Prevention Of Fraud in Travel (Profit) said 54 agencies had fallen victim to what is being termed ‘corporate referral fraud’. Fraudsters posing as international employees […]
Half of all airline website traffic comes from bad bots
Cybersecurity firm Distil Networks analyzed hundreds of billions of bad bot requests, anonymized over thousands of domains. For airlines, bad bots accounted for 43.9% of all traffic on their websites in 2017. That puts the airline sector second to only gambling websites, which had 53.9% of their traffic from bots. And it’s more than twice […]
Holiday booking fraud costs holidaymakers £6.7m
As many as 4,700 unsuspecting holidaymakers and other travellers had £6.7 million stolen by fraudsters last year. The sale of airline tickets (47%) and accommodation bookings (38%) were the most common types of fraud, a new report reveals today. The average amount lost per person was more than £1,500 – up by a quarter on […]
Email scam has costs airline millions of dollars
As individuals, we all know we have to keep our wits about us when we’re online. If you’re really unlucky, a couple of ill-considered clicks or downloads could quickly ensnare you in a scam that ends up costing you hundreds of dollars, possibly more. But if you’re working for a company and your job is […]
Iata issues fraud warning
A warning has been issued by Iata over the fraudulent use of the airline trade body’s named to extract money from industry partners. Fraudsters have been known to impersonate Iata staff members or to misuse the organisation’s logo and name. Iata urged air transport industry participants to be on the alert for fraudulent activities. Examples […]
Reported travel fraud cases against consumers up 20%
Almost 6,000 unsuspecting UK travellers lost a total of £7.2 million from holiday booking fraud last year. The number of reported cases rose by almost 20% from 2015 from 4,910 to 5,826 with an average loss of £1,200 per person. The most common types of fraud involve the sale of airline tickets, booking accommodation online […]
New airline scam promises free Emirates flight tickets
Year-end celebrations are close and many people are looking to book their plane tickets to visit relatives and friends. As expected, cybercriminals are looking to exploit users over the festive period – social engineering techniques are frequent over the holidays, as demonstrated by a scam that is promising people free flight tickets. What is the […]
Travelport to launch new fraud screening product
Travelport VP Global Travel Solutions Alexandra Fitzpatrick, at the CAPA Asia Corporate Travel Summit, stated (15-Nov-2016) Travelport has several payment product launches planned for 2017. “We are planning to release a number of products in 2017 – starting out with the corporate right through to the airline,” she said. Ms Fitzpatrick said some of the […]
Online fraud increases fourfold in 2015
A new report by the City of London Police’s National Fraud Intelligence Bureau has revealed the cost of the 4,910 reported cases was 425% greater than the £2.2 million reported the previous year. The most common type of fraud remained the sale of airlines tickets, with Nigeria, India and Pakistan the destinations most targeted lasy […]
Iata deploys high-tech fraud prevention solution
Action to crack down on payment fraud in the air travel industry is being stepped up by Iata by including agents in a high-tech prevention method. Payment fraud costs the industry an estimated $858 million a year, with $639 million borne by airlines and the remainder by other participants in the travel value chain, including […]
Lads holiday goes wrong as boys hit by fraud
A lads holiday went horribly wrong after a group of students realised they’d become victims of fraud and lost all their money before they even got there. Chris Kenny, 20, along with 13 of his friends had saved up for six months and were looking forward to the £400 ten-day trip to the Greek island […]
Keeping Fraud at Bay Requires a Joint Effort
Fraudsters are drawn to airlines like a moth to a flame, but they aren’t the ones who get burned. Air ticket sales are a “prime target” for fraud, said Jose Hernandez, fraud manager at Orbitz Worldwide. “With consumer goods, you can call up UPS and say, ‘Hey, send it back. You can’t do that with […]
Global action against online air ticket fraudsters
On 16 and 17 June an international law enforcement operation against airline fraudsters took place at 140 airports across the world, resulting in the detention and investigation of 130 individuals that were found in possession of airline tickets bought using stolen credit card details. According to statistics the most rapid increase in fraudulent transactions on […]
Visa Amends Rules to Help Airline Industry
Visa Inc. announced at a recent meeting of the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC)-sponsored Credit Card Working Group (CCWG) that effective October 2015 it will accept airline-supplied flight manifests as a remedy for fraud payment card chargebacks. This remedy represents an opportunity for the airline industry to recoup millions of dollars lost each year in “friendly […]
Man accused of air tickets fraud in court
Alleged airline fraudster Fernando de Carvalho was at court to face multiple charges yesterday, but was refused legal aid to fight them. The Crown amended the charges against de Carvalho after a summons was posted to him under the wrong name and date of birth. The 30-year-old, of Barrington Street, Tiverton, said there had been […]
Airlines to accept Bitcoins
UATP, the low cost payment network privately owned by the world’s airlines, has teamed up with Bitnet as a payment processing partner. This will allow UATP to offer its network of over 260 airlines the ability to accept bitcoin payments in a simplified manner. Ralph Kaiser, president and chief executive of UATP, said: “We are […]
Man Pleads Guilty in Airline Ticket Scam
A man posing as an airline employee pleaded guilty on Wednesday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, a charge that carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Gilbert Myers Jr., 38, of Atlanta, admitted his role in an elaborate scam to defraud airlines. His guilty plea was part of an agreement with […]
Man pleads guilty in airline-booking scam
A Georgia man who posed as an airline employee to make cut-rate reservations, then resold the tickets for thousands of dollars, pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Gilbert Myers Jr., 38, of Atlanta, entered the plea before U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. […]
Send us your payment fraud data for free analysis
In conjunction with our partner Fraud Intelligence Network (FIN) we collect payment fraud data from the travel industry for analysis and to share with the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB). To analyse your data all we need is for your company to provide us with a spreadsheet of your data in any format, we will […]