A man from Stellarton, NS, says he was baffled when he discovered that his non -refundable airline ticket from $ 2,000 to Texas was canceled.
He was even more baffled when he contacted Air Canada, just to be told that the airline records showed that the cancellation had been done online and that they could not give it a refund, according to the rules of the rate of their ticket.
“Every dollar counts,” said Jeff Richardson. “We are living Paycheque to Paycheque, and $ 2,000 is a lot of money.”
After seven months round trip, Air Canada said this week that they will reimburse the Richardson ticket. Richardson says he appreciates the refund, but is still frustrated with the long wait for a resolution.
What happened?
Richardson reserved his flight on October 22 directly through the Air Canada website. He says he was having trouble selecting his online seat, so he called the airline to get help.
He says he found an online number for Air Canada that began with 1-833, and spoke with a representative who said they worked for Air Canada.
Richardson believed he was talking to the airline when he shared details about his reservation and credit card information to book seats.
However, in a statement to CBC News, Air Canada says that the number is not yours.
That same day, he received a charge on his credit card of more than $ 200 from something called “AirRestion”, which is not affiliated with Air Canada.
Shortly after, he was alerted that his ticket had been canceled. When he called the number to complain again, he says the line seemed to be busy.
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Air Canada says that it is possible that whoever was going through the airline could have obtained enough personal information from the client to cancel the flight.
“According to these findings, we will reimburse this customer and make sure that you pay the original price cited by a replacement ticket,” said the airline.
“This could serve as a warning story so that people must be careful to ensure to know who they are dealing with online or telephone transactions and only use certified and official information sources.”
CBC News called the number in question on June 10, and the person who responded was identified as Air Canada representative. The person said they could cancel tickets for a rate and help organize seats.
Richardson says he remembers having taken the Air Canada website. It is not clear what happened, but it may have been the victim of an impersonation attack, when a scammer creates a copy of a website to look authentic by adding false information to deceive or scam customers.
The false website could appear in the results of the search engine or have a URL that is similar to the real website.
IP address in India
Richardson says he asked Air Canada to provide the IP address of the device used to cancel the reservation through an application under the Law for the Protection of Personal Information and Electronic Documents (Pipe.).
The record showed that the device that canceled the online ticket was linked to an IP address in India.
Nur Zincir-Heywood, an expert in cybersecurity with headquarters in Halifax, said that the IP address can also be falsified, which means that it can be modified to appear from a different location. Therefore, it does not necessarily mean that whoever has canceled the ticket is really in India.
This makes it harder to identify where the scammers are and keep them into account.
“I can understand and really have empathy for the client here because we could be in the same shoes,” he said.
In the end, Richardson ended up reserving another flight and went to Texas in November for a work conference. He says he will be very careful from now on to make sure he is using the legitimate website and contact information for a company.
Gábor Lukács, founder of the Air Passenger Rights Defense Group, says that it should not depend on the client to protect. He said Air Canada should assume an active role in the fight against this type of fraud.
“Air Canada is a large corporation. It is expected to operate a system that does not lend fraud,” he said, and said that adding a two factors verification system to ticket modifications can help passengers to remain protected.
