A passenger who booked British Airways roundtrip business class tickets from London Heathrow to Atlanta found themselves checking in for their return flight with no reservations – with the airline demanding an additional US$17,511 for them to fly home.
They flew the outbound part of the trip to Atlanta on October 27, and left a jacket behind on the plane. British Airways directed them to airport lost and found. Atlana airport lost and found sent them back to British Airways. So he took to twitter for help.
@British_Airways @atlantaairport_ Left an item of clothing on flight BA 227 into ATL from LHR on Oct 27. BA website says contact the airport. ATL phone system tells me, if lost on plan to contact my airline. Would one of you tell me who is responsible for loss property? Thanks.
— Geoff Spink (@GP_Spink) October 31, 2025
There, scammers posing as the airline responded (users like “BA Claim Review,” “BA Assistance Help,” and “BA Travel Advice”), asking him to message them and provide a phone number.
- A scammer calls him on WhatsApp, offers “compensation,” and pushes him to download a money transfer app s othey can send the funds. He’s prompted to “enter a code” that would have actually sent money to the scammers instead.
- The passenger thought this was real at first, realized it was a scam, and stopped responding to their calls and messages.
- He’d provided his reservation details. And – purely out of spite – they cancelled the return portion of his trip.
While British Airways sent a cancellaton message, he assumed it was a message related to the scam and he ignored it. When he tried to check in for the flight home, British Airways had no booking. The airline refused to reinstate the ticket, and insisted he would have to buy new ones. And on a walk up basis that was going to cost about seventeen grand for the one way trip. Instead he shelled out $5,200 so they could travel home in premium economy. His travel insurer rejected the claim. A live claim is pending with American Express.
There are all sorts of variations on scam travel agencies extorting cash from passengers. You need to be very careful Googling airline phone numbers because scam travel agencies have corrupted the results.
I’ve written about scammers taking over an old Singapore Airlines phone number and pretending to be Singapore Airlines agents when customers call.
A former boss of mine got scammed by a phone number for Delta provided to her by her travel agency. The agents pretending to be Delta charged her $1,000 to move her and her granddaughter to flights the next day when their original itinerary was cancelled. (Delta Air Lines shockingly covered the cost.)
Scam travel agencies buy Google ads to appear that you’ve found the airline’s phone number. I’ve seen this with United Airlines, JetBlue, Hawaiian and others. You get connected to an agency with one star and an F rating from the Better Business Bureau.
Another variation on this scam is that the agency takes over Google’s search results for the airline at a specific airport, and displays their own phone number. You think you’re calling your airline’s “JFK” number but it’s the same agency scam. You can’t trust Google search results for airline phone numbers. You need to go to the airline’s website itself and look up their number. Similarly you need to be very sure you’re dealing with an airline’s official account on X (née Twitter).
However, usually when a scammer cancels your booking without authorization, the airline helps to fix things – like Delta did. In this case, the travel agency scammed the passenger and then British Airways extorted them for more money.
To be sure, BA can argue that the passenger is at fault for giving the perpetrator their confirmation number. But it’s unusual to be charged double to restore seats.
If I were these customers, I’d file a Department of Transportation Consumer Complaint arguing that I was being (1) involuntarily denied boarding despite purchasing a ticket for the flight, and (2) being subjected to a post-purchase price increase. It doesn’t matter if you win that dispute. This would escalate things way beyond front line customer service who are trained to pick and choose pre-written responses denying compensation.
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