I know it hasn’t been long since I wrote about the latest fraudulent emails that target American Airlines customers, but these scams recorded a considerable increase and that’s why I think this is a good opportunity to remind everyone of the plots. Also, we’ll take a look at the company’s official statement on the matter.
After reading the previous article, tens of readers shared the fake emails they received in which they were alerted on the fact that a ticket had been purchased using their credit cards.
The phony emails that bear the subject “Re: Your Flight Order N590” look something like this:
Dear Customer,
FLIGHT ELECTRONIC NUMBER 8532856
DATE & TIME / NOVEMBER 28, 2011, 11:17 PM
ARRIVING: NEW YORK JFK
TOTAL PRICE : 278.02 USD
Targeted customers report that the name of the destination may vary, Tulsa, Worcester, Oxnard, Stockton, Long Beach, Chicago and Houston being among the names mentioned in the email.
Since they noticed that the number of false notices increased considerably and even moved to target fax machines, the company quickly acted on informing flyers about the malicious plot.
“American Airlines will never ask you to perform security-related changes to your account in this fashion or send emails to collect user names, passwords, email addresses or other personal information,” reads the company’s
statement.
“If you receive an email claiming to be from American Airlines, that asks for account information, it should be considered fraudulent and an attempt to obtain personal information that may be used to commit fraud. If you receive a phishing fax, please disregard and destroy the fax.”
Users who come across similar emails or even faxes are advised to immediately delete them to protect themselves from whatever may be hiding behind the attachments or the links that accompany the messages.
In addition, here are certain things that can give away the true identity of such a phony notice:
- phony messages always ask for personal information;
- they address the recipient with generic titles such as “dear customer;”
- they make false threats and claims, alerting users that their accounts will be terminated or their credit cards will be charged;
- in most cases, they are full of typos or poor grammar since a majority are sent by cybercriminals from other countries than the US.
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