British Airways passengers being scammed out of £150 on Twitter

It seems that scammers are taking advantage of the current travel chaos to get money out of stressed-out passengers. A scam has been going around Twitter targeting British Airways (BA) passengers who are having issues with baggage.

A baggage scam

As reported by The Independent, the baggage scam that has been targeting BA passengers was circulating on Twitter. Often when passengers are experiencing issues, they tweet the airline company to come to a solution. This is where the scam starts.

One passenger was caught out when they tweeted that their baggage didn’t arrive at their destination so they tweeted BA and received an answer from @BritishCare. The unsuspecting passengers thought this to be a legitimate account.

@BritishCare then instructed the passenger to send money in order to receive their lost luggage. After sending the money, the passenger ended up tweeting:

Can someone call me and explain why I had to pay for a luggage that the airline did not send to its destination?

Another passenger tweeted:

I’m trying to get in touch with British Airways on Twitter. I have been contacted by @CareBritish asking me for contact details.

It feels fake: do you know if it’s genuine?

Asking for money to return baggage

The scam account would come up with a convoluted story explaining that the customer had to send money in order to receive their lost luggage. After the passenger accepted, the scammers asked for a bank transfer to an account in Kenya.

According to The Independent, the scammers claimed they were ‘Martin from BA’ and explained passengers could only receive their luggage if they ‘transferred 22,458 Kenyan shillings (£150) to a person living in Nakuru, Kenya.’

Please note that airlines do not request money to retrieve lost luggage.

The scam would continue since the passenger would transfer the money and would still be without luggage, meaning they would contact them again, where the scammers would give another story as to why their luggage still hadn’t arrived and would ask for more money.

Another airline scam

The same scam account @BritishCare tried to scam another customer who wanted to check in extra luggage. The scam account got in touch and then asked for the phone number of the passenger, who shared their contact details, as well as other victims.

The @BritishCare account has since been suspended.

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