Man Calls United Airlines, Gets Scammed For $17K: What On Earth?!

There are lots of scammers who try to take advantage of unsuspecting airline passengers. One common scam is that you’ll see phone numbers listed online that claim to be official airline phone numbers, but in reality, they’re just the phone numbers of scammers. So people call those numbers thinking they’re talking to an airline representative, when in reality, that’s not the case.

Here’s a bizarre variation of that — a traveler called United Airlines’ official phone number, but somehow got scammed for over $17,000 (thanks to Bill for flagging this).

Traveler inexplicably scammed for $17K on United phone call

9NEWS has an interesting story about a Denver-area man who was trying to take his family on an 18-day trip to Europe in late May 2025. He had booked tickets with United, but the family’s outbound flight ended up being canceled.

To try and salvage the trip, the man called United’s customer service line, where he was on the phone for more than three hours. While he was briefly connected to a female agent, he ended up being transfered to a male agent who identified himself as David, and he spent over three hours on the line with him.

The representative reportedly told him that in order to rebook his flights, he’d have to place a $17,328 charge on his credit card, but then United would refund that money, to reimburse him for the cancelation. The traveler was placed on hold for a long time, and eventually the representative came back and said that he couldn’t rebook the flights, but assured him that the charge would be refunded.

However, months later, he still hasn’t received a refund. A confirmation email suggested the ticket would be refunded within 45-50 business days. So after that amount of time, he called and was connected directly to “David,” who said he would look into it and get back to him. He was then ghosted.

This is when the help of the 9NEWS investigative reporter was enlisted, who noticed the following:

• The confirmation email about the $17,328 charge didn’t actually come from a United email address, and looked very suspicious
• The credit card statement didn’t show the charge as being from United, but instead, showed a generic company called “AIRLINEFARE”

Now, you’d assume that what happened is that the traveler just looked up the wrong phone number on Google, which is a common way to be scammed. But that’s not the case.

The traveler shared the call logs, showing a 3hr16min call to United’s official phone number. United has even confirmed that the airline received calls from the traveler at the time he claimed, with one major discrepancy — United’s call log showed a 12-minute call, at the end of which the man dropped off the call, and there was no further recording. However, the traveler’s call log showed a much longer phone call.

In a statement, United has refused to provide further details, other than to say that they’ve “been in direct contact with the customer to understand what happened in this case,” and that the airline is “committed to finding a fair resolution for him.”

The man has filed a credit card dispute for the fradulent charge, but that hasn’t yet been resolved. For those curious about his trip, he was able to rebook the trip on a separate phone call, obviously without a $17K+ charge.

My take on this very strange United scam incident

Based on what we know, it seems that somehow, the traveler actually called United’s official phone number, only to be transfered to a scammer. Now, the question is, was this intentional or accidental?

• Did the initial United call center agent intentionally transfer this call to a scam phone number, making this an inside job?
• Or did the United call center agent accidentally transfer the call to a scam phone number? Maybe the traveler needed to talk to a different department, and the initial agent Googled the phone number, and fell for the scam herself?
• Or did the scammers somehow intercept United phone calls, in a way that’s hard to make sense of?

All that being said, my goodness, it’s amazing that this guy fell for this. I mean, the confirmation email is very obviously not from United, and it’s a pretty obvious scam. And one should certainly be suspicious if an airline representative tells you that they’re gong to charge you an amount and then refund you that amount. But maybe this guy somehow felt it must be legitimate, since he called the official phone number?

Here’s the other thing I find a bit odd, which I can’t make sense of. The guy provides the call log, which does show United’s official phone number — 800.864.8331. However, it also shows the name as “Spam – United Airlines.”

Now, of course the “spam” or “scam likely” designators are sometimes not accurate, but why did they they have reason to believe that it’s likely spam? Like I said, you’d assume this guy just called up the wrong phone number, and that they were somehow able to “mask” the number, or whatever. But United has confirmed the phone call happened, but that it only lasted for a matter of minutes, rather than a matter of hours.

Bottom line

A family had a trip booked to Europe on United Airlines, but there ended up being irregular operations. So one of the travelers called United’s official number, only to end up being scammed for over $17,000. What makes this so strange is that United shows the call as having lasted for 12 minutes, while the traveler’s call log shows the call as having lasted for over three hours.

It sure seems like this man was somehow routed from a legitimate United agent to a scammer. The question is just how or why this happened. Either way, it’s a good reminder to always make sure you’re calling official airline phone numbers, and even if you are, if something doesn’t seem right, follow your gut.

What do you make of this strange scam?