Three former Spirit Airlines representatives have been arrested over quite a scheme. The details of this are fascinating, and I’m kind of amazed this went on for as long as it did.
In this post:
How Spirit Airlines employees skimmed ticket change fees
The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has arrested three former Spirit Airlines representatives, charging them with seven counts of wire fraud in connection with their scheme to defraud the airline. Note that the government filing suggests that they were airline employees, though it seems that they have technically been employed by a third party, working on behalf of Spirit Airlines.
This involves an elaborate scheme that they allegedly took part in while working at Philadelphia Airport (PHL) back in 2017 and 2018, which caused Spirit Airlines to lose $283K in ticket revenue. So, how did this work?
One person involved in the scheme was a supervisor for the airline, and had the ability to use their credentials to change tickets with no change fees to customers. This was intended only for emergencies, such as a death in a passenger’s family.
How did the trio (including the supervisor and two customer service agents, who were all working together) profit off of this access?
- They would instruct Spirit Airlines customers to book cheap flights in the future
- They would then change the tickets of the passengers to more expensive flights, with the airline not collecting a change fee
- Instead the agents would charge a commission (less than the difference in fare), which would be payable directly to them via Cash App
- Between December 2017 and August 2018, over 1,700 reservations were modified, with the airline not collecting any revenue for the changes
- The supervisor ended up being terminated in 2018, at which point the group approached another supervisor, in hopes of getting them in on the scheme
As an example, if a customer wanted to change a flight, but the fee to do was $150, they might instead have the customer book a $20 flight for the future, and then change the ticket to that $150 flight. Then they’d ask the customer to directly pay them some amount less than the actual ticket fare.
I’m surprised this went on as long as it did
It’s one thing if this scheme had been done in moderation, but 1,700 ticket changes in nine months?! Is this basically just what these people were doing full-time? How did they have time to help any other customers who weren’t rebooking tickets?
With that kind of volume, it seems like a sure bet that someone at Spirit Airlines would notice the number of ticket changes that one supervisor was allegedly making. Perhaps the even bigger risk is that if you’re changing 1,700 tickets and having people give you money via Cash App, someone is going to end up complaining directly to the airline when things don’t go right, and expose what’s going on.
It’s not entirely clear what the context of these ticket changes was. Did they have a network of people who were looking to book Spirit tickets, who understood how this worked? Or was this a function of people showing up at the airport, missing their flight, being on the hook for the fare difference, and then being offered this alternative?
And were they honest to people about what they were doing? Did they basically say “hey, I’ll save you some money if you book with me, it’s a win-win,” or did they pretend the money via Cash App was going to Spirit Airlines?
Bottom line
Every so often there’s a story of airline employees using their special access to reservations systems for personal profit. In this case, a former Spirit Airlines supervisor and two co-conspirators would change tickets for customers at no cost to them, but would then pocket a commission on the transaction via Cash App. They did this a staggering 1,700 times over the course of nine months, which is quite some volume.
I’m amazed they were able to get away with this for so long before someone at Spirit Airlines caught on. With the number of customers involved here, it was only a matter of time until someone reported them.
What do you make of this Spirit Airlines fraud incident?
The volume suggests they have some malicious code added to Spirit airlines ticketing system that ties into a third party ticketing system.
For example:
Let’s say I purchase a ticket from Expedia for $80… malicious code in the the Expedia system could scan through and purchase a ticket for $20 on Spirit and use a managers credentials to change the flight to the $80 flight leaving a net profit of $60. That extra...
The volume suggests they have some malicious code added to Spirit airlines ticketing system that ties into a third party ticketing system.
For example:
Let’s say I purchase a ticket from Expedia for $80… malicious code in the the Expedia system could scan through and purchase a ticket for $20 on Spirit and use a managers credentials to change the flight to the $80 flight leaving a net profit of $60. That extra $60 could then be divided between the scammers and automatically transferred to them via cash app.
I’ve had a couple times recently that Spirit charged me for things I didn’t purchase… inflight charges and add ons I didn’t request. And when I called in Spirit had no records of the transactions on their end.
Most recently I purchased a ticket from Expedia and Spirit (or someone with a similar name) billed me from account called “Spirit Air Visa” rather than Expedia.
The preauthorization was higher than what I was quoted on Expedia. It seemed odd. I’ve been trying to figure out what the hell is going on… then I ran across your article and It’s beginning to make a bit more sense.
I let Expedia have it last night… I purchased from them because I did not trust Spirit with my card info anymore after my past couple flights and the hours it took trying to get refunded for unauthorized inflight charges. I finally had to just dispute them with my credit card company.
Why Expedia would pass along my card info.. rather than just bill me, and keep their cut is peculiar to me. When I contacted Expedia about the higher authorization they told me to contact Spirit. I’m not wasting hours on the phone with Spirit again.. I’ll just provide my Expedia receipt to my credit card company and have them figure it out.
First disclaimer was that they were NOT Spirit employees and the lengths people will go to defraud others is mind-boggling. With all the difficulties that airlines have experienced over the past couple of years, I am not surprised that something like this slipped through the cracks.
The problem in this situation is that they collected the money and they suggested methods that cost the airline money. If the passenger voluntarily said I want to do x and they just were not charging the customers the change fee and had a valid reason to do so then this is different. I have often been able to get out of paying a phone fee or other airline fees. The agents have some degree...
The problem in this situation is that they collected the money and they suggested methods that cost the airline money. If the passenger voluntarily said I want to do x and they just were not charging the customers the change fee and had a valid reason to do so then this is different. I have often been able to get out of paying a phone fee or other airline fees. The agents have some degree of ability to wave fees. However, not only did they make money from it, they also suggested this.
They are not Spirit Airline Employees. The are GAT employees. The headline is incorrect and misleading and leaves a false perception that the REAL Spirit employees are questionable. If you are going to write an article, ensure your Headline and article is accurate.
Saw other day. Terrible theft by employees (I know was 3rd party!) Illustrates how little some EE's care about those who feed them, lack of Morality in Kiladelphia.
Hope they get at least 5 year prison, pay full restitution, as Deterrence.
Moral of the story: Don't nickel and dime a company that excels in nickel and diming their customers. They will notice.
Eventually.
While they were acting as agents of Spirit, let's make it clear these agents/supervisors were NOT employees of Spirit - hired by a contractor (GAT Airline Ground Support).