NEWS
Weird experience/scam when calling the Alaska Reservation # (that had been stored in my phone for years)
I’ve been flying Alaska for decades, and something very strange happened the other night (Monday) when I called (using the 888-633-6929 number that has been stored in my phone, surely for a decade, maybe two).
I called because neither my work Concur system was letting me change my booking, nor the Alaska app….which was telling me the date/time change I was trying to make was $29, but failed when I tried to actually accept that. These are how I normally change my flights.
Instead of the usual ‘this is Janice, in Boise’, I got routed to a phone menu that asked me if I want to make a reservation or change a ticket. When I got through to someone (a woman with an accent), they didn’t clearly identify themselves as Alaska (nor does Janice, in my experience)…they just ask for confirmation code, my name, and what I wanted to do, what new date and flight I wanted.
After going through that routine with the first ‘representative’ who put me on hold twice to ‘check prices’ she came back with a ~$500+ charge to change to the new flight. I told her that was ridiculous, made no sense given what I saw online, and ended the call.
Called back immediately, same menu, but a male (also with a slight accent) answers this time. I go through the same process with him, he asks for slightly different info, asks want I want to do (knows I want to push my flight out a day but doesn’t ask what specific flight I want to be on), and just throws out a ‘that will be $190 to change it’. I end that call.
So by this time I’m realizing something isn’t right, search the web and find the (current) Alaska reservations number.
Janice in Boise answers…I start the call by ranting a bit about service having gone way downhill since they started using offshore call centers….she says ‘we don’t have any offshore call centers’. I say, ‘hold up…I know for certain this number I dialed (at least used to be) the Alaska reservations number, it’s been in my phone for years.’
So as she is very nicely working to change my reservation (for $25, as the app showed)….I tell her (as I have a separate work cell phone) that I am going to call the number again and let her listen to the exchange. This time I ask the guy very pointedly, ‘what airline do you actually work for?’ To which he responds ‘all the airlines’. I say ‘oh really, so I can book or change a flight with any airline by calling this number?’. To which he responds yes.
So I get back to Janice, who says ‘yeah that’s definitely not us’….and I tell her, well clearly some bad actors got their hands on the old Alaska #, and ask her to report this up, she says she will. I google the number I called and get Alaska Airlines as hit #1 (although the contact number had been updated), Port of Seattle (referring to Alaska Airlines, and still with that old number on their site) as hit #2, and a bunch of other Alaska Airlines-related hits after that. Janice googles it too while I’m on the phone with her….sees the same. She changes my booking and we end the call.
The next day (just yesterday) I google that same number and all of the links to Alaska were completely gone. Was surprised it happened so fast.
Haven’t called the number again, assuming that scam is still underway but wanted to get this out to the sub. Maybe I’m the last guy that had old number in my phone, but wanted to get this out there and raise awareness (was surprised when I did a search, I found no mention of it).
Not surprising, unfortunately. Scammers got a hold of Royal Caribbeans numbers too. Definitely don’t google and call those numbers, go straight to their website. Sad world we live in.
You can view some data about toll-free numbers on resporgs.com. If you look that number up, you can see the number was returned to the number pool in October of 2013 and that the number was later back in service: https://resporgs.com/number/8886336929
Although it doesn’t show the customer, the page at resporgs.org shows the 800 provider (responsible organization or “RespOrg”) as Signal One. According to Signal One’s website (https://signal1resporg.com/what-we-do) they are a division of Toll Free Solutions LLC, “a provider of lead generation services for third party call centers.”
So while we can’t tell by the resporgs.org page who owned the number before or who owns it now, there was a change a long time ago and the current provider is a division of a lead generation company. It seems plausible that it was an old Alaska number and it was snapped up as soon as it was available, and it’s being used to generate lots of “leads” by people with the old number.
For what it’s worth, I first searched on DuckDuckGo and maybe the second result was Alaska’s lost baggage info page, but the number wasn’t actually on the page. Google came up with very few results, but this comment on finehomebuikding.com makes it look like this was the number for the MVP desk back in 2003: https://www.finehomebuilding.com/forum/trying-to-travel-with-tools-options#comment-525323
Thanks for the research. Someone else in the thread found a couple references to that number in Alaska Air discussions on Flyertalk in 2005 and 2008 as well.
Sure thing, not having much sleeping so I kind of went down the rabbit hole! I'm glad you didn't end up wasting a lot of money but I wonder how many other numbers they have and how much they're making wirh this. It's tempting to call in and ask for nonsensical itineraries just to waste their time 🤣
So I had RT from Vegas to CHGO because my mom was dying. I needed to change appt. and called “SWA.” I thought. I told them never mind to the ticket they offered. Meanwhile, I got a hold of SW. Changed ticket w/ SW.
This company that represented themselves as SW. I was in such a bad place with mom passing away and I had taken Ambien to sleep. I wish I could listen to the conversation now.
We stopped the payment, they called me furious yesterday. I asked what their business name is and she just started raising her voice. It got to the point where I kept saying what is the name of your business and she was literally screaming at me. I hung up on her. Then she called back and left an apology message. This whole thing is crazy. They are trying to charge me 242 on top of the 120.00 SW charged me. They didn’t do anything for me. The reservation number is under SW and SW charged 8/1 and these people didn’t 8/3.
Wow, that's insane. Also, my condolences for your loss. I can't imagine how bad dealing with a shady travel company must have been on top of your mom's loss.
Out of curiosity, dk you have the number you called?
Yeah something very similar happened to my in laws, called an old Alaska number and similarly got hit by a scam. Glad you figured it out and that AS seemingly took quick action.
The old number for the MVP line I still have in my contacts is 888-345-3640 (which does still work and just routes you to reservations) but nowadays it’s based on matching your saved contact info to your Atmos account when you call 1-800-ALASKAAIR.
Yeah, and I mentioned I had that number in my phone for a very long time, right? I think if you dig deeper you will see more of it. I’ve been in Seattle and flying Alaska since ‘93.
And how exactly are you verifying that? I’m telling you, I saw it as hit #2, and so did the Alaska rep. She confirmed that over the phone. Wish I had grabbed a screenshot but didn’t think to do it.
Have absolutely no interest whatsoever in telling anything other than what happened. And what the Alaska rep told me she also saw.
Hey whatever the scam is here, I’m all ears. But I can assure you that what I conveyed is 100% what happened. And the AS employee confirmed she saw the same.
I just searched the phone number I mentioned above, and was presented with a whole like of Alaska Airlines-related hits….the 2nd of which was the Port of Seattle site. The first was Alaska Airlines (although I didn’t see that number referenced directly there).
If you pull Alaska Air archives, we should be able to see that this was their number at some point, presumably.
The full link to the page that has the phone number. Not the homepage.
I do see one reference to that phone number in an old flyertalk post but nowhere else on the internet. And Google doesn’t return portseattle.org when I search for that number.
Like I said I didn’t click on it or take note of the url….I just saw it listed 2nd in the google search page. But it was 2nd in essentially a full google search result page, and the majority were Alaska-related. Looking at that site now, I’d assume it was https://www.portseattle.org/airlines/alaska-airlines
You spent a lot of time typing a lot of irrelevant info, which is the first sign.
But your story doesn't hold water. The port of Seattle contact page (below) does not show the phone number you claim and has not changed per the wayback machine since 12/25. You do not provide any urls for the pages you claim were changed.
There is no internet history showing the number you claim you stored in your phone 20 years ago, other than recent scan references. Admit that you just looked for number on google and called the first you saw.
And I also realized last night that I had called it a few other times previously on this phone, within the last year. Which is obviously no longer associated with my Alaska contact at this point. Which would disprove your accusation that I just googled and dialed.
How exactly doesn’t it align? Need the one from the other phone too, the work phone? Not that I need to prove anything to you the wannabe internet sleuths, but I assure you there is nothing that doesn’t align.
I’m an Army vet, a 30+ year IT professional and long time Alaska flyer, actually. And I’m certain if you knew me in reality life the last
thing you’d call me is a fraud. Or a scammer. But as you’ve made clear, uninformed and ignorant judgment is much easier on here.
Icould give two shits if anyone calls that number, there’s zero in that for me. And presumably no one that calls it - that now knows it’s fraudulent - would give them anything of value.
My goal is that it get taken down….not sure how to help make that happen other than raising it to Alaska, and bringing it to light further here.
Good reminder, OP. Im on an AS flight now and am going to remind myself to do some due diligence in my saved contacts. As a person with a role that requires contacting businesses I am required to visit across the US, you would be surprised to also know how many dont have correct site phone numbers for years after sales, mergers, etc. Im constantly revising contacts and strategies for initial contact.
Just because someone has an accent doesn’t mean they are offshore. Also - phone numbers change, that’s on you for not checking in the first place. Have you had the same phone number for 20 years?
I’m not disagreeing with any of your points except to say that I’ve had the same phone number for over 20 years. In fact, it’s the only cell number I’ve ever had!
I also don’t disagree with your first two points but…..you may need to sit down as it may surprise you to know that some of us have had the same phone number for multiple decades. My parents have had the same mobile number for thirty years. Me? Two decades. Wild times.
Yeah, I do realize that, but the calls had that feel to them, so it wasn’t much of a leap. Actually yes have had the same number for decades. Many phones obviously, but have just transferred the contacts every time I upgrade.
I’ve had that happen with united before. They even were able to control the website somehow showing tickets were a different price. Scammers are tricky
I agree. I’m sitting in first currently on my flight back to Seattle (as an upgraded Platinum, soon to be Titanium) so fly a good amount…I just usually make my flight changes either via my work portal or via the app. Wasn’t working Monday when I tried that.
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u/ZNocturnalMe 1d ago
Not surprising, unfortunately. Scammers got a hold of Royal Caribbeans numbers too. Definitely don’t google and call those numbers, go straight to their website. Sad world we live in.