Description

My wife was taken by this "company" who pretended to be the Airline Company WestJet Airlines. When you attempt to book on WestJet's website, if there is anything complex about it, they'll direct you to call their number for reservations. In this case it was due to trying to book 7 people which is one more than the max allowed to book through the website. The phone number listed on the airline's website is 1-888-937-8538 (note the 888 toll-free area code). By accident, she mistakenly called 1-800-937-8538 (note the 800 toll-free area code). That night, the person who picked up represented themselves as WestJet, took all the personal information regarding the all the passengers due to fly as well as credit card information. They immediately charged the credit cards to two different companies and sent over a phony reservation e-mail stating that e-tickets would come within two hours. The next day when when my wife called back to find out what happened to the tickets, the phone never picked up. Finally, someone called back who supposedly was from the company and asked her to take pictures of the passports and email them to the email address. All of this seemed very shady which is when we realized she had dialed the wrong number. Last night, more than 24 hours after she had made the initial call, and after much back and forth with the supposed "owner" and three of his "managers", the "company" informed me that they did not actually have the tickets and could not get them. It appears this is a scam well documented online using this fraudulent number and the toll-free phone number provider does not care to do anything. I wonder how many others have scammed out of large sums of money without knowing any better. As of today, our phone numbers and emails are receiving an unusual amount of scam/spam phone calls as if our information has been sold. NOTE: There are other people online complaining about this fake phone number from at least 6 months ago. I've tracked down the agency who handles that toll free number to be MAYFAIR COMMUNICATIONS, INC. at 800-629-3247. When I called them to notify of the abuse of a number held by them, the agent on the line ignored me, told me the other company is a great customer, and then hung up on me. I had asked if they have a formal process for reporting abuse - which is when she hung up on me. Also to note is that the "Owner / Manager" of this company stated to me that he did not know his company's phone number was similar to WestJet's and he had simply requested a toll-free number and was randomly assigned this number.