skyscanner and fly.co.uk scam

petermann

budgetflyer wrote: »

I bet you weren't.
I suggest you were charged what was shown on the final page.
This may well be different from what was on skyscanner though.

believe what you like. what is undisputed is.....

- that £30 of "charges" were added to the skyscanner price.
- that they are a german company masquerading as a Uk one and
have NO protection, as consumer protection for travel doesnt exist
in germany, even for internet sales. hence the extortionate terms.
- that other people have been duped having genuine complaints is
obvious from a google search.

The matter has gone to the bank, as this forum seems pointless. the company is extremely dubious - do you work for them?

unsubscribing. great work Martin !

Caz3121

skyscanner display the prices from the selling agent. fly.co.uk advertise the price without taxes which they add separately. fly.co.uk show the fare eg
Price per person: £110.00 + £71.00 Taxes = £181.00 (but with the taxes and total in smaller text) this should then add up to the same fare as buying direct from the airline.
The issue appears to be that they use the fare excluding taxes in the comparison sites making them look cheaper (to the value of the taxes) but when you click through the total fare is very clear

Georgia_Pa

I travel alot so have found this info very useful thanks guys!

richardw

petermann wrote: »

..what just gets me is the apparently artificial low price that guarantees the top spot in the search engine knowing that they will just add extra in quietly later, and more, as a "fee".

I've been using SkyScanner a lot recently for a variety of flight options, it is great for getting a very good feel of price levels, but it isn't really giving you final prices for each and every airline and agent, I go to the airlines' websites for that.

bagand96

petermann wrote: »

believe what you like. what is undisputed is.....

- that £30 of "charges" were added to the skyscanner price.
- that they are a german company masquerading as a Uk one and
have NO protection, as consumer protection for travel doesnt exist
in germany, even for internet sales. hence the extortionate terms.
- that other people have been duped having genuine complaints is
obvious from a google search.

The matter has gone to the bank, as this forum seems pointless. the company is extremely dubious - do you work for them?

unsubscribing. great work Martin !

The fact that the £30 taxes and charges is added to the price they report on Skyscanner is poor practice and obviously a ploy to get people to click through.

In the "About us" section of the website they qiute clearly give their address as in Germany, they dont make attempts to hide it. They are a German company that operate sites in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and the Netherlands. Its hardly unusual in this day and age.

The thing is, they DO show the full and final price you are being charged before you accept the T&C's and click "book".

IF you were charged more than this full and final price then you have a very good case for card fraud and your bank will take this very seriously. However if the full price was shown and you simply failed to notice (which fly.co.uk will be able to prove) then they have no case to answer.

You would get no more protection in this circumstances if it had been a UK registered company.

Finally, I'm sorry you feel the forum hasn't helped you. The answers myself and others have given you may not be what you wanted to hear - however that doesn't make them wrong. We've given honest advice on how we see the situation.

Please report back on what the bank find.

Takecareofthepennies

petermann wrote: »

... as consumer protection for travel doesnt exist
in germany, even for internet sales. ...

Consumer protection for travel products does exist in Germany on a level roughly comparable to that in the UK. Due to the nature of the product, no right to cancel under distance selling regulations exists in the UK either.

PeterMil

I thought I had booked, but received this today and my flight's early tomorrow morning: This looks dangerously like a scam to me. Am I over-reacting?(see following email from fly.co.uk. I've deleted some identifying info - highlighted):

Dear Mr./Ms XXX,

Dear Mr./Ms XXX,

Thank you for your booking request: XXX and your confidenceplaced in us.



Although booking flights on the internet is easy andconvenient, it must also remain secure.



We have a number of security measures in place to protectyou from theft and identity fraud. Unfortunately, we were unable to verify the creditcard holder while processing your flight request. In order to complete yourflight reservation, please send us a copy of the front side of the given creditcard, as well as a copy a government issued ID or passport from the credit cardholder via email (please per .jpg or pdf file) or fax, by using the fax numbergiven below. For security purposes, we ask that you black out portions of yourcredit card number before sending us the necessary copies.



An example of the blacked out credit card number shouldbe as follows:



Ex.: "123456XXXXXX1234"



Please leave the first 6 and last 4 digits on your creditcard visible to us, as shown in the example above.



Furthermore, we ask that you also include your bookingcode XXX. We regretany inconvenience caused, but we would like to remind you, we take thesemeasures in order to protect you from fraud and identity theft. We thank you inadvance for your co-operation and understanding.



If you are already a customer of ours, then please replyto this email with the booking reference or invoice number from your previousbooking(s). Using these, we can cross check the information in order to verifyyour identity. You will then be notified should we require any furtherinformation.



Please note that the issuing of tickets is bound to a 24hour period from the date of booking, and therefore the ticket must be issuedimmediately. If a ticket is not issued, the price can dramatically increase oryour reservation can even be cancelled by the airline.



If we have not received a response from you within 24hours, or if cancellation occurs, then our Terms and Conditions regarding feesshall apply (minimum 50 GBP, maximal 100 GBP) for the previously processedflight request.



To speed up the processing, we ask you to responddirectly to this email.



If you have any further questions, please do not hesitateto contact us.



Best wishes,

Your Fly.co.uk Team



Unister GmbH

Barfußgässchen 11

04109 Leipzig

Germany

scottishperson2

PeterMil wrote: »

I thought I had booked, but received this today and my flight's early tomorrow morning: This looks dangerously like a scam to me. Am I over-reacting?

Don't know. What did they say when you called or emailed them?

monruth

If in doubt check with the airlines. I would like to suggest that if people have problems, feel cheated etc with some internet booking sites then there should be a way of reporting them to the airlines and if there are multiple complaints of a similar nature then perhaps the airline could bar them from making bookings and bear some responsibility. I now find it more reliable to book directly with the airline eg. BA, Virgin and their prices tend to be on a par with eg. Opodo, Expedia, Netflights. The screenscrapers are good to find out times of flights and get some idea of costs.

Would like to hear the follow-up if Post No. 18 got his/her flight OK. Hope so as that letter does not look like a scam but then one cannot be too sure.

Shiva2012

Hi Peter,

I've just received the same email. What did you do?
It's the first time an agency asked me to send credit card copy and ID! The suspicious point is that they say you send it by fax, but there is no fax number! So I have to send it by email. I'm worried about this and I'm in hurry to book my flight, 'cause I'm traveling with my family soon.