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Arik Air Ticketing Scam - Learn from our mistake

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Arikairinc dot co dot uk set up their website to look like the proper Arik Air site to fool UK customers into thinking that they are buying their tickets from Arik Air UK.

Why would a legitimate business do this?

My wife and I have set up this web page to tell the world our story so that you don’t fall for the same scam that we fell for.

The scam is simple.

• They consistently quote really cheap deals on their web page.
• You call them to book
• You offer to pay by credit card, they bump the rate up by 40%
• They ask you to pay into their account
• Once you pay into their account, they start to tell you all sorts of stories about the airline increasing the rate.
• You smell a rat and ask for a refund.
• They start to stall you.
• We have been trying to get a refund now for 13 weeks.

We checked out the details of their URL on the web:

Registrant: Cheap Flight Holidays
They’re registered in Pakistan

Total Paid=£2368.44

We transferred £2,368.44 into their Lloyds Bank Account from our Barclays account in good faith.

The only way to contact them is via their phone number.
Once we call, they just put us on hold.
On our last call, we were on hold for 42 minutes and the phone cut off.

• Barclays (our bank) say they cannot help get our money back without a court order
• Lloyds (their bank) say they cannot help us without the account owners consent
• We went to the Police, who asked us to log it with actionfraud dot org They just gave us a reference number.

Comments

  • Caz3121
    Caz3121 Posts: 15,832 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Arikairinc dot co dot uk set up their website to look like the proper Arik Air site to fool UK customers into thinking that they are buying their tickets from Arik Air UK

    commiserations on your experience and I hope you get your refund.

    It does say on the home page
    We are retail agent for Arik Air based in UK. The website should not be considered a representation of the airline, rather a means to promote sales.
  • Alias_Omega
    Alias_Omega Posts: 7,917 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Bank transfer = No consumer protection.
  • zagfles
    zagfles Posts: 21,412 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Chutzpah Haggler
    Yes, as a general rule, only pay up front for flights, hotels etc by credit card (though I think you might get some protection with debit cards).
  • jpsartre
    jpsartre Posts: 4,090 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    We transferred £2,368.44 into their Lloyds Bank Account from our Barclays account in good faith.

    Unbelievable....
  • _Andy_
    _Andy_ Posts: 11,150 Forumite
    Did alarm bells not sound when they asked for a bank transfer?

    Can't see you ever getting the money back.
  • spannerzone
    spannerzone Posts: 1,566 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    So the 419 scammers have moved into online ticketing it would seem?

    Never trust information given by strangers on internet forums
  • Ich_2
    Ich_2 Posts: 1,087 Forumite
    Reading elsewhere Arik Air owe money to a lot of folk
    Arik owes every and any pilot that works for them. As an expatriate, your salaries are paid so late that when it comes, you have already worked 2 or 3 weeks except u leave for rotation and never come back.

    As for the locals, pension and tax deductions are not remitted.
This discussion has been closed.
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