Man books flight tickets on Google Maps-listed number, gets duped

In a recent incident, a Twitter user, Shmuli Evers, shared his experience of being scammed when attempting to reschedule his flight tickets. After his Delta Airlines flight was canceled, he turned to Google Maps for a number to reach their customer service. Unfortunately, the number he dialed turned out to be a scammer’s trap. The scammer posed as an airline representative, asking for Evers’ name and new flight confirmation number. Then, the scammer directed him to send the confirmation number via SMS to another number and requested payment for the new flight reservations. Notably, Evers sensed something was amiss and hung up, but the scammer persisted, bombarding him with texts, demanding a payment five times the original ticket price for re-booking.

My @delta flight got canceled from JFK. The customer service line was huge, so I google a Delta JFK phone number. The number was 1888-571-4869 Thinking I reached Delta, I started telling them about getting me on a new flight.

— Shmuli Evers (@Shmuli) July 16, 2023

Later, Evers found that the original number on Google Maps was indeed the legitimate one for Delta’s local help desk at John F Kennedy Airport. It appeared that the scammers had replaced the genuine number with their own to dupe unsuspecting users. This issue arises due to the crowdsourced nature of business information on Google Maps, including hotline numbers. Scammers exploit this loophole to create fake businesses and deceive people. Reports have emerged of scammers contacting small businesses, posing as Google representatives, and demanding payment for alleged “unpaid bills,” threatening to remove their Google Maps listings if they don’t comply. Evers also discovered that the hotline number listed for American Airlines on Google Maps was incorrect. Fortunately, both incorrect numbers have since been rectified. With inputs from agencies