Victim Location 28712
Total money lost $990
Type of a scam Tech Support
Dear BBB, I recently was a victim of a scam that occurred whilst trying to contact Expedia to cancel a hotel reservation. Resulting in a loss of $990 (in addition to the $1,213 that I spent on the reservation as Expedia has refused to cancel the reservation. When I called Expedia (855-431-6182) to cancel my hotel reservation I was connected to an agent named John Miller. He gave me a call back number of (607) 214 5044 (ext. 2016), however I ended up staying on the line with him and not needing to call him back. He advised me that the only way I could receive a refund from Expedia was via a Target Gift Card. He told me to go to Target and open a gift card account and that I needed to have a base of $990 in the account for Expedia to make the transfer into my account. Within 37 minutes all the money from the Target gift card was depleted and Target is unable thus far to tell me where this money went. I fault Expedia because clearly their google search engine was hacked to give me a false phone number listed above, and more importantly Expedia’s database was hacked which contained ALL details of my reservation. I also fault Target as they should be able to tell me where the $990 went. Can you please contact Expedia (and Target) on my behalf and mandate that they acknowledge this problem and respond to me? All the responses I’ve received thus far from Expedia are simple form letters saying nothing pertaining to this important matter. A Target representative explained they would send me the information where the money went but I have yet to hear back from them as well. I feel I have exhausted all options by reaching out to both companies who have apparently ignored me so I am asking for your help on this matter. Lastly, I’ve also filed a police report in the hopes of receiving some help AND preventing this from happening to others. However the police informed me that they do not investigate internet crimes. Thank you
Victim Location 29715
Total money lost $2,450
Type of a scam Travel/Vacations
We needed Expedia’s help with a previously booked trip. We didn’t have the Customer Service phone number handy, but found the number 1-877-392-8999 using Google. The phone system and people who answered sounded exactly like Expedia Customer Service. They were knowledgeable and had full access to all the details of the trip. They said they needed to re-book the trip, and in order to refund the money originally charged on our son-in-law’s credit card, told us to purchase Target gift cards for $2,450. We were hesitant but they were so knowledgeable and convincing that we have done what they told us. We gave them the gift card numbers and only then realized that we had probably been scammed. This happened on 6/21/2019. On 6/22/2019, we called Expedia Customer Service at phone number 1-800-397-3342 and talked to a Tier 1 customer service representative. She took notes and also asked us to send all the information to [email protected], which we did. We have received only one, token reply from Expedia. All of our subsequent attempts to obtain any reference number to their investigation, or any update on it remained unanswered in any way. We were only able to reach their customer service representatives who were always nice but not helpful at all. We are certainly not alleging that Expedia as such was responsible for the scam but strongly suspect that the scam was an insider job because the scammers had a complete access to all the details of the truip. We are very disappointed that the "[email protected]" group does not seem interested at all in investigating this apparent insider’s act, and all they do is "stone-walling".