ADA TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — A West Michigan family nearly lost $300 when they rebooked a flight through a look-a-like website they thought was connected to Delta Airlines.
“I don’t want this to happen to anybody else,” said Naomi Poel, a mom and teacher who lives in Ada Township.
She filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau Serving Western Michigan and shared her cautionary tale with Target 8.
In mid-July, Poel’s family was scheduled to fly to Japan to visit her mom and dad. But she learned an hour before they were due to board that the plane was delayed, and they would miss their connecting flight.
“I was panicking really badly because we don’t travel a lot, so we really don’t know much about how it goes and ‘are we going to miss the whole trip,’” she recalled.
The family went online to Delta but couldn’t find tickets for the same day. They tried to connect with a human being at the airline.
The website connected to the ad had “Delta Airlines Reservations” on its homepage, and a paragraph that began, “We, at Delta Airlines, offer curated travel experience for our customers by helping them get the best deals and offers while booking flights.”
Poel booked next day flights through the website with the help of a man named Daren French. He charged them a service fee of $300 to re-book their tickets. That’s when they learned the site they thought was Delta was actually a third party company.
The airline also re-booked the family’s flights for free, and they flew to Japan the next day. Delta Airlines told Target 8 it’s looking into the incident and referred Target 8 to a portion of itswebsitedevoted to preventing fraud.
The Better Business Bureau Serving Western Michigan believes the site was trying to associate itself with a well-established company – Delta Airlines – to attract business it might not obtain on its own.
“We’re seeing a lot of cases now where people go online and do a simple Google search trying to find a specific business and they’ll find a phone number,” explained Troy Baker, manager of communications at the BBB.
Baker stressed the importance of taking the time to thoroughly review any company you’ve engaged with.
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