Duped by a travel agent online

[Mark Maroon]

I am sorry it was not the greed but the exorbitant prices of the airlines that drove me to look for other options. My travel was necessary and I did not have the money to pay that much. For the bank, wont it register a legitimate address when opening a business account and check the necessary identification.

It's one thing to try and find the cheapest air fair, but trying to get airline tickets through fraud is nothing less than being greedy.

I suspect that you don't have enough information to ID your defendant. It's still not clear to me how you sent this person money. Did you wire them money from your account to their account, using their bank routing number and account number? You said that you somehow checked with the bank and that the account that your money went into is in an individuals name, not in the name of a company. How did you get that information from the bank? You need to know who your defendant is. Is it an individual or a company, or both?

The bank doesn't have to keep a current address for their account holder. With a proper subpoena you might be able to get some useful information from the bank. You might get lucky, but you're not necessarily going to get the current address of the account holder. If you think it's easy to find someone who doesn't want to be found, then you have never done any kind of skip tracing. You're description of the transaction has all the earmarks of someone who is knowingly perpetrating fraud. It sounds like you got conned. You might be able to find them. But I wouldn't take that bet.

 

[saurabh_sbarve]

It's one thing to try and find the cheapest air fair, but trying to get airline tickets through fraud is nothing less than being greedy.

I suspect that you don't have enough information to ID your defendant. It's still not clear to me how you sent this person money. Did you wire them money from your account to their account, using their bank routing number and account number? You said that you somehow checked with the bank and that the account that your money went into is in an individuals name, not in the name of a company. How did you get that information from the bank? You need to know who your defendant is. Is it an individual or a company, or both?

The bank doesn't have to keep a current address for their account holder. With a proper subpoena you might be able to get some useful information from the bank. You might get lucky, but you're not necessarily going to get the current address of the account holder. If you think it's easy to find someone who doesn't want to be found, then you have never done any kind of skip tracing. You're description of the transaction has all the earmarks of someone who is knowingly perpetrating fraud. It sounds like you got conned. You might be able to find them. But I wouldn't take that bet.

I understand what you are saying and I realize my mistake. But trust me when I say that I could not find anything that fit my budget since the time of travel was one of the peak seasons. And the money was done through the account transfer. I transferred money from my account to a business account. But it was registered under the name of this person called ******a Casey Kengo. I checked with the teller about the location and the name of the account holder when doing the transfer. She said it was registered under the above mentioned name and it was in Atlanta Georgia

 

[TigerD]

I understand what you are saying and I realize my mistake. But trust me when I say that I could not find anything that fit my budget since the time of travel was one of the peak seasons.

You don't realize your mistake while you continue to justify it.
You might as well be saying that you couldn't find a new car that fit your budget so you stole a Lexis. It is the same argument.

DC

 

[Mark Maroon]

I understand what you are saying and I realize my mistake. But trust me when I say that I could not find anything that fit my budget since the time of travel was one of the peak seasons. And the money was done through the account transfer. I transferred money from my account to a business account. But it was registered under the name of this person called ******a Casey Kengo. I checked with the teller about the location and the name of the account holder when doing the transfer. She said it was registered under the above mentioned name and it was in Atlanta Georgia

With respect to the greed aspect, debtcollector` hit the nail on the head.

What does "account transfer" and "transferred money" mean? When I write a check, I "transfer money". When I go online and move money from my account to my kid's account I "transfer money". But those are VERY different transactions. Unless there was something going on that you're not telling us (like both accounts are with the same bank), I do not believe that "the teller" (at what bank I don't know) can divine the account holders name and the type of account that it is from an account number. They can tell the name of the account holder's bank from the routing number, and possibly the city (but I doubt it).

Since you're having a hard time explaining how the money was transferred, let's try it this way. Was Western Union or any similar company involved in any way with this "transfer"?

 

[saurabh_sbarve]

You don't realize your mistake while you continue to justify it.
You might as well be saying that you couldn't find a new car that fit your budget so you stole a Lexis. It is the same argument.

DC

Agreed I no longer justify my mistake. I made a mistake and thats the bottom line

 

[saurabh_sbarve]

With respect to the greed aspect, debtcollector` hit the nail on the head.

What does "account transfer" and "transferred money" mean? When I write a check, I "transfer money". When I go online and move money from my account to my kid's account I "transfer money". But those are VERY different transactions. Unless there was something going on that you're not telling us (like both accounts are with the same bank), I do not believe that "the teller" (at what bank I don't know) can divine the account holders name and the type of account that it is from an account number. They can tell the name of the account holder's bank from the routing number, and possibly the city (but I doubt it).

Since you're having a hard time explaining how the money was transferred, let's try it this way. Was Western Union or any similar company involved in any way with this "transfer"?

Yes both of our accounts belonged to the same Bank which is BOA and I transferred the money from my account to her account which was a business account.I did this at a bank near my house where I physically went and initiated the transfer

 

[Chyvan]

Did you call the airline to try to get the ticket reinstated? Depending on the circumstances, it's not impossible. The reason I know is that my email address is close to someone else's. Once I got one of his travel itineraries. I'd asked him before to stop sending stuff to my email, so to teach him a lession, I cancelled his ticket. Two days later, it came back to life, and I cancelled it again. Three days later, it came back to life again, and then I quit messing with him because I figured I'd proved my point.

It's a deficiency in the airline system. After learning how easy it was to cancel tickets, I no longer use the "email itinerary" function with the airlines because those emails have all the information necessary for someone to mess with you.

The thing is the tickets aren't transferable so if you didn't cancel it, someone else did, and it's that easy to cancel a ticket maliciously, you might get as lucky as the guy I was messing with.

Another possibility is she might be what is referred to as a broker. She matches up people with airline miles to spare that want cash with people that want tickets. Most if not all the frequent flyer programs forbid the selling of the tickets this way. You can gift them, but if there is money involved, and the airline finds out, the ticket is cancelled. AA is really agressive at watching Craigslist for this kind of activity. Did you print out your confirmation stuff? Look at your booking class. Award tickets are usually booked in "X" for economy. In this case, the airline won't be helping you, but you'll have a better idea what's going on.

 

[saurabh_sbarve]

Did you call the airline to try to get the ticket reinstated? Depending on the circumstances, it's not impossible. The reason I know is that my email address is close to someone else's. Once I got one of his travel itineraries. I'd asked him before to stop sending stuff to my email, so to teach him a lession, I cancelled his ticket. Two days later, it came back to life, and I cancelled it again. Three days later, it came back to life again, and then I quit messing with him because I figured I'd proved my point.

It's a deficiency in the airline system. After learning how easy it was to cancel tickets, I no longer use the "email itinerary" function with the airlines because those emails have all the information necessary for someone to mess with you.

The thing is the tickets aren't transferable so if you didn't cancel it, someone else did, and it's that easy to cancel a ticket maliciously, you might get as lucky as the guy I was messing with.

Another possibility is she might be what is referred to as a broker. She matches up people with airline miles to spare that want cash with people that want tickets. Most if not all the frequent flyer programs forbid the selling of the tickets this way. You can gift them, but if there is money involved, and the airline finds out, the ticket is cancelled. AA is really agressive at watching Craigslist for this kind of activity. Did you print out your confirmation stuff? Look at your booking class. Award tickets are usually booked in "X" for economy. In this case, the airline won't be helping you, but you'll have a better idea what's going on.

I did call the airline to get the ticket reinstated but they said that they have refunded the money so nothing can be done about it now. I have the confirmation number but no print out of the actual confirmation

 

[Mark Maroon]

Yes both of our accounts belonged to the same Bank which is BOA and I transferred the money from my account to her account which was a business account.I did this at a bank near my house where I physically went and initiated the transfer

OK, if you insist on throwing good money after bad, and spending a LOT of time on your quest, all based upon what are slim odds that you will recover anything at all, here goes...I can tell you in general what you will need to do, but I cannot tell you specifically how to do it.

You want to file a civil complaint in some court in your county that allows you to send subpoenas.

You want to name the individual as your defendant (I assume that you know the individuals name, or at least what you think is their name).

You want to send subpoenas to BoA, the airline, and AOL. You want BoA to respond with what type of account it is that you sent the money to (eg. personal or business), the name of the account holder (ie. the name of the individual if it's a personal account, or the name of the business if it is a business account), the name of any and all signers for the account if it is a business account, the business FEIN number for the business if it is a business account, the SSN of the individual account holder if it is a personal account, and any address or other contact information for the account holder. You want the airline to respond with all of the information that they have on who made the reservation. You want AOL to give you all of the contact information that they have for the e-mail address.

Once you have the information from the subpoenas, then you need to determine if you named the correct individual and if there is a separate legal business entity involved or not. If you didn't name the correct individual, then you want to amend your complaint to name the correct individual. If there is a separate legal business entity involved, then you want to amend your complaint to add that business as a second defendant. If it is just the individual person dba some business name, then you want to amend the name of your individual defendant to <individual's name> dba <business name>.

Then you need to properly serve your defendant(s) with your complaint.

Then you hope to prevail in your law suit.

Then you start by garnishing the defendants bank account at BoA. If there's nothing in it, then you'll have to try and find the defendant(s) assets, wash, rinse, repeat.

Good luck.

 

[saurabh_sbarve]

OK, if you insist on throwing good money after bad, and spending a LOT of time on your quest, all based upon what are slim odds that you will recover anything at all, here goes...I can tell you in general what you will need to do, but I cannot tell you specifically how to do it.

You want to file a civil complaint in some court in your county that allows you to send subpoenas.

You want to name the individual as your defendant (I assume that you know the individuals name, or at least what you think is their name).

You want to send subpoenas to BoA, the airline, and AOL. You want BoA to respond with what type of account it is that you sent the money to (eg. personal or business), the name of the account holder (ie. the name of the individual if it's a personal account, or the name of the business if it is a business account), the name of any and all signers for the account if it is a business account, the business FEIN number for the business if it is a business account, the SSN of the individual account holder if it is a personal account, and any address or other contact information for the account holder. You want the airline to respond with all of the information that they have on who made the reservation. You want AOL to give you all of the contact information that they have for the e-mail address.

Once you have the information from the subpoenas, then you need to determine if you named the correct individual and if there is a separate legal business entity involved or not. If you didn't name the correct individual, then you want to amend your complaint to name the correct individual. If there is a separate legal business entity involved, then you want to amend your complaint to add that business as a second defendant. If it is just the individual person dba some business name, then you want to amend the name of your individual defendant to <individual's name> dba <business name>.

Then you need to properly serve your defendant(s) with your complaint.

Then you hope to prevail in your law suit.

Then you start by garnishing the defendants bank account at BoA. If there's nothing in it, then you'll have to try and find the defendant(s) assets, wash, rinse, repeat.

Good luck.

Thanks Mark for the detailed info. Based on what you guys said if I take this matter to court then it triggers a chain of events which can go on for a long time. So let me try to convince BOA to declare the transaction as fraud and thats my only hope. The only reason I am still positive that something mihgt happen is that those guys do reply intermittently (once or twice in a week) saying that they are working on the tickets etc. But that might be just to delay the legal action they think I will be taking.

 

[Mark Maroon]

Thanks Mark for the detailed info. Based on what you guys said if I take this matter to court then it triggers a chain of events which can go on for a long time. So let me try to convince BOA to declare the transaction as fraud and thats my only hope. The only reason I am still positive that something mihgt happen is that those guys do reply intermittently (once or twice in a week) saying that they are working on the tickets etc. But that might be just to delay the legal action they think I will be taking.

Yes, if you are lucky, then you can identify the right defendant, you can find out where to serve them, you can serve them, you can win your claim against them, they have assets, you can find their assets, you can garnish their assets, etcetera, then you might be able to recover your losses within a year. No way that all can happen in less than 6 months. But more likely you won't reach the finish line.

If you had paid with a credit card, then you would have two billing cycles to contest the charge (either as fraud or as having paid for goods or services not received). If you had paid by check, they you might have been able to stop payment on the check before they tried to cash it. But if you had a teller transfer money from your BoA account to someone else's BoA account, then I doubt that they will reverse that transaction at this point in time. You can try. Just don't get your hopes up on that one.