What 79-year-old Joanne Stainer wanted most in the world was to be able to lay her late husband to rest in a touching ceremony in his family's home in Wisconsin — but an elaborate scam involving phone calls and plane tickets meant she never got the chance.
Stainer and her husband, Joe, had been married for 59 years, and she told local Central Florida station WFTV that he had "the most wonderful personality" and that he "always had a joke" to tell.
After his death in March, the family had planned to inter him at a family cemetery in Wisconsin — which meant Joanne would need to purchase a plane ticket to be able to make it, as the couple lived in Sanford, Florida, a small city in Central Florida just 22 miles northeast of Orlando.
READ MORE: 'I’m devastated,’ cries man after losing $500k to cryptocurrency site – he’s now selling his house
READ MORE: Mom's heartbreak as teen took his own life six hours after Instagram sexploitation scam
Joanne, her son and her grandson were all supposed to fly together from Orlando International Airport on June 1, the local station reported, but a medical emergency prevented Stainer from joining them.
So, Joanne was forced to book her own travel. Not being very tech-savvy, she called 411, a number designed to provide callers with directory assistance. In other words, calling it was supposed to help connect her to a representative at Allegiant Air, who could then help her book a new flight.
From all external appearances, that's exactly what calling the number allowed Joanne to do. Little did she know, however, that the Allegiant "representative" she had spoken to was actually a scammer and that the ticket he had secured her was fake and wouldn't allow her to board her flight.
Joanne was already cutting it close — her husband's funeral was the day after the flight she was forced to book last-minute, so she'd barely make it in time. The roundtrip ticket was offered to her for $988, she told WFTV.
According to the airline's website, however, normal roundtrip costs for any flights range from just over $50 to around $200 on average. She was overcharged, and the ticket wasn't even real.
Click here to follow the Mirror US on Google News to stay up to date with all the latest news, sports and entertainment stories.
The scammer then continued to charge her card, she said, until nearly $2,000 had been taken from her accounts. During the scam, he reportedly provided her with what appeared to be a legitimate confirmation code, which allowed her to print a boarding pass at the airport.
She checked her bags at the airport on June 3, was handed the boarding pass by an Allegiant agent, and then another attendant wheeled her through TSA. She got to the gate and prepared to board the flight, but she wasn't allowed on.
That's when a supervisor told her her ticket was fake. Allegiant's system hadn't caught the error until that point. Speaking to WFTV, a spokesperson for Allegiant said their process normally would have caught the fraudulent ticket earlier, but it had been purchased so close to departure time that the system hadn't registered it.
So, Joanne got through TSA with a legitimate boarding pass but an illegitimate ticket for the flight. Her checked baggage made it all the way to Appleton, Wisconsin, but she didn't. She missed her husband's funeral.
"I was so intent on, 'I'm going to be there to watch him be put in the ground.' I owe him that," Joanne said. She didn't get to see it happen.
Fraud schemes targeting airlines and their customers have skyrocketed, with Allegiant stating that the type of fraud Joanne fell victim to has grown since the pandemic. The airline recommends booking flights directly with them as opposed to a third-party app.
WFTV reportedly called the number Joanne had been connected to when she attempted to book her flight, and the person at the other end claimed to work for a New York-based travel agency.
But when asked the name of the company, the supervisor, who was brought on the line at some point during the interaction, told reporters that they couldn't provide the company's name without first hearing the identity of the passenger in question.
Most Popular
Comments / 0