Complaining to an Airline on Twitter? Watch Out for This Scam.

Next time you think about complaining on Twitter about your bad flight experience, make sure you’re directing your ire to the right account. As reported by The Independent, passengers on British Airways were recently scammed by a Twitter account (@CareBritish) that was not associated with the airline.

The fake British Airways account would respond to tweets from travelers and ask for contact details — and then suggest that passengers needed to pay (through a bank transfer to Kenya) to get their missing luggage back. When the bags obviously never show up, the account would claim there were issues involved and seek more money.

There are some red flags here: Airlines wouldn’t ask for money for mishandled luggage, nor would they want passengers to send money to an account based in Kenya (particularly if the flights involved were nowhere near that country). The fraud Twitter account didn’t have a blue checkmark, unlike most airline accounts (and it’s suspicious that an account that was not tagged in a social media post would respond). And no company would ask a traveler to divulge private or personal information over social media unless it was through a direct message…and even then, they certainly wouldn’t ask you to send money.

Thankfully, the @CareBritish account has been suspended. Side note: If you’re worried about getting scammed via Twitter and think a phone call to the airline might work better, there are also some fraudulent airline call centers out there if you try to Google a number.