Australia (travel)

This is a case of stranger than fiction - but do not call Qantas’s 1800 227 4500 number from within Australia. If you do, it goes to a travel agency in Dubai who pretend to be Qantas customer support.

We had team members due to fly back from LA when we received the following message:

<<IMPORTANT: We are sorry to let you know your flight time on QF12 departing from Los Angeles on Tue 23 Jul at 23:45 arriving in Sydney on Thu 25 Jul at 08:10 has changed and is now departing from Los Angeles on Wed 24 Jul at 22:05 arriving in Sydney on Fri 26 Jul at 06:30. View your new flight details or other options, including a refund, at qantas.com/yourbooking or contact your travel agent. For more help, call 1800 227 4500>>

This message was sent to the five travelers (who were stuck in LA) and the travel booker who was in Australia. They all have Australian mobiles.

As we weren’t able to reschedule the flight on the online bookings tool, we called the 1800 number to see what the options were. We spoke to a customer support person called “Tony” who rebooked us on flights for the original night - for a cost of USD$500 per person.

At this stage the flights were rebooked, we had happy travelers who wanted to get home to see their families, and thought we could claim the difference through travel insurance.

When the credit card statement came through instead of Qantas it had “EFT Global LLC Sharjah” which provided the first hint that something was askew.

We also hadn’t received a receipt for the payment we had made for the flight changes. We called the 1800 227 4500 and requested copies. We were then called back from 02 5104 3188 from “Tony” who said he would send them through.

Shortly after, we received the confirmations/payment receipts but something was off. They came from and were clearly edited PDF’s.

The qantasconfirmation.com domain is a parked domain not owned by Qantas. We have since verified with legitimate Qantas support that they do not have a call centre in Dubai.

We immediately disputed the transaction with our bank and have been refunded the charges so chasing money is not the issue.

We’re putting this out there so that hopefully if someone searches the number this post comes up. The 1800 227 4500 number is Qantas’s number within the USA - however if dialed from Australia you will end up in the fake customer support run by the Dubai company.

We reached out to Qantas Customer Care team to let them know that they were sending travellers to a misrepresented call centre in Dubai in the hopes they would look at fixing their messages. This was their response:

<<Upon reviewing, we kindly request that you take the matter up with your bank to request for the refund. Please liase with your bank with regards to the amounts charged or reach out to your nearest Police Station to have as they have the resources and will be able to investigate further into this issue.

While we understand that this is not the response that you had anticipated, we are sorry that we cannot take any further action.

We apologise that this outcome cannot be more favorable and trust that you will understand our position on this issue.>>

We’re not sure this is exactly a scam - because they did really change/rebook the flights. However they definitely charged a premium for the service and at no point did they reveal they were not actually Qantas support (nor did we give permission for an external travel agent to take control over our booking).

It’s an opportunistic travel agent in Dubai that has worked out a loop hole to get more business, and Qantas deliver you straight to their door. There are also massive privacy concerns that Qantas is letting a third party take control of bookings without permission.

“Tony” has called us multiple times since we disputed the charge upset since as he said “they changed the flights” however he also continued to claim he was Qantas customer support until called out with the facts.

The post is purely as a public service announcement (because clearly fixing it is not something Qantas is willing to do).

So far i have dived in Europe and the Caribbean where shops provided all equipment, and transport to the dive site. Which is great as I only dive on holiday and so don’t own my own gear.

I’m spending the coming southern-summer in Melbourne and would like to dive. Looking at dive shops, they don’t rent masks, snorkels, fins, and boots. Or provide transport.

Is it unusual/unreasonable to expect equipment rental to include everything?

I read something suggesting certain equipment isn’t rented out for “hygiene reasons”, which I don’t understand if regulators ARE rented out without hygiene concerns.