LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- What was supposed to be a 30th anniversary river cruise through Europe ended with a Louisville-area couple losing more than $10,000 to an airline imposter scam despite months of unsuccessful appeals to its credit card company.
Karla and Charles Spencer, from St. Matthews, planned a September trip featuring windmills, castles and stops along the Rhine River in Germany, France and Switzerland. But about a month before the trip, Charles Spencer said he had trouble with his airline app and searched online for what he believed was United Airlines' customer service number.
"I'm a highly educated experienced professional," he said. "I'm an engineer and I was fooled."
Karla Spencer said the person on the phone claimed there was a problem with their flights.
"There never was an error," she said.
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The caller told Charles Spencer he needed to pay $10,298 with his credit card to fix the booking and that the money would be refunded.
"The thing that made this so believable — they were able to come up very detailed information about my flight," he said.
The couple received an email from the scammer to confirm that payment with an expected refund in October. It never came.
Charles Spencer said the person on the phone sounded legitimate.
"I looked on a website where I was looking for contact numbers for United Airlines," he said. "That was what was in the search. I didn't look up the meta data to see if was a plain fake or spoof.'
He said he realized something was wrong almost immediately.
"About 1 minute after I completed the transaction ... nothing came through. The credit did not come through," he said. "Right after that, we contacted the credit card company."
He canceled the card and got a new one.
The person who answered the number listed on the Spencers' credit card statement said they work with all airlines. When asked about the Spencers' transaction, the person said "You have the wrong number" and hung up.
A search shows the same number is listed for two travel booking websites: One appeared professional, while the other contained typos and grammatical errors. Searches for reviews of the sites turned up no results.
Karla Spencer later called the number again and said the operation is still active.
"They are the scum of the earth," she said.
According to the Better Business Bureau's Scam Tracker, nearly 2,500 people nationwide report being victims of airline and travel website imposter scams. United Airlines warns customers to get contact numbers only directly from united.com or its official app. The airline also advises reporting suspicious websites to Google, the Federal Trade Commission or the Internet Crime Complaint Center.
The Spencers filed several disputes with Bank of America, their credit card company, but all were denied.
"They said they had seen the first request come through for payment and they flagged it and refused it," Charles Spence said. "They tried again and, this time, they accepted it. They had an approval for me, not about anybody faking that. I thought it was legitimate."
Karla Spencer said the uncertainty has added stress.
"It's stressful when you owe," she said. "We wonder are they going to turn it over to collections. We might be stuck having to pay it."
A Bank of America spokesperson said their team is investigating the case.
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