Puzzle me this...?

[SecondCor521]

Hi,

My 81-year-old Dad bought a cruise directly from one of the major cruise lines.

A few days ago he got a strange phone call from someone that he didn't really understand. It turns out this someone is a travel agent in another state who fraudulently switched his cruise reservation from my Dad to this travel agent's agency.

My Dad is in the process of switching the cruise reservation back from the travel agency to himself.

We are guessing that this travel agency did this in order to earn a commission on the cruise that my Dad bought.

What neither my Dad nor I can figure out is how the travel agent got access to the fact that my Dad was going on this cruise. Any ideas?

Now that I am asking, I suppose one possibility is that the travel agent just calls old people in early winter and mentions something about a cruise, then social engineers the reservation number and other needed details out of people like my Dad, who are becoming a tiny bit Alzheimer-ish.

If my Dad hadn't needed to make a change to his reservation, he probably wouldn't have even known about what had happened. As it is, he wanted to change his room to a different one on the ship and the cruise line said he'd have to work through his travel agent.

Thanks for any insights...

 

[mystang52]

You should call the cruise line with your Dad. Cruise line will probably want him to send something in writing to "switch" the reservation from that travel agent back to himself.
I can't figure out how that travel agent got the reservation in the first place, but it sure sounds nefarious and maybe illegal.

 

[cathy63]

Maybe an inside job? Someone working at the cruise line tells the travel agent about new reservations and then gets a kickback from the commission after they're moved.

Is there any possibility your Dad searched out the cruise on the web and mistakenly found a travel agent's site and called them instead of finding and calling the actual cruise line, so the booking was theirs all along? If that happened, it should be clear from the initial confirmation.

 

[SecondCor521]

@mystang52, yes, I should have mentioned that. That's exactly what the cruise line requested. We sent them a letter/email yesterday doing so.

@cathy63, the inside job angle makes sense, thanks. As to your second idea, no, my Dad made the initial reservation with the cruise line, then this nefarious travel agent (NTA) called my Dad, then the NTA faxed in a request to the cruise line with a forged version of my Dad's signature. When my Dad called in to make his change, the cruise line mentioned the NTA and sent a copy of the fax to my Dad so he could see for himself.

 

[mystang52]

Not sure how much time you want to devote to this, but ASTA https://www.asta.org is an industry group overseeing its members. Maybe a complaint to them, the cruise line, and state attorney general will at least put some fear into this slimy agent's head?

 

[SecondCor521]

Good idea. I'll ask my Dad if he wants to pursue it. My guess is not.

 

[Souschef]

Maybe an inside job?

Slightly off topic, they caught an agent at a cruise line tipping her boyfriend when people were going on a cruise so he could break into their homes.