Airport Car Scam

[Familyonthemove]

You may already be aware of this scam ... but it's just something to be aware of if you have visitors being picked up by drivers at the airport .....

We had a visitor from the UK being met at the airport by a driver (arranged by a local customer). Driver meets him at arrivals with a sign stating the visitor's name and company. Driver takes him to the exit with his luggage and leaves him for 5 minutes while he goes to collect his car from the car park. (Driver's English was not good - so the passenger may not have been sure what was supposed to happen next)

A lady approaches the visitor and addresses him using his full name and states the name of our company (details presumably noted from the drivers sign) and shows him to a car.

Yep - you've guessed it .... it's not our car. When he realised he was in the wrong car he was already an hour from the airport.

Unfortunately the UK visitors phone was not working. So after the driver alerted us we headed to the airport to find out what had happened. Tourist Police were aware of the scam and offered to use the CCTV system to find out which car he'd got into.

Meanwhile - the 'fake' driver took him to a hotel near enough to the intended destination after being given details of the destination by the visitor and then our visitor phoned from the hotel. The charge was not that much higher than a normal airport limo .... but it was still a big concern for everyone until we heard he was safe.

So now we provide driver details and car registration numbers to our visitors and have a separate meet and greet person and driver.

I guess it's good it happened here - where is was just a taxi scam ... as we also work in Indonesia, Philippines, Middle East, Africa ... and it could be a much more serious issues in these countries. So our new procedures will be applied everywhere.

[frankthetank]

Must have been horific for the visitor!

[Familyonthemove]

I met up with him last night before he left Thailand ... he was laughing about it now. To be honest I would have fallen the same scam if I was travelling to another country .... especially after a long-haul flight when you just want to get to your hotel.

[F4UCorsair]

It seems the initiative of scammers is boundless. If they applied the same intelligence to legitimate pursuits, they'd be millionaires.

Edited August 10, 2010 by F4UCorsair