Mar 13, 2026 · 33 min · 9 segments
In Episode 143 of All Things TechIE Podcast, hear Justin's crazy firsthand experience trying to get an airline baggage refund on X (Twitter), only to be swarmed by fake customer support accounts. We…
Justin DawsonHost
You would think that you'll get a quicker response rate and the money refunded.
The next morning, I woke up to all these on the side of the screen here over my shoulder.
If you're watching on YouTube, over 10 different Aer Lingus accounts or I believe to be Aerolingus account, were contacting me saying, send us a direct message and we'll sort them out.
Now let's delve a bit deeper here, guys, because all these accounts, unknown to me, were fake.
The next day, the next morning, thinking that these were real accounts, I started giving my details through a direct message, including my email address, the booking reference number or the ticket number.
All of a sudden, my mobile phone lit up like a Christmas tree with the amount of WhatsApp calls that people were trying to make to me.
Now, there is a lot of different companies that will use WhatsApp for ticketing requests for support now.
So I thought the fact that they were using WhatsApp, okay, other companies use it.
Until I got on a phone call with one of these so-called customer services that I realised it's an Indian voice.
And then, meanwhile, my computer screen with other people trying to contact me through WhatsApp were ringing this number as well.
It was only when the alarm bell went off in my head that this is a scam is when someone just said, oh, ignore the other calls.
I then realized this, that I got an email from an Aer Lingus support at gmail.com that I realized this is all a hoax and these are all scams.
So I blocked all the accounts, but in my view, and I would love to hear back from Aer Lingus on this.
They are pushing the customer online to get their refund rather than giving the refund at the airport.
This automatically opened up the floodgates for people to be scammed, especially if you go onto social media sites to raise a complaint that your matter hasn't been dealt with? And why does it take at least three weeks for Aer Lingus to get around to acknowledging the ticket, investigating it, especially when I gave them a photograph and a scan of the receipt to show that I've been overcharged? How much investigation is really required? It is really difficult to get through to the Aer Lingus phone support.
And I did wait online to tell them that these hoaxes were happening when people try and contact Aer Lingus customer support through social media.
So I just want to really alert people to and there has been some other Irish tech podcasts that have highlighted this or even BBC Click and Spencer Kelly mentioning that like he feels that a lot of the social media sites now when you raise a complaint you're getting scammed and this is the new thing.
You would think that you'll get a quicker response rate and the money refunded.
The next morning, I woke up to all these on the side of the screen here over my shoulder.
If you're watching on YouTube, over 10 different Aer Lingus accounts or I believe to be Aerolingus account, were contacting me saying, send us a direct message and we'll sort them out.
Now let's delve a bit deeper here, guys, because all these accounts, unknown to me, were fake.
The next day, the next morning, thinking that these were real accounts, I started giving my details through a direct message, including my email address, the booking reference number or the ticket number.
All of a sudden, my mobile phone lit up like a Christmas tree with the amount of WhatsApp calls that people were trying to make to me.
Now, there is a lot of different companies that will use WhatsApp for ticketing requests for support now.
So I thought the fact that they were using WhatsApp, okay, other companies use it.
Until I got on a phone call with one of these so-called customer services that I realised it's an Indian voice.
And then, meanwhile, my computer screen with other people trying to contact me through WhatsApp were ringing this number as well.
It was only when the alarm bell went off in my head that this is a scam is when someone just said, oh, ignore the other calls.
I then realized this, that I got an email from an Aer Lingus support at gmail.com that I realized this is all a hoax and these are all scams.
So I blocked all the accounts, but in my view, and I would love to hear back from Aer Lingus on this.
They are pushing the customer online to get their refund rather than giving the refund at the airport.
This automatically opened up the floodgates for people to be scammed, especially if you go onto social media sites to raise a complaint that your matter hasn't been dealt with? And why does it take at least three weeks for Aer Lingus to get around to acknowledging the ticket, investigating it, especially when I gave them a photograph and a scan of the receipt to show that I've been overcharged? How much investigation is really required? It is really difficult to get through to the Aer Lingus phone support.
And I did wait online to tell them that these hoaxes were happening when people try and contact Aer Lingus customer support through social media.
So I just want to really alert people to and there has been some other Irish tech podcasts that have highlighted this or even BBC Click and Spencer Kelly mentioning that like he feels that a lot of the social media sites now when you raise a complaint you're getting scammed and this is the new thing.
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