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Journalism of Courage
On May 7, an FIR was filed at the cyber cell police station in Gurgaon by IGT Technologies, a two-decade old company that manages call centres and related operations of Air India, against some travel agents as well as unknown people for booking airline tickets fraudulently. While the tickets booked were genuine, proceeds from the sales never reached Air India. The case was filed after Air India raised the issue with IGT.
What is the case?
The case relates to booking tickets fraudulently, resulting in revenue loss for Air India. Since the tickets were booked through login IDs of IGT employees, Air India raised the issues with the company. To be sure, the tickets booked were genuine and passengers travelled on those tickets.
While Air India refused to share the losses it would have incurred due to the fraud, one Chandigarh-based agent claims he lost over Rs 50 lakh after tickets were cancelled due to the second wave of Covid-19 last year.
Last February, a Chandigarh-based travel agent called a Gurgaon-registered Air India customer support number seeking a clarification on the name pattern for tickets he was booking for a Kathmandu-bound flight. The Air India call centre, managed by IGT Solutions, assured him he would get a callback from one of their support executives. He soon received a call from someone claiming to be an Air India representative, who helped him with his concern. Shortly after, the agent got a second call from the same representative, but this time with an offer to book the same ticket Rs 10,000 cheaper than the quoted price. The agent accepted it on the condition that he would make the payment only after the passengers completed the travel on the ticket.
How did the agent lose the money then?
This model, where the Chandigarh agent paid for the tickets after the passengers completed their travel, continued for 15 days. The agent booked about 2 to 3 tickets daily. Since there were no problems for 15 days, the agent was convinced the man was an Air India employee selling him genuine tickets at a discount. In fact, the executive also went and met the agent in Chandigarh and showed him an Air India identity card, further convincing the agent of the person’s authenticity. So, the agent started making payments at the time of booking.
Further, not only did the agent start booking all his tickets from this particular executive, he also put him on to his other colleagues.
The discounted tickets continued till April, when India was hit by a devastating second wave of Covid-19 and many of the tickets booked by the agent in Chandigarh were cancelled. About 60 tickets — mainly for flights to Canada — were cancelled during that period, totalling about Rs 52 lakh. However, refunds never came and passengers are still waiting for their money.
The agent claims his case cannot be the only one, and there will be many more people who would have lost money. He says his only hope to get back the money is a police investigation.
So, what will the police investigation focus on?
The Gurgaon Police’s cyber cell has filed an FIR that names few agents and unknown people for booking tickets fraudulently. The police investigation is likely to find the people involved in the case and also investigate the modus operandi in detail. The police investigation would also tell us how this could have gone on for so long without anyone – in Air India or IGT — flagging it.
While Air India says its employees have not been involved in this fraud, IGT’s complaint blames many others but their standard operating procedure on detecting such transactions.
The agent claims the person who called him and booked tickets for him has been apprehended by the police once, and only that person can unravel the mystery behind these fraudulent bookings. According to the agent, the person has not shared anything with the police yet.
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