Good reminder not to share your travel info on the internet

[nelblu]

15 minutes ago, jennellen said:

It got canceled within week or less of sailing, I believe, so I don't think there was any refund or at least a significant one.  She shouldn't have shared her booking number.  But it should also take more than just knowing a booking number to be able to cancel or make any modifications to a booking.  

Sometimes when I post here, I include a date and vessel of my sailings.  I think I'm going to be more careful as to the details that I post.  Maybe that's anal, but

[Mum2Mercury]

1 hour ago, nelblu said:

Frustrating and sad to have something like the story below to happen

 

A Family Lost $15,000 Cruise Booking Due to Identity Theft (fodors.com)

What kind of idiot posts her booking number online?  

 

Reminds of me of something that happened years ago:  Someone called and cut off my brother's electricity.  On a Friday afternoon.  Never found out who.  

1 hour ago, DaniDanielle said:

How is Carnival at fault if they posted their booking information?

Note that Carnival offered to refund them $10,000 if they posted on social media that the company had corrected the issue.  

23 minutes ago, nelblu said:

Sometimes when I post here, I include a date and vessel of my sailings.  I think I'm going to be more careful as to the details that I post.  Maybe that's anal, but

I'm caught between thinking that's silly and thinking that someone might be able to do something with that information.  If you call, you have to give your full name -- someone on this board probably wouldn't know that, whereas even casual friends on Facebook would.  I did call from school one day last year, and I didn't have my booking number -- I gave them my name, my ship and date, and they looked me up.  

[S.A.M.J.R.]

Would this be another example of the benefits of using a TA?  Then, any changes need to go through them, right?

[BND]

Why would anyone post their booking info?  Would they post any other reservation #?  I saw this a week or so ago and just shook my head.  The only people at fault are the ones that posted it, period.

[Tree_skier]

I read the article as well as the link to the NY Post article that was referenced and I have more questions than answers.  What happened to the money?  That late of a cancelation would not return any cruise fare so what do scammers get out of this.  I'm not familiar with Carnival... can you really just go onto your cruise planner and cancel a cruise?  Wouldn't the OP's card have been the card used to pay so wouldn't any refunds automatically go back the original card?  

 

Refusing the greater than 10K FCC so she can fight carnival sounds to me like Winkleman or someone of his ilk has gotten into her ear.  

[RobInMN]

This story is still making the rounds? It first popped up at least 4 weeks ago.

Here's one of the older dates for it:

https://www.cruisehive.com/passengers-12k-cruise-cancelled-one-day-before-embarkation/134521

 

I swear there was a thread here, or maybe it was brought up in a thread like "How are things where you are", but I'm not finding it.

 

[Another_Critic]

4 minutes ago, RobInMN said:

I swear there was a thread here, or maybe it was brought up in a thread like "How are things where you are", but I'm not finding it.

 

There was a thread here, but it was moved someplace.

[RobInMN]

23 minutes ago, Another_Critic said:

There was a thread here, but it was moved someplace.

I thought so, but I couldn't find any note in the RC topics indicating that a thread was moved. Anyway, there is a thread in the Carnival board. Title seem familiar. I wonder if maybe an RC one was merged into it. I don't think merged threads leave notes like moved threads do.

 

[kctwinmommy]

I posted it in Carnival, but then someone else shared my post in another page. I thought it was Holland America, but not totally sure. I don't know if anyone posted it here in RC.

[cruisinqt]

5 hours ago, nelblu said:

Frustrating and sad to have something like the story below to happen

 

A Family Lost $15,000 Cruise Booking Due to Identity Theft (fodors.com)

That’s the story that this post is about. 

[cruisinqt]

3 hours ago, Tree_skier said:

I read the article as well as the link to the NY Post article that was referenced and I have more questions than answers.  What happened to the money?  That late of a cancelation would not return any cruise fare so what do scammers get out of this.  I'm not familiar with Carnival... can you really just go onto your cruise planner and cancel a cruise?  Wouldn't the OP's card have been the card used to pay so wouldn't any refunds automatically go back the original card?  

 

Refusing the greater than 10K FCC so she can fight carnival sounds to me like Winkleman or someone of his ilk has gotten into her ear.  

She was bragging on Facebook about her Excel Presidential Suite with a wraparound balcony (it’s huge) and someone didn’t like it and canceled the cruise out of spite. The money is gone because it was cancel 2 days prior to her cruise so there’s no refund money to go to anyone. And with Carnival the system probably gave someone a cheap upgrade because the cabin was snagged just hours after hers was canceled. Just days prior to a Carnival cruise I’ve been upgraded from an ocean view to a balcony and from a lower end suite to a huge suite for peanuts. You can get some really good last minute upgrades or upsells as some like to call it. I think that’s what happened here. 
 

As for going into your planner and canceling the cruise, yeah it can be done on Carnival and that needs to be fixed. The system is setup so that you can add family and friends on the same cruise as you (but in a different cabin and under a different reservation) to your booking. That way you can be assigned to the same table at dinner, purchase restaurant reservations together, share excursions, etc. It’s not an easy process to go in and cancel someone in the cruise planner where your reservations are linked and you have to know what you’re doing but it can be done. But you’ve got to have all the right info in order to do it like the persons name, confirmation number, email, etc. And she shared all of that info on Facebook which made it easy for the scammer to cancel the cruise. 

[BlerkOne]

5 hours ago, Mum2Mercury said:

.  

Note that Carnival offered to refund them $10,000 if they posted on social media that the company had corrected the issue.  

 

That's what she said, not Carnival. I don't believe any of it.

[cruisinqt]

15 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

That's what she said, not Carnival. I don't believe any of it.

She recorded the conversation with Carnival on her phone then posted it on TikTok. The Carnival rep said they would give her 10k in future credit if she stated that “Carnival resolved the issue.” Those were the exact words. She refused the offer. I imagine she regrets that now. 

[Tree_skier]

1 hour ago, cruisinqt said:

She was bragging on Facebook about her Excel Presidential Suite with a wraparound balcony (it’s huge) and someone didn’t like it and canceled the cruise out of spite. The money is gone because it was cancel 2 days prior to her cruise so there’s no refund money to go to anyone. And with Carnival the system probably gave someone a cheap upgrade because the cabin was snagged just hours after hers was canceled. Just days prior to a Carnival cruise I’ve been upgraded from an ocean view to a balcony and from a lower end suite to a huge suite for peanuts. You can get some really good last minute upgrades or upsells as some like to call it. I think that’s what happened here. 
 

As for going into your planner and canceling the cruise, yeah it can be done on Carnival and that needs to be fixed. The system is setup so that you can add family and friends on the same cruise as you (but in a different cabin and under a different reservation) to your booking. That way you can be assigned to the same table at dinner, purchase restaurant reservations together, share excursions, etc. It’s not an easy process to go in and cancel someone in the cruise planner where your reservations are linked and you have to know what you’re doing but it can be done. But you’ve got to have all the right info in order to do it like the persons name, confirmation number, email, etc. And she shared all of that info on Facebook which made it easy for the scammer to cancel the cruise. 

Thanks, I'm not familiar with carnival.  I've cruised Royal, NCL and MSC.  No where on any of their account access is there a way to cancel a cruise.  You either need to contact your TA or the Cruiseline and confirm your identity before anything is cancelled.  Seems shocking to me that something as benign as someone getting booking number would be able to cancel someone else's cruise.  

 

And calling this identity theft seems inaccurate as well.  Mischief, vandalism... maybe but not identity theft.

Edited June 20 by Tree_skier

[aborgman]

11 hours ago, DaniDanielle said:

How is Carnival at fault if they posted their booking information?

 

1) Companies can be considered negligent for having inadequate security. 

 

2) Multiple people can be at fault. For example in the McDonalds Coffee case: McDonalds was found 80% at fault and the victim was found 20% at fault.

[DaniDanielle]

Maybe the scammer wanted the Suite!

[Pyxie]

16 hours ago, jennellen said:

It got canceled within week or less of sailing, I believe, so I don't think there was any refund or at least a significant one.  She shouldn't have shared her booking number.  But it should also take more than just knowing a booking number to be able to cancel or make any modifications to a booking.  

 

I would bet the person who did this is someone she knows who has some kind of personal beef against her and did it out of spite. They may know enough about her to provide enough details to make it sound legit. The only thing missing is that Carnival usually requires a 4 digit pin related to your sailing when you call in, but if she used something easy like her birth year (which many people do) then someone she knows could still probably guess it.

[aborgman]

15 hours ago, Tree_skier said:

 That late of a cancelation would not return any cruise fare so what do scammers get out of this. 

 

https://www.unilad.com/news/travel/carnival-cruise-kentucky-cancelled-scam-099436-20240531

 

"Well, one travel agent has weighed in on Reddit - and the reason why makes a lot of sense.

They said: "I can shed some light on this. I used to be a travel agent, and had a client who posted his airline reservation on social media.

 

"Scammers were able to cancel the reservation, and also obtain their phone number. They called the person, pretending to be United, and advised them that the reservation was canceled.

 

"The person checked online, and sure enough, it was canceled. The scammer told the guy that he could rebook the family on the same flight, but they had to sit in business class, and they had to pay with an Apple gift card."

[BlerkOne]

10 hours ago, cruisinqt said:

She recorded the conversation with Carnival on her phone then posted it on TikTok. The Carnival rep said they would give her 10k in future credit if she stated that “Carnival resolved the issue.” Those were the exact words. She refused the offer. I imagine she regrets that now. 

She says it was Carnival on the phone. This is the age of deep fakes. Some people think it is okay to continuously lie.

[cruisinqt]

11 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

She says it was Carnival on the phone. This is the age of deep fakes. Some people think it is okay to continuously lie.

I never thought about that but I guess that could have happened. But her story has run on several news agencies and was recently featured on Good Morning America and Carnival didn’t dispute the 10k offer that’s been mentioned every time. They made a statement basically saying that “consumer experts advise that it’s never a good idea to post personal info about your travel plans.”

[BlerkOne]

13 minutes ago, cruisinqt said:

I never thought about that but I guess that could have happened. But her story has run on several news agencies and was recently featured on Good Morning America and Carnival didn’t dispute the 10k offer that’s been mentioned every time. They made a statement basically saying that “consumer experts advise that it’s never a good idea to post personal info about your travel plans.”

Instead of a court of law, she is trying her "case" in the court of public opinion where nobody is sworn in. That to me is a huge red flag. Carnival knows better than to fall for that BS. 

 

Carnival did put a statement on their website basically saying don't be an idiot.

 

 

[aborgman]

7 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

Instead of a court of law, she is trying her "case" in the court of public opinion where nobody is sworn in. That to me is a huge red flag. Carnival knows better than to fall for that BS. 

 

Carnival did put a statement on their website basically saying don't be an idiot.

 

 

 

Eh... I think in a way Carnival IS falling for her BS.

 

There is an old media adage in sports - "Never turn a one day story in a two day story"

 

If Carnival had just given her a refund of all of her cruise fare immediately (not FCC) - it costs Carnival nothing, and she goes away and no one ever hears about this.

 

As it is - right or wrong, true or not - it's a big media story, and some people are going to believe her and not book with Carnival.

 

I think it would have saved money to just pay her off as soon as it happened. Pragmatism over worrying about what is "right".

 

The McDonalds Coffee case comes to mind again. She initially just asked McDonalds to pay her $20K medical bill. They offered $800. She ended up with $600,000+

 

 

Edited June 21 by aborgman

[cruisinqt]

11 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

Instead of a court of law, she is trying her "case" in the court of public opinion where nobody is sworn in. That to me is a huge red flag. Carnival knows better than to fall for that BS. 

 

Carnival did put a statement on their website basically saying don't be an idiot.

 

 

Yeah she’s definitely trying to hurt Carnivals reputation by putting negative videos up regularly. She just put another video up yesterday saying that “unfortunately Carnival hasn’t fixed the security issue.” But she’s losing traction because her first video had over 900k views and the latest only has 5k. 

[BlerkOne]

6 hours ago, aborgman said:

 

Eh... I think in a way Carnival IS falling for her BS.

 

There is an old media adage in sports - "Never turn a one day story in a two day story"

 

If Carnival had just given her a refund of all of her cruise fare immediately (not FCC) - it costs Carnival nothing, and she goes away and no one ever hears about this.

 

As it is - right or wrong, true or not - it's a big media story, and some people are going to believe her and not book with Carnival.

 

I think it would have saved money to just pay her off as soon as it happened. Pragmatism over worrying about what is "right".

 

The McDonalds Coffee case comes to mind again. She initially just asked McDonalds to pay her $20K medical bill. They offered $800. She ended up with $600,000+

 

 

Typical false equivalence. and the McDonald's case was settled for considerably less before the appeal was heard.

 

Ships are sailing full. So what if the casino gives away a few more cabins. Hell, the casino probably gave away the suite in the first place. Carnival rewards too much bad behavior as it is, which only leads to more.

[aborgman]

11 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

Typical false equivalence. and the McDonald's case was settled for considerably less before the appeal was heard.

 

Ships are sailing full. So what if the casino gives away a few more cabins. Hell, the casino probably gave away the suite in the first place. Carnival rewards too much bad behavior as it is, which only leads to more.

 

The original verdict was $2+ million. It was reduced to $800K. They settled for something less than that, but that + lawyers + bad publicity cost way more than the $20K they could have settled for.

 

Carnival loses nothing giving her a refund. They re-sold the room.

 

...but bad publicity has a cost. Smart businesses are pragmatic. Doesn't matter whether you're right - you settle if that is cheaper than "winning".