One of its researchers who posted a message to the official account for Wizz Air to ask if a flight was delayed received responses from two fake accounts “almost immediately”.
“Both used near-identical language, apologising for the inconvenience, stating that they had ‘already escalated this matter to the relevant department’ and requesting a ‘reachable WhatsApp number for assistance’ via DM [direct message],” Which? said.
“We found examples of bogus X accounts impersonating every major airline operating in the UK,” the organisation said.
“We also discovered that fake accounts are often quicker to respond than the genuine airlines, but they also interrupt existing conversations between you and airlines, which can be harder to spot.”
Flagging fake accounts
Scammers typically ask for a customer’s surname and airline booking reference number. They may also ask directly for other personal details such as a passenger’s name and home address.
Which? said reporting fake accounts to X “seems to have limited success”, with most of the posts and accounts it flagged remaining live.
It advised passengers to verify if an account is genuine by checking for a link on an official website, when it joined X and how many followers it has.
Rocio Concha, director of policy and advocacy at Which?, said: “Unscrupulous fraudsters are shamelessly trying to trick airline customers seeking urgent customer service advice via X for stressful situations, such as delayed flights and lost luggage.
“There is an epidemic of fraud gripping the UK and that’s why Which? wants the next government to appoint a dedicated fraud minister and make fighting fraud a national priority.
“X and other social media platforms need to be held to a high standard and Ofcom must not shy away from taking strong enforcement action, including fines, against firms if they break the law.”
Jake Moore, global cybersecurity adviser at the antivirus company ESET, said passengers should check carefully before replying to social media accounts inviting them to hand over personal details.
“As the majority of genuine company accounts respond to negative posts on the platform in a very similar way and suggest a private DM conversation, fraudulent accounts can simply take advantage of this modus operandi and simulate it with ease and conviction,” he said.
‘Check for the genuine gold check mark’
“Therefore, people must continue to do their homework and research any account they come in contact with before handing over any sensitive or financial information.
“This can be done by clicking through from the official website, checking for the genuine gold check mark and looking at the follower numbers for initial indication.”
X, formerly Twitter, was contacted for comment.
EasyJet, Jet2, TUI and Wizz Air all said they report fake accounts to X and advise their customers to engage only with official social media profiles.
British Airways was also contacted for comment.
Nearly caught out by Kenyan scammers
John Arnold, 49, came close to falling for one of the scams described by Which? in its research.
After being denied boarding at Gatwick airport on a family holiday three weeks ago, he took to X/Twitter to vent his annoyance with the airline.
“I got something like an official reply saying, ‘We’re very sorry, it’s at the discretion of the staff. If you want to make a complaint, fill in some forms and you might be able to get some money back’,” Mr Arnold said.
“Then I got a couple of phone calls, which were saying, ’We’re going to deal with your complaint, we act on behalf of EasyJet’. And I thought it just doesn’t seem right,” he added.
The scammers phoned Mr Arnold from a Kenyan number, inviting him to register for a money transfer app to receive his promised refund.
They invited him to download a money transfer app and put his bank details into it – but having smelled a rat, he stopped talking to them at that point.
“When I looked into it, it was quite clear that the Twitter pages that were purporting to be these EasyJet supervisors were not EasyJet at all.”