Like most Southwest Airlines passengers, Ted LeClair likes nothing more than a bargain. Which is exactly what he thought he’d found when a con artist offered $1,200 worth of flight coupons at a deep discount on Craigslist.
Think you know what comes next? No you don’t.
LeClair picks up the story.
I met him, booked the flight online, verified the credit card with his ID, then called the airline to confirm that the flight was purchased and non-refundable. Southwest confirmed everything.
Turns out the tickets weren’t for LeClair, but his seven-year-old daughter. He continues.
The next day my mother called me from the airport telling me that Southwest said the ticket was no longer paid for and needed to be purchased with cash.
I spoke to customer service and they said that their system kicked out the purchase in the middle of the night due to “credit card inconsistencies.”
I called the man I bought the credits from and after not answering five times, his phone started going right to voice mail. I then had to tell my mother to head home. I could hear my daughter crying in the background.
I was fuming.
Southwest wasn’t completely unsympathetic to his plight. It offered a $20 discount off of a $385 airline ticket. “A ticket,” he adds, “I could not afford.”
A representative told him Southwest’s system performs a second set of checks and balances after tickets are purchased. A “credit card inconsistency” is not detectable immediately after the booking.
There’s something else you need to know about LeClair. He is, as he describes it, “not the type to take things like this lying down.”
I saw the guy’s ad that ripped me off still on Craigslist, so I set up an e-mail account under a female’s name to buy another ticket. A girlfriend of mine then called and confirmed the purchase of the ticket and arranged a meeting at a health food grocery store for him to pick up the cash.
So, I was at least going to be able to get this con artist in front of me.
I called the police to tell them what had happened and get some assistance in catching this guy in the act.
But the police were less than helpful. After being transferred to several departments, he was promised a call back “within five days.” LeClair said he could deliver a criminal to them red-handed, but he was told that wasn’t proper procedure. When he protested, he was told, “If you think being a cop is so easy, go to the Police Academy.”
So he took matters into his own hands.
I showed up at the health food store with my nine iron.
I think when the perp first saw me, he thought I just happened to run into him. I told him I wanted my money back and he responded by wanting to book me another flight.
At this point, I knew after reading your previous blog on this, that even if my daughter was able to get on a plane, I could get charged later.
I kept asking for my money and he did what con artists do — he tried to act like I was trying to con him.
So I attacked him. I had him in a headlock when we were broken up. He called the police, I called the police, and the store manager called the police.
Although the police initially subdued LeClair, the tables quickly turned on the con man.
Once I told the story, I could see them becoming empathetic to my plight. Then we called the airline from my phone and we all listened on speaker phone about what happened with my purchase.
The police then saw that the guy had committed a crime and arrested him.
Then they asked me a very amusing question: “Why didn’t you call us?”
LeClair wonders how Southwest can continue to allow fraudulent purchases to be made through its reservations system. I’ve given the airline ample opportunity to address this issue in previous blog posts. It appears that the carrier is content to leave things as they are while stepping up the warnings of these questionable vouchers.
Seems to me Southwest ought to do something before someone gets hurt.
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{ 31 comments… read them below or add one }
1. Violence is bad. Don’t take matters into your own hands like this. We are a nation of laws. The two sides should present evidence in court.
2. Ha ha ha ha! Served that scammer right! He probably deserved ten times the beating LeClair was able to deliver.
3. Seriously, vigilante justice is a crowd pleaser, but it’s pure id. Don’t neglect the ego and superego. We should rise above the criminals, not stoop to their level.
4. Hey LeClair, Henry Paulson is in D.C. right now, trying to sell you $700 billion worth of flight coupons. I’m going to turn my back now …
Slightly unfair to make it seem like Southwest are at fault here; a lot of scams rely on the fact that the initial scan of a credit card can pass but the payment can still get rejected later.
Hats off to LeClair for not taking this lying down
Hats off to the cops on the scene for seeing who was at fault and arresting the right guy.
LeClair might not get his money back but at least that man will spend a few nights in jail.
Wow, that is a riveting story. Good job, LeClair, for not backing down. I don’t think I would have been smart enough to think to respond to the ad a second time!
I agree with Victor. Violence is bad and I’m surprised LeClair wasn’t booked on assault charges.
Hmmm… I’m of a mixed opinion here: On the one hand, doing what this guy did was quite dangerous, but if was willing to take the risk, that is not something I am going to judge.
I think that he did the right thing by putting the guy into a headlock and waiting for the cops (as opposed to beating the ever-livin-$#*& out of him was not a horrible solution. There is certainly nothing illegal about a citizens arrest.
Beating him up would have been illegal, wrong, and a bad idea to boot, but not simply detaining him.
SirWired
Violence may be “bad”, but a headlock seems a reasonable compromise. No harm, and it worked! So LeClair didn’t get any money back from the criminal?
While I certainly don’t like violence, in this very particular case, LeClair did the right thing, I think. He didn’t hurt the guy, and honestly– the police might not have responded otherwise. The criminal got scared, which he deserved, and also got arrested — which he also deserved. A little reminder that actions have consequences.
So… I only have one question. If LeClair had read Chris’ previous blog on the subject and knew he could get charged later: WHY did he buy the coupons on Craigslist to begin with.
In Canada and I’ve heard in the US you (anyone) can arrest someone who you witness commit a crime (a citizen’s arrest) but I’m not sure how exactly that would apply to this situation. I’m glad the police were sympathetic and arrested the “con artist’ though.
Victor,
1) You must not have much experience with the legal system in the US. In order to utilize the court system, you have to know names and addresses to serve the fraudster with a lawsuit. Even if you get them served and obtain a judgment against them, it is another long process to collect the judment and seize assets, if they have any.
I’d say tricking the fraudster into a meeting and having him arrested is much easier than using the courts.
Southwest bears some fault here for promoting a system of “vouchers” that can be used to perpetrate frauds.
Oh I don’t know, I think A Con Artist in hospital with a full knee reconstruct from someone taking a baseball bat to him just might be worth it.
It’s certainly a deterent as after the surgery he won’t be ale to run away again nearly as fast.
I’m no fan of vigilante justices as a rule, However sometime you just have to open up a can of Whoop Ass on people as it helps tham gain a fuller appreciation of a great many things.like honesty for example
This is what is wrong with America. More rights and sympathy for the criminal than the victim More headaches, time and costs for the victim beyond getting ripped off. And even though he caught the criminal at great personal risk, he’ll never see any money back and I highly doubt the criminal spent ANY time in jail, I’m sure he was ticketed and released once booked. As LeClair pointed out, the cops DON’T care unless forced into action, i.e. being called to the scene by multiple parties because its now recorded on 911 tape while his other phone calls and requests are not.
LeClair should have followed the guy outside, asked once for his money back then used the 9 iron for its intended purpose.
Similar issue happened to me driving home from work one day, a mini van full of kids chucked a frozen water balloon at my car shattering the windshield. 3 miles at 70 mph later (on a country road) I caught up to them at a light and took along a baseball bat since I didn’t know how many hooligans I’d be dealing with. A passing cop got involved and it took me an hour of negotiating since they wanted to take me in for carrying a “weapon” that I never once lifted from my side. The windshield break was a “non criminal”, civil matter and I could pursue it in court if I liked.
So for all of you pacifists, non vigilante, we have laws types, just wait until it happens to you!
Good for LeClair – we need more people like him willing to take action when other union protect and unmotivated people won’t.
I really think taking the law into his hands like that was a bad idea. He could have gotten hurt–or worse if the perp had been carrying. As it stands, he could still find himself taken to civil court, as he did assault the guy.
A better idea would have been to show up with a video camera, (try to) interview the guy, and put him all over YouTube.
To Jonathan Katt- What you are condoning is anarchy. We are a society of laws. You don’t like that, you can form your own society and see how long it lasts.
Give me a break, condoning violence for a loss of money? I agree the police should have taken Mr. LeClair’s complaint more seriously. However, if he used that golf club to injure the con artist, he belongs in jail charged with battery and he would have gotten a more serious punishment than the con man. As it should be. Physical violence is not an answer regardless of how good it makes us feel.
There were other ways to go about this. Going to court (yes, I know collecting a judgment is hard but it’s not impossible), good. Filming him and giving the local media the tape would have been good. Contacting the local media and telling them about this con artist so they could track him down and catch him on tape would have been pretty good, too. Putting a guy in a headlock and/or beating him with a golf club, not good.
Vigilantism is an excuse to act like lower species animals.
It is amazing that cops care so little about crime. They are all about driving around and giving parking tickets. The real criminals are online and at the top of huge wallstreet companies.
We don’t need shock troops beating up protesters. I’m sure cops would have a lot more time on their hands if they didn’t have to deal with drunken rages and car crashes.
I applaud this guy’s efforts and confrontation. Actually, I also have to applaud his restraint. That’s a lot of money, and pain and trouble to deal with, I think I might have left the scammer more seriously injured. Of course that would have probably resulted in me going to jail, instead of the scammer getting questioned and then arrested.
I don’t necessarily criticize the police for their handling of this . . . I think that they get a lot of poorly documented ripoffs presented to them by people who did stupid things and then the people demand an around the clock detective investigation immediately. To put together a case that can result in a conviction you have to have your ducks in a row and documented. I’d have preferred it if the cops had at least accompanied the victim to the meeting, however, I think at that point as an investigator you have a better chance of making a case.
Some of the sites that are set up explicitly for exchanging miles and vouchers, have various methods of varifying ticket delivery. FlyHub.com is one such site — I don’t know all their anti-fraud provisions, but they have some sort of integration with FedEx for tickets delivered that way, for example.
I fail to see why you come down so hard on Southwest. The simplest way for them to eliminate this sort of scam is to make all tickets non-transferrable. That would completely eliminate the whole after-market for Southwest tickets, which might well be regarded as a bad thing. Is it worth it?
Another approach would be for Southwest to refuse to accept credit cards where the credit-card vendor “took back” a fraudulent payment, in an effort to make the credit-card company eat the loss. Of course, this would mean that most Southwest customers could not use any of their credit cards to book reservations, which would be a great inconvenience for them. Again, is it worth it?
A third approach would be for Southwest to pursue the fraudster in court. This appears to be the desired approach. Consider, however, they don’t know who the con artist is — they think he’s the person with a compromised credit card — nor can they distinguish him from the customer who actually took the flight. They would have to spend a ton of money to investigate the situation, and even then end up with circumstantial evidence and hearsay that probably wouldn’t hold up in court.
Of course, Southwest could just eat the loss themselves, but that hardly seems fair.
One might as well demand that Craigslist make good on the bad ticket.
Its not Southwest fault you got suckered. You had sense enough to call the Police, you had sense enough to setup a phony meet to confront the guy. But you DIDN’T have sense enough to not buy phony tickets off Craigslist. I guess you never heard the term “If its too good to be true, it probably isn’t” !!!!
One good thing is you caught the guy, bad thing is he probably only got fined, maybe a few days in jail and your still out of your money.
@Jennifer what’s wrong with anarchy? Sometimes the best remedy to a situation is that Wild West approach.
All that happened was a case of Poor Planning on the Con Artists part. He failed to forsee the events that ultimately transpired. Some people (like me) tend to get mighty pissed off when someone takes my money or personal property & he failed to take that into account when he ripped off Mr LeClair.
However one must remember there are many types of pain to be inflicted in this situation. For instance imagine bringing a baseball bat and some friends and forcing the Con Man to strip or be beaten and leave him naked in the middle of the store? That way you’d have his ID and any money to compensate you for your efforts. Sounds like a win win to me. Thik about it what Con Man is going to press charge civil or criminal in this instance? What nit wit would admit in open court that he was found naked in coffee shop? What witness is going to recall the identity of the guys who made him strip?
We ought to give LeClaire a medal.
Then we ought to get the police to determine which fool of a phone answerer gave the “5 day” answer and have them load airline baggage for the same.
This is a perfect example of how useless the police are. People that are saying he should have left matters to the police are people that have never been the victim of any crime.
Someday they will need the police and will then realize the truth: That the police don’t solve any crime, investigate any crime, or prevent any crime. The only thing they do is record the crime. And they try to avoid even doing that.
Have you ever tried to call 911? Usually you can’t even get through.
If the police would do their jobs and investigate small crimes, they could prevent a lot of big crimes. For example, investigating an amateur con artist can prevent an assault with a 9-iron!
Southwest is not at fault and should be praised. Southwest allows anyone to cancel non-refundable airfare and use the proceeds as the purchaser sees fit, even if selling them at a discount to others is a last resort. Its a Win-Win situation for all involved unless a scam artist gets involved. Not everyone can kiss $400 goodbye becasue their plans change. Try that on another airline – once they have your money, you’re stuck.
Again, LeClair’s actions are commendable. We need this type of justice rather than just passing the buck to yet another group of overpaid, under-worked, under- motivated, union protected civil servants to spend more taxpayer money and ultimately do little or nothing.
A lot of people apparently live in a Utopian dream world. Either they never been ripped off, needed the “government” to right a wrong or just have too much money to care about these matters. Then its easy to say “we have rules and laws”.
Going back to the original blog, and then reading this one, I’m not sure I see how Southwest would have any culpability in the matter. The moment this guy or anyone else purchases a ticket from someone other than Southwest, they are their customer. If a person buys a ticket through a travel agency, and the payment that person uses ends up being fraudulent, the travel agency is responsible and they eat the loss. If you buy a ticket from a scammer on Craig’s List, you are now their customer, attempting to use a service provided by Southwest that has not been paid for.
Admiration for LeClair going after a scam artist with a 9-iron? YES!
Sympathy for someone who tries to deprive Southwest Airlines of revenue by buying questionable tickets via a stranger on Craigslist? NO!!!!
My final comment.
If you know Southwest, you know their unique and customer friendly fare policy. You may buy and cancel non-refundable airfares and then YOU have one year from purchase to use the funds as you see fit, including buying a ticket for another party. Often people have no future need to travel and rather than let them expire for NO MONEY, will entice others to use them by offering a DISCOUNT (otherwise, why would a purchaser bother?). Its just smart money management. So let $300 bucks turn worthless or get a percentage back by offering to Mr. LeClair on Craigslist? Win-WIn.
All hail Ted LeClair, a hero for today’s times! And Southwest too.
“LeClair wonders how Southwest can continue to allow fraudulent purchases to be made through its reservations system. ”
That’s easy – it simply costs Southwest less to allow the occasional fraudulent purchase (that is eventually reimbursed to the credit card holder by the bank) than it does to put more anti-fraud protocols in place on their website and/or reservations system.
It kinda reminds me of an article I read a few years ago where a group of men smashed down the apartment door of a spammer they tracked down and beat him up with a baseball bat!
I think that people who violate other’s rights should have no rights themselves…
Ed
web/gadget guru
I love how there are people here who say that we are a society of laws. So you’re telling you’ve never gone beyond the speed limit? Come on, he had every right to detain him and constrain him under a citizens arrest. He followed the law by not knocking him out. And no jury would convict him after his defense would give the story about his daughter was heartbroken because she couldn’t go flying because the con artist ripped them off.
I sure hope his 9 iron is okay, those graphite shafts don’t hold up well and I’d be super sad if he didn’t have a good short game after this.
*go get ‘em*
I love a little frontier justice
If LeClair didn’t get arrested, I would be furious if I were the store manager. It is NOT okay to take the law into your own hands on my property. If you want to do it somewhere else, I don’t really care.
When the law does nothing to help someone who has been wronged, if you just turn the other cheek, the wrong doed will continue.
namaste
Reading some of these posts calls to mind a 1990’s article by Jeffrey Snyder entitled “A Nation of Cowards”
You wusses ought to read it.