Travel plan idea blog

Priceline.com spam / scam plus competition from cFares

So I recently got an official looking email from Priceline.com with flight reservations from Durham to Boston and then Boston to Baltimore. I was fairly surprised since I didn't make the reservations but I was even more surprised when I saw my father's name on the itinerary.

I figured it was probably something like all those Ebay scam emails where they tell you there's a problem with your account and give you a sign in link. Of course the link goes to a page that looks like Ebay but really isn't - just some scammers who want your password.

I did a search for Priceline.com spam, but got mostly people complaining about Priceline. A lot of people hate Priceline, but obviously many more still use them.

Then I did a news search for Priceline.com and found this thing on Cfares which is pretty interesting. It's supposed to be a wholesale club for travelers (like Costco you pay an annual membership). The author of this article seems to think it works pretty well.

Anyway, back to the email. I didn't find anything that sounded similar to my experience during my web searches so I went to Priceline.com (and typed it in myself instead of following a link from the possibly fake email) to alert them to problem.

I'll be keeping you updated as I learn more about this possible scam involving spammy emails pretending to be from Priceline.com.

Posted by James Trotta at July 27, 2007 1:26 PM | TrackBack