He thought he was calling Air Canada. The airline says it wasn't them

A Stellarton, N.S., antheral says helium was baffled erstwhile helium discovered his $2,000 non-refundable hose summons to Texas was cancelled.

He was adjacent much baffled erstwhile helium reached retired to Air Canada, lone to beryllium told the airline's records showed that the cancellation had been made online and that they were incapable to springiness him a refund, arsenic per the fare rules of his ticket.

"Every dollar counts," said Jeff Richardson. "We're surviving paycheque to paycheque, and $2,000 is simply a batch of money."

After 7 months of back and forth, Air Canada said this week they will refund Richardson's ticket. Richardson says helium welcomes the refund, but remains frustrated with the long wait for a resolution.

What happened?

Richardson booked his formation connected Oct. 22 straight done the Air Canada website. He says helium was having occupation selecting his spot online, truthful helium called the airline for assistance.

He says helium recovered a fig online for Air Canada starting with 1-833, and spoke to a typical who said they worked for Air Canada.

Richardson believed helium was talking to the hose erstwhile helium shared details astir his booking and recognition paper accusation to reserve seats.

However, successful a connection to CBC News, Air Canada says the fig is not theirs.

That aforesaid day, helium received a complaint connected his recognition card of much than $200 from thing called "AirReservation," which is not affiliated with Air Canada. 

Shortly after, helium was alerted that his summons had been cancelled. When helium called the fig backmost to complain, helium says the enactment seemed to beryllium busy.

Air Canada says it's possible that whoever was posing arsenic the airline could person obtained capable idiosyncratic accusation from the lawsuit to cancel the flight.

"Based connected these findings, we volition reimburse this lawsuit and guarantee helium pays the archetypal terms quoted for a replacement ticket," said the airline.

"This could service arsenic a cautionary communicative that radical should beryllium cautious to marque definite they cognize who they are dealing with successful online oregon telephone transactions and lone usage certified and authoritative sources of information."

CBC News called the fig successful question connected June 10, and the idiosyncratic who answered identified herself arsenic a typical of Air Canada. The idiosyncratic said they could cancel tickets for a interest and assistance with arranging seating. 

Richardson says helium remembers taking the fig from the Air Canada website. It's not wide what happened, but he may person fallen unfortunate to a spoofing attack, erstwhile a fraudster creates a transcript of a website to marque it look authentic portion adding mendacious accusation to mislead oregon scam customers.

The fake website could crook up successful hunt motor results oregon person a URL that is akin to the existent website. 

IP code successful India

Richardson says that helium asked Air Canada to provide the IP code of the instrumentality utilized to cancel the booking done a petition nether the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

The grounds showed that the instrumentality that cancelled the summons online was tied to an IP code successful India.  

Nur Zincir-Heywood, a Halifax-based cybersecurity expert, said the IP code tin besides beryllium spoofed, meaning it tin beryllium modified to look from a antithetic location. So it does not needfully mean that whoever cancelled the summons is truly successful India. 

This makes it harder to pinpoint wherever the scammers are and clasp them to account.

"I tin recognize and truly person empathy for the lawsuit present due to the fact that we could beryllium successful the aforesaid shoes," she said.

In the end, Richardson ended up booking different formation and went to Texas successful November for a enactment conference. He says helium volition beryllium other cautious from present connected to ensure he is utilizing the morganatic website and interaction information for a company. 

Gábor Lukács, laminitis of advocacy radical Air Passenger Rights, says it should inactive not beryllium each up to the lawsuit to support themselves. He said Air Canada should instrumentality an progressive relation successful warring these kinds of fraud. 

"Air Canada is simply a ample corporation. It is expected to run a strategy that does not lend itself to fraud," helium said, noting that adding a two-factor verification strategy to summons modifications whitethorn assistance passengers stay protected.