FOUR-STAR Philippine Airlines (PAL) warns the public against buying “cheap” airline tickets sold by scam artists on social-media sites such as Facebook.
This warning was issued after some syndicates were found to have bought tickets in bulk, then sold them at low rates via social-media sites.
“Individuals who are enticed to purchase these tickets are eventually informed the tickets are in the name of fictitious people; the buyers are then offered fake IDs for presentation at airport check-in,” PAL Express Head of Security Rear Adm. Jorge Amba said.
As of October 5, 2018, there were 68 arrests in different provincial airports across the country, with a particular concentration in Zamboanga, Cagayan de Oro, Cotabato, Bacolod and Clark.
“Since the tickets were bought online in bulk under different bogus names, passengers who bought cheap round-trip tickets were also supplied with fake IDs by the sellers,” Amba added. “Our airport frontliners are trained to distinguish counterfeit IDs. So if you presented a fake ID, you will surely miss your flight and will have tons of problems.”