US Airlines Scam

Today we recieved a letter with our address handwritten,it was postmarked from Phoenix, Arizona.  It was addressed to my husband, so he gave me a look that I immediately knew was his "this is something stupid" look and opened it up.  In the process he got a paper cut, so he was already perturbed before he even read the letter.  Sure enough, our initial impressions were correct.  According to the letter from "US Airlines" (which doesn't exist, by the way) we "qualified" for an award of 2 roundtrip tickets.  Cool!  I love traveling!  Problem is, this is a scam, and not a very well thought out one at that.

Above is a picture of the letter we recieved (our address blocked out just to be safe) and if you can't read it, this is what it said:

NOTE:  You must respond no later than August 22nd, 2012.

Dear Daniel,

I am pleased to inform you that you have qualified for an award of 2 roundtrip airline tickets.  Congratulations.  These tickets are valid for travel anywhere in the Continental U.S. from any major international airport.  The retail value of this award is up to $1298.00.  Certain restrictions apply.

We have attempted contacting you several times without success.  This is our last attempt.  If we do not hear from you soon, we may need to issue the ticket vouchers to the alternate.

Please call me today at 1-866-568-9312

Regards,

(signed name here)

Joanne Cane

Vice President

There were also two letters and five numbers that I'm assuming was supposed to be some kind of confirmation number at the bottom of the letter.  Anyway, of course we didn't call because this is so obviously a scam there was no need for further action.  Grammar aside, there were so many things wrong with this despite how official they tried to make it, there is nothing official about this letter.  It was printed on cheap printer paper, I would expect fancier cardstock from a national airline.  There was no return address, and no US Airlines address anywhere at all on this letter or the envelope.  I am sharing this to do my duty to my fellow Americans to spread the word that this is a scam and do not call that number.  There is a youtube video that you can find here if you really want to know what this scam is about.  My advice is to just throw it in the trash, but make sure you spread the word so no one falls for this hoax. 

I did a google search for US Airlines scam and there are a lot of hits, one from another blogger that you can find here for more information.  Apparently this type of scam has been going on for a few years with different airline names and different forms of letters/vouchers. 

If you get a letter similiar to this one, it's a scam and don't fall for it!  And be sure to spread the word about this to all your friends and family so they know, too.