Google removes airline phone numbers from search results

Company Google is working to remove all fake airline customer service phone numbers that have appeared in search results.

July 17 Shmuley Evers informed V Twitter * that after canceling his flight from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, he entered into a Google search the phone number of the support service of the Delta office at this airport. He almost gave out his credit card number to buy a new ticket when he realized he was talking to a scammer who had replaced the official Delta office phone number on Google with another one.

Evers checked several airline support phone numbers for JFK offices and quickly found errors on Google Maps pages for Delta, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Air France, Qantas, ITA Airways and Turkish Airways.

It is not clear how the scammers managed to change the Google search results for these phone numbers. A spokesman for the company said that Google “does not tolerate this misleading activity.” However, the company has not yet answered questions about how the scammers managed to pull off something like this with so many major airlines.

A Delta spokesperson said the airline has already begun correcting inaccuracies, suspending fraudulent accounts, and implementing additional safeguards to prevent further abuse.

According to Google, the incident is just part of a wider effort by scammers to change airline contact information.

Google said it tried to remove inappropriate content as quickly as possible, as well as suspend suspicious accounts and even sue the scammers. The tech giant uses a combination of human operators and automated technology to constantly monitor Google Maps for this kind of scam.

These efforts have already thwarted more than 20 million attempts to create fake company profiles, the company says. Google has urged businesses to self-check their pages to make sure all information is correct and to promptly report any inaccuracies.

None of the affected airlines responded to requests for comment, with the exception of Delta, which said it was in constant contact with both law enforcement and Google regarding the fraud.

The airline urged customers to contact it directly through the company’s website, where it has a phone number and the ability to chat with operators.

At the moment, all fraudulent phone numbers have been removed and replaced with real numbers of airline offices at New York airports.

In the past, scammers used Google Adsto malicious sites were promoted in Google search results . Some of the comments under Evers’ tweet suggested that Google was simply approving the changes to the pages without checking with the companies themselves.

* The social network is prohibited on the territory of the Russian Federation.