9 ms·

I doubt UA would follow through considering it is illegal to submit known false debts. Plus they're outright wrong that it constitutes "fraud," if for no other

I doubt UA would follow through considering it is illegal to submit known false debts. Plus they're outright wrong that it constitutes "fraud," if for no other reason than the person skipping additional legs didn't profit from it, instead they simply limited UA's ability to further profit off of their travel. If this was "fraud" then any other airline discount or saving would be too. Shop around for the cheapest price? That's "fraud" since UA didn't make as much. Didn't check bags for $50+ and instead overload your carry on? That's "fraud" since UA lost the checked bag fee. Fly to a smaller airport instead of a larger one, then take the bus? That's "fraud" too, UA deserves that money. UA's creative use of the law here is nothing more than an intimidation tactic. They've run out of ideas so instead are just trying to muddy the waters enough to stop this becoming overly popular. I guess that's easier than re-examining how you ticket/what your business model is.

maxxxxx 8y ago
How about selling a ticket and then telling me I can't get on the flight because it's overbooked. Is that fraud too?
- nategri 8y ago
  Get em, max
- otterley 8y ago
  Attorney here! (Not providing legal advice, though.) No, because overbooking is disclosed in the Contract of Carriage. See https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.html https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.ht..., section 5G.
mchannon 8y ago
> I doubt UA would follow through considering it is illegal to submit known false debts. Ahh yes, the "known false debts act of 1789". </s> The fact is corporations have throngs of willing stooges who are happy to perjure themselves in trial and assert that the debts weren't false at all. Who's a judge and jury going to believe? The scammer who cheated the poor impoverished airline out of its money, or the well-dressed stooge with front-row access to United's records? Lying to the courts to get what you want is in practice a fully sanctioned strategy for corporations who desire to intimidate their customers by "making an example" of their least favorite customers by throwing criminal charges against them. Mr. Lundgren can bear witness to this, as can I.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  > Ahh yes, the "known false debts act of 1789". </s> Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970: > Your creditor must not supply information to a CRA that it knows (or should know) is inaccurate. That includes: > - reporting a debt as charged off when you settled it or paid it in full > - misstating the balance due > - reporting late payments when you paid timely > - listing you as a debtor on an account when you were only the authorized user, or > - supplying credit information on an account where identity theft was previously reported (or failing to maintain a reasonable procedure for you to report identity theft). Violations can result in civil damages[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act#Civil_liability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act#Civi... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act#Furnishers_of_information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act#Furn...
  - mchannon 8y ago
    If United Airlines decided to assess what they later define as the fair market price of the tickets thrown away, none of these bullet points would apply. If you rent a car or motel room and you smoke in it, for example, they can charge you a fee. Keep your rental truck an extra day, they can charge you a fee. If you rent a Uber or Lyft and puke in it, for example, they can charge you a fee. The FCRA is completely irrelevant to the topic here, because it's inapplicable to the above examples and United would argue they are similarly not violating it. I wish this forum would allow people the option to disagree with an argument without censoring it. I respect (and even eagerly await) that others might disagree with my opinions, but that deserves a downvote less than an off-topic or rude post.
    - Someone1234 8y ago
      > The FCRA is completely irrelevant to the topic here, because it's inapplicable to the above examples and United would argue they are similarly not violating it. Nobody said they were violating it. The topic was that they would be violating it if they submitted their fictional debts to a credit rating agency or to a collections agent. Therefore they're never going to make good on their threats, because UA knows this. Plus you're using bad examples, since in all the examples those companies can show financial harm, and are recouping costs. In UA's case their only "harm" is that they made less profit than they would have liked.
rconti 8y ago
This is insane on a whole other level, because United profits when you don't get on that 2nd leg. If they're overbooked, they avoid having to pay to bump someone. They incur less in fuel costs, as the plane lands in its destination city with a slightly greater fuel load. Some passenger somewhere has a more pleasant flight because they have an empty seat next to them.
- 394549 8y ago
  > This is insane on a whole other level, because United profits when you don't get on that 2nd leg. Not necessarily. If you use use hidden-city ticketing, they lost out on extracting the extra money they wanted to charge you for going to your intended destination AND the extra money they may have been able to charge someone else for the leg you didn't take. That said, I think it's the airline's fault for using an over-complicated pricing model with odd behaviors that customers can take advantage of like this. There'd be no issue if they just charged the same per leg regardless of your final destination. That'd make everything transparent and totally remove the need for hidden-city ticketing.
  - tempestn 8y ago
    It depends how you look at it. Once you've booked your ticket, United is better off if you don't take the last leg of the flight than if you do. Prior to booking, they would of course prefer you book the more expensive ticket. Forcing you to take the last leg is about encouraging you to book that more expensive ticket; it's not because they actually lost something when you chose to skip the final leg of the journey rather than take it.
  - computator 8y ago
    > they lost out on the extra money they may have been able to charge someone else Not necessarily. Airlines have sophisticated yield management programs that should give them a good estimate on how many passengers are likely to skip the final leg of any particular route -- the airline can oversell the final leg by exactly the number of passengers who aren't likely to show up.
394549 8y ago
> I doubt UA would follow through considering it is illegal to submit known false debts. I wonder if they've snuck in a mandatory binding arbitration clause into their contract, and if that would cover disputes about false debts. Even if the false debts were totally illegal, arbitration could make it impractical to challenge them.
- sitkack 8y ago
  Do you are saying one can force arbitration for an _illegal_ act? That sounds wrong on every level.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
otterley 8y ago
Attorney here! (Not providing legal advice, though.) The elements of common law civil fraud are as follows: 1. Somebody intentionally misrepresents a material fact in order to obtain action or forbearance by another person ("I am traveling to ILM from SFO" but in fact is going to IAD); 2. The other person relies upon the misrepresentation (United prices the fare as though the passenger were going to ILM instead of IAD); and 3. The other person suffers injury as a result of the act or forbearance taken in reliance upon the misrepresentation (United gets less fare). Note that profit is not an element of fraud, although here, one could argue that the potential fraudster did profit in terms of the difference in fare. So United has a fair argument that, given the facts at hand, intentionally misrepresenting one's travel plans in order to obtain a better fare probably constitutes fraud.
- cft 8y ago
  If I order a meal at McDonald's and don't eat the fries, is that fraud, because the cost of a burger plus soda separately maybe more than the meal with a burger, soda and the fries?
  - otterley 8y ago
    Technically yes, but the injury is de minimis so McDonald's isn't likely to demand recompense in this situation.
    - cft 8y ago
      What if I habitually don't like fries? Say I have done it 2000 times?
      - otterley 8y ago
        What is the point of this debate? Only the fictional McDonald's in your fictional scenario knows. It's an unlikely situation to begin with, so let's stick to the facts at hand.
        8y ago
oh_sigh 8y ago
I wonder if they could structure this as a real debt, by making some legs cost negative money, e.g. on a trip from A->B->C, A->B costs $100, B->C costs -$10, for a total cost of $90. If you book A->B->C and prepay the $90, but get off at B, then you owe the airline $10 because you didn't receive the $10 credit from flying B->C
lordlimecat 8y ago
UA is specifically claiming they violated the contract of carriage, which may (IANAL!) be enough for them to prove damages. >UA's creative use of the law You mean "use of contract", assuming they're correct that it violates the contract of carriage (too lazy to check).

maxxxxx 8y ago

How about selling a ticket and then telling me I can't get on the flight because it's overbooked. Is that fraud too?

nategri 8y ago
Get em, max
otterley 8y ago
Attorney here! (Not providing legal advice, though.) No, because overbooking is disclosed in the Contract of Carriage. See https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.html https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.ht..., section 5G.

mchannon 8y ago

> I doubt UA would follow through considering it is illegal to submit known false debts. Ahh yes, the "known false debts act of 1789". </s> The fact is corporations have throngs of willing stooges who are happy to perjure themselves in trial and assert that the debts weren't false at all. Who's a judge and jury going to believe? The scammer who cheated the poor impoverished airline out of its money, or the well-dressed stooge with front-row access to United's records? Lying to the courts to get what you want is in practice a fully sanctioned strategy for corporations who desire to intimidate their customers by "making an example" of their least favorite customers by throwing criminal charges against them. Mr. Lundgren can bear witness to this, as can I.

Someone1234 8y ago
> Ahh yes, the "known false debts act of 1789". </s> Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970: > Your creditor must not supply information to a CRA that it knows (or should know) is inaccurate. That includes: > - reporting a debt as charged off when you settled it or paid it in full > - misstating the balance due > - reporting late payments when you paid timely > - listing you as a debtor on an account when you were only the authorized user, or > - supplying credit information on an account where identity theft was previously reported (or failing to maintain a reasonable procedure for you to report identity theft). Violations can result in civil damages[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act#Civil_liability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act#Civi... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act#Furnishers_of_information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act#Furn...
- mchannon 8y ago
  If United Airlines decided to assess what they later define as the fair market price of the tickets thrown away, none of these bullet points would apply. If you rent a car or motel room and you smoke in it, for example, they can charge you a fee. Keep your rental truck an extra day, they can charge you a fee. If you rent a Uber or Lyft and puke in it, for example, they can charge you a fee. The FCRA is completely irrelevant to the topic here, because it's inapplicable to the above examples and United would argue they are similarly not violating it. I wish this forum would allow people the option to disagree with an argument without censoring it. I respect (and even eagerly await) that others might disagree with my opinions, but that deserves a downvote less than an off-topic or rude post.
  - Someone1234 8y ago
    > The FCRA is completely irrelevant to the topic here, because it's inapplicable to the above examples and United would argue they are similarly not violating it. Nobody said they were violating it. The topic was that they would be violating it if they submitted their fictional debts to a credit rating agency or to a collections agent. Therefore they're never going to make good on their threats, because UA knows this. Plus you're using bad examples, since in all the examples those companies can show financial harm, and are recouping costs. In UA's case their only "harm" is that they made less profit than they would have liked.

rconti 8y ago

This is insane on a whole other level, because United profits when you don't get on that 2nd leg. If they're overbooked, they avoid having to pay to bump someone. They incur less in fuel costs, as the plane lands in its destination city with a slightly greater fuel load. Some passenger somewhere has a more pleasant flight because they have an empty seat next to them.

394549 8y ago
> This is insane on a whole other level, because United profits when you don't get on that 2nd leg. Not necessarily. If you use use hidden-city ticketing, they lost out on extracting the extra money they wanted to charge you for going to your intended destination AND the extra money they may have been able to charge someone else for the leg you didn't take. That said, I think it's the airline's fault for using an over-complicated pricing model with odd behaviors that customers can take advantage of like this. There'd be no issue if they just charged the same per leg regardless of your final destination. That'd make everything transparent and totally remove the need for hidden-city ticketing.
- tempestn 8y ago
  It depends how you look at it. Once you've booked your ticket, United is better off if you don't take the last leg of the flight than if you do. Prior to booking, they would of course prefer you book the more expensive ticket. Forcing you to take the last leg is about encouraging you to book that more expensive ticket; it's not because they actually lost something when you chose to skip the final leg of the journey rather than take it.
- computator 8y ago
  > they lost out on the extra money they may have been able to charge someone else Not necessarily. Airlines have sophisticated yield management programs that should give them a good estimate on how many passengers are likely to skip the final leg of any particular route -- the airline can oversell the final leg by exactly the number of passengers who aren't likely to show up.

394549 8y ago

> I doubt UA would follow through considering it is illegal to submit known false debts. I wonder if they've snuck in a mandatory binding arbitration clause into their contract, and if that would cover disputes about false debts. Even if the false debts were totally illegal, arbitration could make it impractical to challenge them.

sitkack 8y ago
Do you are saying one can force arbitration for an _illegal_ act? That sounds wrong on every level.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

otterley 8y ago

Attorney here! (Not providing legal advice, though.) The elements of common law civil fraud are as follows: 1. Somebody intentionally misrepresents a material fact in order to obtain action or forbearance by another person ("I am traveling to ILM from SFO" but in fact is going to IAD); 2. The other person relies upon the misrepresentation (United prices the fare as though the passenger were going to ILM instead of IAD); and 3. The other person suffers injury as a result of the act or forbearance taken in reliance upon the misrepresentation (United gets less fare). Note that profit is not an element of fraud, although here, one could argue that the potential fraudster did profit in terms of the difference in fare. So United has a fair argument that, given the facts at hand, intentionally misrepresenting one's travel plans in order to obtain a better fare probably constitutes fraud.

cft 8y ago
If I order a meal at McDonald's and don't eat the fries, is that fraud, because the cost of a burger plus soda separately maybe more than the meal with a burger, soda and the fries?
- otterley 8y ago
  Technically yes, but the injury is de minimis so McDonald's isn't likely to demand recompense in this situation.
  - cft 8y ago
    What if I habitually don't like fries? Say I have done it 2000 times?
    - otterley 8y ago
      What is the point of this debate? Only the fictional McDonald's in your fictional scenario knows. It's an unlikely situation to begin with, so let's stick to the facts at hand.
      - 8y ago

oh_sigh 8y ago

I wonder if they could structure this as a real debt, by making some legs cost negative money, e.g. on a trip from A->B->C, A->B costs $100, B->C costs -$10, for a total cost of $90. If you book A->B->C and prepay the $90, but get off at B, then you owe the airline $10 because you didn't receive the $10 credit from flying B->C

lordlimecat 8y ago

UA is specifically claiming they violated the contract of carriage, which may (IANAL!) be enough for them to prove damages. >UA's creative use of the law You mean "use of contract", assuming they're correct that it violates the contract of carriage (too lazy to check).