Airline passenger claims thieves are using discarded bag tags for fraud scheme

Fox News

a day ago

A Reddit user claiming to be an airline employee is warning travelers about the possibility of being scammed when it comes to their printed bag tags.
Posted in the "r/delta" forum on Reddit, the message is titled, "Toss your bag tags at home."
The Reddit user claimed to be a "baggage claims manager." The individual wanted to "let everyone know to please start discarding your bag tags at home."
"We are getting an influx of fraudulent claims being submitted for 'missing items' as these people are observing who is removing their luggage tags in the claim areas and using your information to submit claims for reimbursement," the user claims.
The post continued, "From my own personal experience [of] currently dealing with this, it is causing issue[s] with reimbursing the real people if they submit a legitimate claim."
"So please be careful and don't take your tags off at the airport," the person concluded. "They can steal enough information from that to use your travel itinerary to get paid."
Many flight passengers took to the comments section to debate whether this could be possible — sharing their own thoughts.
"Clearly my strategy of forgetting to remove the tag until it's time for my next trip is paying off," commented one user.
Another agreed, saying, "I actually leave my tag on my bag until my next trip myself."
"I always tossed them at home, not because I'm conscious [of it] but I'm kinda forgetful," one Redditor wrote.
Another flyer said, "Japan had secured bag tag disposal receptacles near the secured exit of baggage claim … This explains why."
"Do one better. SHRED your bag tags and printed boarding passes as soon as you can after getting to your destination," one person wrote.
Yet another Redditor said, "Because my full name is on it, I've always discarded them at home."
The original poster shared the belief that others could scam passengers.
"A bag tag only consists of the name, flight[s] and confirmation number outside of the tag itself," the person wrote. "They make an email address with that person's name in it, a random phone number and a random address and submit the claim."
Gary Leff, a Texas-based travel industry expert and author of the blog "View From the Wing," told Fox News Digital he does not see the scam being that prevalent.
"You should keep the bag tag attached until any baggage issues are fully resolved, then discard it at home," said Leff.
"That said, this doesn't strike me as plausibly a high-volume, common scam."
Leff said tags carry limited information, such as a last name, flight number and a specific bag tag number.
He pointed out the tags do not commonly have a ticket number or street address.
"Bags are scanned. Each scan from check‑in to baggage belt is logged. If a scammer files a missing bag claim where the system shows it was delivered, that's going to be a flag, especially when this happens at scale," said Leff.
"The most common thing is filing lost bag claims for items that were actually delivered, which I've written about a couple of times," he added.