A resident of Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, said he was scammed out of nearly 5 million MMK by a Facebook page advertising air ticket sales services.
The incident took place on June 12, when the operators of the page allegedly used fake payment slips to defraud the victim.
“I bought the tickets online. The page assured me they would handle the booking and told me I had to transfer the money within half an hour. So, I sent the payment. After that, they sent me a slip saying the booking had been made,” the victim said.
However, he became suspicious and checked the details again through official websites, where he discovered that the date shown on the ticket purchase slip did not match the actual flight departure date.
He then verified the booking with other airline ticket agents and at Myitkyina Airport, where he was told the tickets were fake.
The Facebook page accused of carrying out the scam is called 'Air Ticket - domestic/international air ticket sales center', which has more than 22,000 followers.
The victim said he paid 4,832,000 MMK for six air tickets, transferring the money to a KPay account under the name U Nay Thura Lin, with the phone number 09766726649. KPay is one of the most widely used mobile payment apps in Myanmar.
He also told KNG that if others had fallen victim to the same airline ticket scam, he wanted them to speak out so more people could be aware of the fraud.
After the victim realized he had been scammed, the Facebook page blocked him on both Messenger and Viber, he said.
KNG has also learned that during May alone, at least five people were similarly scammed while trying to buy air tickets.
As such scams have become more common, Air Thanlwin also issued a warning to passengers through its official Facebook page on May 25.
In the statement, the airline said it had learned that scammers were impersonating airline sales agents on social media and fraudulently selling tickets online.
It advised passengers that after making a booking, they could verify it in the ‘Your Booking’ section of the airline’s website using their last name and booking reference number.
The airline also said passengers could verify their tickets using the ticket number after purchase and contact its call center phone numbers for confirmation.
Black-market airfares on routes linking Kachin State have surged, with tickets on the Myitkyina–Mandalay route selling for around 1.3 million to 1.5 million MMK, while fares on the Myitkyina–Yangon route have climbed to around 1.5 million to 2 million MMK.
Official prices, however, are far lower. A Myitkyina–Mandalay ticket officially costs around 800,000 MMK, while a Myitkyina–Yangon ticket is around 1 million MMK.
The difficulty of securing airline tickets has also made people in urgent need of travel more vulnerable to ticket fraud.
As a result, residents in Myitkyina have been warning one another about the scams, while there have also been public calls for authorities to effectively track down and prosecute those behind the fraud.
