[travelworld]

Don’t worry Mr Michael. I will come and visit you in prison… 🙂

[FDOS_UK]

MrMichael and Travelworld

So what should happen to the people at the airline who are telling me I am not entitled to some EC261 compo, when it is obvious I am?

Airlines really do invite people to try on sharp practices, by their own behaviour.

By the way, criminal fraud and civil fraud are somewhat different and you don’t seem to udnerstand the difference.

If the airline don’t pay, I’ll sue them, but asking the Police to investigate will not be on the cards (they wouldn’t).

[travelworld]

FDOS. Now now. I do know the difference between civil and criminal fraud law. I’m a fraud lawyer!

[MrMichael]

I too know the difference FDOS as instigate prosecutions of those that commit fraud, it is I that must from time to decide if prosecution is in the public interest and then pass it on to the lawyers to agree an appropriate charge.

I agree FDOS, some airlines do try to shirk their responsibilities, but I am not persuaded it gives us the right to try and get our own back by our own sharp practices. I think what I do re ex Europe is clearly against the terms and conditions of use of that ticket, a civil matter (as Martyn alludes to I do have some mitigation, and if that fails I can look forward to meeting TravelWorld as he handles my appeal). Some interesting case law on the subject is a recent case in the Supreme Court, Mohamed v Morrisons, a precedent putting the fear of God to many employers

https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2014-0087.html

That case Makes a corporate body reponsible for the actions of its employee even if that Employee acted wholly outside the remit given to the employee by the employer. So perhaps (I am not a lawyer) if you could show FDOS that an employee of an airline deliberately for financial gain To the employer) denied you money you were legally entitled you may well have a criminal case for fraud. If you have such a case go down to either your local nick and make a statement, or contact your local trading standards service who can bring a criminal prosecution on your behalf. What you need to prove however is they had the intent to permanently deprive you of money that was clearly yours. Their get out before that case would have been, “the employee was wrong/mistaken and acting outside their authority to make that decision.

[FDOS_UK]

Travelworld, apologies, my comment about civil v criminal was aimed at MrMichael and I forgot I put your names at the top of the post.

MrMichael, you do seem to confuse civil v criminal law. Shoplifting is theft, it is criminal and thus not in anyway applicable to this topic. Employees cannot be required to carry out unlawful or unreasonable instructions, either.

Please tell me what loss an airline suffers when you drop the last leg of a ticket – to be clear, I am not talking about how much more they could gouge out of you by charging extra for another routing – but what loss did you cause them – extra fuel burn? extra baggage handling? extra food and beverage consumption? – what exactly?

If you buy a special three course meal in a restaurant and then skip the dessert, could the restaurant charge you a higher price based on the indivual items on the A La Carte menu?

Let the airlines take a few people to court and see what happens …..

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travelworld

[MrMichael]

Not sure why your having a pop at me FDOS, I am agreeing with you. I did not suggest I was guilty of any fraud, I was being ironic. I am in breach of the T&C’s of my ticket that to some extent might be dishonest as I have done it for financial gain. Equally someone spinning a yarn to get an upgrade is not in breach of anything other than decent behaviour. I am very clear that neither are criminal. The point I was making is that denying you your EC261 compensation may give you the opportunity to try criminal law against the airline in view of the recent Supreme Court case. I agree that employees cannot be told to do things that are illegal, so a defense in law previously would be the employee was acting outside the scope of that employment. This case likely blows that defense out of the water, it makes clear the employer is responsible for the actions of the employee during working time irrelevant of how bizarre or outrageous and unforeseen it might be.

[GivingupBA]

To me, lying to get an upgrade is sneaky and just wrong. I don’t live like that, and I would never do it.

[MartynSinclair]

@FDOS, as you well know, the airline could price a 3 sector trip more than a 4 sector trip, so if you drop the last sector, it could be argued that you intended defrauding the airline, by purposely skipping the last sector.

As we also know, this has not, as far as we know been tested in the courts.

[LuganoPirate]

[quote quote=734572]@FDOS, as you well know, the airline could price a 3 sector trip more than a 4 sector trip, so if you drop the last sector, it could be argued that you intended defrauding the airline, by purposely skipping the last sector.

As we also know, this has not, as far as we know been tested in the courts.

[/quote]

Actually it has been tested in court albeit a Dutch one. I can’t remember the details but it involved KLM, a ticket bought by a passenger travelling to or through Egypt and it must have been in the late 80’s. The court found in favour of KLM and I remember being surprised as it involved a leg not being flown.

Perhaps someone knows how to look this up?

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=734572]@FDOS, as you well know, the airline could price a 3 sector trip more than a 4 sector trip, so if you drop the last sector, it could be argued that you intended defrauding the airline, by purposely skipping the last sector.

As we also know, this has not, as far as we know been tested in the courts.

[/quote]

Martyn, that is not the definition of a loss. Ask Travelworld. Next time you pass Burger King or McDonald’s, ask them if it’s okay to buy a meal deal and throw the chips away or do you have to eat it all:-)

There is a reason it hasn’t been tested 😉

Also, BA have been known to sanction travel agents and send them a debit memo (ADM) for persistently issuing tickets to pax who drop the last leg, but I am not aware that they have tried to claim form a pax – I wonder why?

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=734484]Not sure why your having a pop at me FDOS, I am agreeing with you. I did not suggest I was guilty of any fraud, I was being ironic. I am in breach of the T&C’s of my ticket that to some extent might be dishonest as I have done it for financial gain. Equally someone spinning a yarn to get an upgrade is not in breach of anything other than decent behaviour. I am very clear that neither are criminal. The point I was making is that denying you your EC261 compensation may give you the opportunity to try criminal law against the airline in view of the recent Supreme Court case. I agree that employees cannot be told to do things that are illegal, so a defense in law previously would be the employee was acting outside the scope of that employment. This case likely blows that defense out of the water, it makes clear the employer is responsible for the actions of the employee during working time irrelevant of how bizarre or outrageous and unforeseen it might be.

[/quote]

Yoiu’re right that when you drop the last leg of a ticket, you haven’t committed a crime, you have breached a contract; that’s a civil matter, as is an airline denying my EC261 payment – it’s up to me to sue for redress (and I will, if necessary). It is by no means certain that some conditions of the contract will carry so much weight in a court, it depends how the judge sees things. If the airline employee assaulted me or stole my goods/moeny, then the criminal law would kick in.

If dropping last legs is so dishonest and causes such horrendous loss of revenues, why don’t airlines sue passengers who drop the last leg, instead of messing about refusing to check bags through on different PNRs, short check bags and other minor irritations that are easily worked around?

We’re in danger of thread drift here, so let me point back to Tom from Scotland’s opinion that this is not a particularly burning issue.

I’m the guy who went back to a shop recently, because the assistant gave me change for a 20, when I gave her a 10 and I didn’t want her to suffer from a mistake, but worry about getting one over on an airline – not me (so long as it isn’t illegal), their behaviour is sharp and unfriendly to the consumer and reciprocity comes into play – although I don’t think the tactics mentioned in the OP/linked article, will have a high success rate.

[MrMichael]

In my line of work I deal quite often with T&C’s in car parks, including the fact many car parks that operate Pay & Display try to dissuade people from passing the unused part of their paid for time to someone else entering the car park. Many authorities have now been persuaded to drop the T&C on the basis it is wholly unenforceable and frankly petty. I give the example of 4 sausage rolls from Greggs is cheaper than buying four separately, if I buy four thus taken advantage of the discount and then give one away, is that fair on Greggs, should they have a T&C saying only those purchasing their offers can consume them. T&C’s by their nature need to be reasonable, but also enforceable in some way.

My ex EU flights are clearly against the letter of the T&C’s, however one would be hard pressed to convince a court I have caused the airline a loss, and thus it could not be fraud. Anyway, each time I have dropped the last sector it is because I was feeling tired and emotional. 🙂

[jsn55]

If one has to ask if telling lies is unethical, you should just move on. Karma will dictate your punishment for being unethical.

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LuganoPirate

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=735168]If one has to ask if telling lies is unethical, you should just move on. Karma will dictate your punishment for being unethical.

[/quote]

I don’t think that there is any doubt that telling lies is unethical, the more burning question for me is whether one needs to adopt ethical behaviour when dealing with organisations whose ethics have been proven to be less than perfect on many occasions.

Personally, I’m a great believer in reciprocity and feel no need to adopt a position or tone of moral superiority, when dealing with any parties who display poor standards of probity.

[MrMichael]

I was taught, “two wrongs do not equal a right”.

I use ex Europe fares and hope I am too ill to use the final leg. It is wrong, it is against the airlines T&C’s, and I do not try and defend it. If I do get caught, I will have to accept the consequences and try not to koan about it (too much!).

[Author]

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