A woman’s frantic attempt to rebook a missed flight turned into a costly crash course in business-impostor scams — now supercharged by AI and slipping through Google’s ad filters.
Bloomberg reports that this holiday season, travelers are increasingly falling victim to sophisticated online scams that exploit their most vulnerable moments. Rachel Dodes, a recent victim of such a scam, shared her harrowing experience to raise awareness about this growing threat.
Dodes and her family were en route to the airport in Newark, New Jersey, to catch a flight to Berlin for Thanksgiving when a series of unfortunate events led to them being stuck in traffic and on the verge of missing their flight. In a moment of desperation, Dodes searched for United Airlines’ customer service number on Google and called the first result that appeared.
To her relief, a man identifying himself as Sheldon, a United Airlines agent, answered the call immediately. Sheldon offered to help Dodes and her family get on a later Lufthansa flight, but requested that she pay the difference in ticket prices, amounting to $1,415.97. Dodes, stuck in a stressful situation, provided her credit card information without hesitation.
However, red flags began to appear when Dodes received a confirmation email from an unfamiliar domain, Travelomile, instead of United.com. Sheldon assured her that this was due to the last-minute nature of the changes and Lufthansa operating the new flight. It wasn’t until Sheldon asked Dodes to upload images of her family’s passports to a suspicious-looking website that she realized she had fallen for a scam.
Dodes is not alone in her experience. According to the FTC, reported losses from business-impostor scams in the US rose 30 percent to $835 million in the first three quarters of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. Experts attribute this surge to the increased use of AI tools by scammers, which enable them to craft more convincing phishing attempts and build fake websites that closely resemble legitimate ones.
John Breyault, vice president of public policy at the National Consumers League, warns that AI is “supercharging fraud” by allowing scammers to operate more efficiently and at a larger scale. He emphasizes that scammers excel at targeting consumers during times of peak stress, such as the holiday season when travelers are particularly vulnerable.
Google, whose ad system was exploited in Dodes’ case, claims to have a zero-tolerance policy for scam ads and takes extensive measures to keep them off their platforms. However, many impostor ads continue to slip through the cracks, despite Google’s efforts to update its policies and remove fraudulent ads.
To protect themselves from falling victim to travel scams, experts advise consumers to save the airline’s real contact information in their contacts before traveling, use the airline’s official app for communication, and never share reservation confirmation codes with anyone who doesn’t absolutely need it. In the event of being defrauded, consumers should immediately contact their bank or credit card company and file complaints with relevant authorities.
Read more at Bloomberg here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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