AN ELDERLY Asian couple from Leicester who lost £2,500 in a fake flight scam have had their money returned after their case was taken to the Financial Ombudsman Service, the BBC reported.
Dinesh Jansari, 80, and his wife Shashikala, 78, only discovered they had been sold fraudulent tickets when they arrived at check-in at London Heathrow Airport in November last year for a long-planned trip to India.
The couple had booked what they believed were genuine tickets through a website they thought was Expedia. However, the process moved to a WhatsApp conversation with an account named “Fly Expedia”, where they were asked to transfer £2,502 directly to a bank account.
Shashikala said the moment they realised was distressing. “We were shocked when we found out they were scam tickets. We were at the airport ready to go,” she said. “I just started panicking and my husband was very stressed.”
The couple, who had been planning the trip for eight years to visit relatives in Gujarat, returned home without travelling after refusing to pay up to £5,000 each for new tickets.
They reported the incident to Santander and Action Fraud but were initially told the money was unlikely to be recovered. Shashikala said: “The bank said it was our fault because we transferred the money.”
Their son, Asit Jansari, then escalated the case to the Financial Ombudsman Service, prompting a review. “Within a week I got a call from the branch manager to say the transfer would be looked into again,” he said, adding that the process had been “a struggle”.
Days later, the bank concluded the couple had been victims of fraud and agreed to refund the full amount. A Santander spokesperson said it had “reimbursed the £2,500 that was stolen by the scammers” after reviewing the case.
Shashikala said the outcome was unexpected. “We never thought we would get the money back… in the end it was a happy ending. We are really happy and really grateful,” she said.
The couple were later able to travel to Ahmedabad after booking through a legitimate travel agent.
Santander said it had recorded more than £74,000 in travel-related scams in the first three months of the year, warning customers to be cautious of “too good to be true deals”. Expedia also advised travellers to only use its official website or app and said customers should never be asked to continue bookings via WhatsApp.
The Jansaris have since shared their experience locally to raise awareness. “Scammers are very clever, they use old people like us,” Shashikala said, adding that she hoped others would be more alert.
