Winging It: 'Brandjacking' could hurt fliers' wallets - and safety

In case you hadn't heard, the airline industry is in deep trouble, as many of us are, because of the huge increase in oil prices. But I'm pausing this week from more hand-wringing over that to look at another problem that air travelers should know about.

This month, we received a report from MarkMonitor (

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), a San Francisco company that keeps track of "brandjacking" for many of the world's largest companies. The term refers to thieves, primarily cyber criminals, stealing the use of brand names and otherwise committing online fraud by misrepresenting who they are.

Among the best-known practices MarkMonitor looks for on the Internet are examples of "phishing." That's the creation of phony Web sites that seek to lure customers of a bank, credit card company or other business into giving up personal information such as account or Social Security numbers.

MarkMonitor publishes a quarterly Brandjacking Index that in the current issue takes a look at two ways in which travelers could suffer from online fraud. One, involving the hawking of air-travel vouchers on eBay and other auction sites, has the potential for a modest financial loss to the consumer since the vouchers are not intended for resale. The second problem, selling parts for commercial airplanes that may not be legitimate, has far more potential for endangering aviation safety.

Fred Felman, MarkMonitor's chief marketing officer, told me that research published by Consumer Reports magazine first alerted the company to scams involving travel vouchers. The vouchers, the kind airlines give to passengers to placate them when they get bumped or the airline is bought by other businesses, usually have a dollar value that can be used for airfare. While they mostly are sought by vacationers, some business travelers are bound to be looking at them these days as a way to save on rising costs.

MarkMonitor found that 100 to 200 listings can be found online every day, offering vouchers at discounts of 80 percent or more off their face value. Felman said buyers get only a voucher number and no paper documents if they submit a winning bid.

"Interestingly, this trade flourishes despite the fact that most airlines have a policy that these vouchers are non-transferable," the Brandjacking Index report said. "To test this theory, we purchased several and to no surprise, the voucher numbers could not be validated by the airline when we tried to use them to pay for a flight."

The report added that with recent airline bankruptcies, "we may expect to see an increased incidence of online fraud related to refunds, credits and vouchers."

The sale of spare airplane parts on the Internet is a much scarier proposition than phony vouchers. MarkMonitor found 24 vendors that sell parts for Airbus or Boeing commercial jets, and even found F-16 military fighter-jet parts for sale. The commercial-jet business is "at best . . . a gray market for legitimate spare parts," the report said. "At worst, these listings are selling phony or questionable parts."

Some of the Web sites that are in this business "don't inspire confidence," the report said. As an example, one vendor's site offered mosquito swatters, musical instruments and decorative light strings in addition to aircraft components. Another advertised rough diamonds from Angola along with Boeing business jets, helicopters and light aircraft.

"The Internet is a strange and nasty place these days. . ." the report said. "How private citizens could obtain military fighter jet parts is very much a mystery, and very much illegal, too."

As worrisome as this kind of activity may be, no one is saying that U.S. or major foreign airlines are prowling the Internet, looking to buy questionable components for their planes to save a few bucks. But somewhere in the world, an airline operator very well could be.

We also know that almost two-thirds of the aircraft maintenance for U.S. airlines is outsourced to contractors in this country and overseas. Most of those contractors, at least those in this country, adhere to the same exacting specifications that the airlines do when parts need to be replaced.

Yet there's enough concern about the Federal Aviation Administration's oversight of the outside contractors that it's drawn the scrutiny of congressional committees and business and consumer groups. We can only hope none of those contractors is shopping for parts on eBay.