Scams for Russian girls wanting to travel to united States

Question

Family member started being emailed by Russian person three months ago. He has already given her money for Visa, airline tickets, and now she needs more! How can he check to see if they exist? How to contact airline to establish if she is even booked. He is just a sweet, vulnerable, man that she says she loves!
Suggestions please!

Answer 1

How can he check to see if they exist?

They don't. This is a "romance scam". Report it to the FBI here at the Internet Crime Complaint Center and do not engage. All the money already sent is lost, there's no Russian girl and no tickets, no-one is coming.

Answer 2

The "it's obviously a scam" aside, for anyone else genuinely having this issue in the future:

TL;DR: You need some additional booking information (usually including the ticket number) for which the various airlines have their own ways of validating it. This, of course, doesn't mean a malicious other side can't refund them after you checked, but if you're helping a genuine relative or someone similar.

In short, without a significant amount of information, due to data privacy laws, an airline can't tell you a lot if all you have is the name.

Here's a lengthier rundown:

Delta, for example has a search feature where you'd need some booking number or at least the credit card that the booking was paid with. Which brings me to fraud prevention: If you feel it is necessary to pay for someone’s flight (that you do not know for a long time & trust): Just pay directly for the flight. As in you pay the airline directly. Ask them for their name, details, and book it for them. For them (if it's genuine), there is absolutely 0 difference if you send them all the info you get from the booking.

Answer 3

You don't need to check anything with the airline. Ask this person (although it may be just an AI chatbot) for some proof of where the money were spent - i.e. receipts, ticket bookings etc.

If they send it to you post it here; usually these are full with inconsistencies and sometimes are visibly photoshoped. See this question: it's amazing how quick the community was to prove that it's a fake: How can I check if this airline ticket is genuine?

EDIT: Make sure you cover or remove any and all personal information from the picture. The name and the booking confirmation number should not be visible in case this is not a scam after all.

Answer 4

1. Surely they don't exist and your friend is being scammed. No doubt.
2. Ask for ticket details (company, reservation number, flight number). This is usually sufficient to access the reservation online and check if it's real or not. This is also a legitimate request, as your friend would need these details to arrange pick-up and such.
3. Ask for their visa. Propose help to get a visa or to check documentation beforehand. Someone coming from Russia to the US would surely need visas and stuff. And they would probably need help from some US citizen to fill administrative papers. No one would refuse help on that. And they would have receipts of their requests to the administration. Your friend can inquire about such things.
4. Ask for an ID. It can be faked of course. But a scammer would need to correctly fake all the information above, so the more info you ask, the more they are prone to make mistakes
5. Again : it's a scam

Answer 5

Cable networks and streaming services offer several episodes of "Dr. Phil" and other shows that expose in detail how the same scam works.  Getting your relative to watch one of these might be a big help.