Snail Mail Scam

Most of the scams I run across—like the the Nigerian ones telling me I'm going to get whopping amount of money— arrive via e-mail and are caught in my spam filter. I still occasionally get a phone call scam wanting me to call about the interest rates I'm paying on my credit card. But a snail-mailed scam—that doesn't happen much anymore. However, the other day my husband got this one:

Lily Shaw, the vice-president of American wants to give him two round-trip airline tickets to anywhere in the US. Note on the envelope above and the letter below that she doesn't have a return address. You'd think a high-ranking individual in American Airlines would have a return address. The envelope is postmarked "Phoenix, Arizona."

 But wait—it doesn't exactly say "American Airlines," does it? It just says American." Here's what the real American Airlines logo looks like:

See, nothing like the one on the letter:

I did a bit of Googling. The American Airlines Headquarters is Fort Worth, TX, not Phoenix, AZ. Somehow, VP Lily Shaw isn't even listed among all the other vice-presidents on American Airlines' corporate structure page.

Turns out a lot of other folks got the same letter. One of them commented:

I got the same letter, no return address, no official letterhead, hand addressed envelope. My husband called the number, the business is Direct Vacation Deals, they claim to be a ticket reseller, they buy in bulk. They ask if you if your income is 50k or more, if you refuse to say they hang up on you. They want to make an appt with you at a hotel for a sales pitch but they won't say what it is for other than they want to be your travel agent. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Yep. Scam. But at least the scammers had to shell out a stamp in their attempt to scam us.

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