Online travel agents bilked of $1.2 million Saturday, 18 March 2000 19:57 (ET)

Online travel agents bilked of $1.2 million

NEW YORK, March 18 (UPI) -- A New York City man, using the online screennames "Nestle Quick" and "Tha Baker," used e-mail to distribute stolen airline tickets worth $1.2 million that he had allegedly bilked from online travel agencies.

Ashley Simmons, 29, faces charges of unauthorized credit card use and trafficking in unauthorized credit cards.

If convicted, he faces a sentence of 25 years in prison and a fine of at least $250,000.

According to authorities, Simmons allegedly posed as an online travel agent and used stolen credit card numbers to purchase electronic airline tickets. He then sold the tickets for pennies on the dollar via several free e-mail accounts.

The federal investigation began after several people were charged for airline tickets they never ordered.

According to investigators the scheme worked in part because the Brooklyn man used e-mail addresses that were not easily traceable to his real name.

"I think the larger lesson is to be wary of businesses using free e-mail addresses," Mukesh Chandrani, special agent in charge of the Secret Service office in New York told The New York Times. "If you're a legitimate business, and someone is able to do thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in commerce with you, would that person need a free e-mail address?" Investigators are unsure where Simmons got the stolen credit card numbers but they said they suspect he got them off the Internet.

http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=72425

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), March 18, 2000