A Reddit user, who identifies as an airport employee, has alerted travelers about a luggage scam.
Navigating an airport can be a challenging and stressful experience, even under the best circumstances.
However, frequent travelers often pick up tips on what to do and what to avoid to make their journey more seamless.
Despite this, one Reddit user has advised against a particular luggage habit, claiming it is a target for scammers and urging individuals to remain vigilant.
In the ‘r/delta’ forum on Reddit, a user claiming to be a baggage claims manager advised against discarding luggage tags at the airport.
They stated: “Toss your bag tags at home.
“We are getting an influx of fraudulent claims being submitted for ‘missing items’ as these people are observing who is removing their luggage tags in the claim areas and using your information to submit claims for reimbursement.
“From my own personal experience [of] currently dealing with this, it is causing issue[s] with reimbursing the real people if they submit a legitimate claim.”
“So please be careful and don’t take your tags off at the airport,” the person concluded. “They can steal enough information from that to use your travel itinerary to get paid.
“A bag tag only consists of the name, flight[s] and confirmation number outside of the tag itself. They make an email address with that person’s name in it, a random phone number and a random address and submit the claim.”
While some individuals on social media have decided against removing their tags after collecting their luggage, a travel expert has provided insight into this potential scam.
Gary Leff, a Texas-based travel industry specialist, suggested that while feasible, the scam may not be as widespread as feared.
In a conversation with Fox News Digital, he remarked: “You should keep the bag tag attached until any baggage issues are fully resolved, then discard it at home.
“That said, this doesn’t strike me as plausibly a high-volume, common scam.
“Bags are scanned. Each scan from check‑in to baggage belt is logged. If a scammer files a missing bag claim where the system shows it was delivered, that’s going to be a flag, especially when this happens at scale.
“The most common thing is filing lost bag claims for items that were actually delivered, which I’ve written about a couple of times.”