I Searched for Airline Phone Numbers and Found Fake Ones on Page One. Here Is How to Spot Them

In my post about airline chatbots that will not pass you to a human, I said you should take the phone number from the airline's official site, not from the search results. Since this affects all of us who travels, I think we need to have a specific post for this issue and so this is that post.

On 3 November 2026, I searched Google for airline phone numbers. I tried seven search terms in Japanese and three in English. The Japanese searches showed pages with fake numbers for JAL, ANA, Korean Air and AirAsia on page one. The English searches showed the same kind of pages for US and European airlines.

I am not going to repeat the fake numbers here. Printing them would only help spread them. Instead, I will show you what the fake pages look like and how to get to the real number.

What I Found on Page One

Here is what each search showed on the first page.

1. "jal 電話番号 海外から" (JAL phone number from abroad). The first result was JAL's official page on jal.co.jp. But the same page had two results that listed a US toll-free style number starting with "+1-888" as JAL's contact.
2. "航空会社 電話 繋がらない" (airline phone won't connect). Four results listed numbers starting with "+1-866" or "+1-888" as ANA's contact. One of them was a file uploaded to archive.org.
3. The same number reused. One "+1-888" number appeared as JAL's contact on one page and as ANA's contact on another. One number cannot be the call centre of two different airlines.
4. "大韓航空 電話番号" (Korean Air phone number). Three results listed a "+1-888" number as Korean Air's "Japan customer centre". Two of them were files on archive.org.
5. "エアアジア 電話 問い合わせ" (AirAsia phone enquiry). Four results listed Japanese or Brazilian numbers as AirAsia's "official line". Two of them sat on the North Dakota state government site (nd.gov). In fact, AirAsia said in an official statement on 16 March 2026 that it does not run customer service by phone at all.
6. "シンガポール航空 電話番号" (Singapore Airlines phone number). I did not see any obvious fake pages. Page one was Singapore Airlines' own contact pages for different countries.
7. "how to talk to a human at airline customer service". Six results on page one were fake pages with numbers for KLM, United, Delta and American Airlines. One was a PDF on the Missouri state government site (mo.gov).

Search results change by person and by day. What I describe here is what I saw on 3 November.

The next day, 4 November, I saw the same thing again. I searched in English for "United Airlines reservations phone numbers outside the U.S.". United's own page was in the results. But next to it were several files with fake numbers. They sat on a University of Arizona site (arizona.edu), a Colombian government site (supertransporte.gov.co) and a consulting firm's site, among others.

One more thing. For the JAL and Singapore Airlines searches, the first result was the official site. The fake pages were mixed in from position two downwards. The search with the most fake pages was "airline phone won't connect". So the people most likely to land on a fake page are the ones who are already stuck and cannot get through.

What Happens When You Call a Fake Number

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) put out a warning about fake customer service numbers in 2020. It says scammers create fake contact details for well-known companies and pay to have them show up in your search results. When you call, they offer to fix your problem if you wire money or send gift cards. They may also ask for personal information or for remote access to your computer.

In 2024, the FTC also warned about scammers who pretend to be airline customer service. In March 2026, AirAsia Philippines asked customers to avoid contact numbers from unverified sources.

According to the FTC, the scammers pretend to be airline staff and ask for your booking confirmation number, phone number or bank details. That information is then used for identity theft or unauthorised charges. The real airline knows nothing about the call.

Watch Out for Calls That Ride on JAL's Data Breach

There is one more reason to be careful right now. On 28 October 2026, JAL and JTA announced unauthorised access to a system run by Amadeus, one of their suppliers.

According to the announcement, about 92,000 people are affected. For about 90,000 of them, the booking reference, name, flight date, route and cabin class were viewed from outside. For about 2,000 people, email addresses, phone numbers and passport numbers were also involved. JAL says credit card numbers and passwords were not leaked. It also asks customers to watch out for suspicious emails, calls and fake sites pretending to be the JAL Group.

The point to remember: someone who knows your booking reference and your name is not necessarily the airline. If someone calls or emails you about your booking, hang up or close the email. Then call the number on the official site yourself.

Five Signs of a Fake Page

The fake pages I saw on page one had a few things in common.

1. It is not on the airline's own domain. The fake pages sat on archive.org and on US state government sites (nd.gov and mo.gov). Anyone can upload files to archive.org. The files on the state government sites also look like they were placed through upload features open to the public. A ".gov" address does not make a page safe. In the United search, the fake files also sat on a university site (.edu).
2. It gives a US toll-free number for a Japanese airline's Japanese-language desk. The format alone does not prove a number is fake, though. ANA, for example, lists a "1-800" number for callers inside the US on its US contact page. The same page also gives a "+1-310" number, not toll-free, for callers outside the US. The question is not what the number looks like but where it is published. Also, US toll-free numbers usually do not work from outside the US.
3. The digits are disguised. Some pages wrote the digits in decorative characters like "𝟙-𝟠𝟠𝟠", or put ">" signs or underlines between them. I think this is to get past search engine and spam filters. Airlines write their numbers in plain digits on their own sites.
4. The same number is repeated again and again. The page repeats one number many times. And the same number shows up as the contact for different airlines.
5. The title and text read oddly. I saw titles full of symbols like "((Customer~@Service!!ANA案内))", and English titles in mixed upper and lower case like "FoUr WaYs". Some pages called themselves the "official 24-hour line".

How to Get to the Real Number

When I call an airline, I check the number in this order.

1. Open the airline's site without going through the search results. Type the address yourself, or use a bookmark or the airline's official app.
2. If you do use the search results, check the domain. For example, JAL is jal.co.jp, ANA is ana.co.jp, Korean Air is koreanair.com and Singapore Airlines is singaporeair.com.
3. Take the number from the country contact page on the official site. I explained how to choose which office to call in the chatbot post.
4. If you are the member of an airlines's frequent flyer program and have their member card, refer to the back of the card for the number. That is usually the best place to find the customer support number.
5. Before you dial, check which country you are calling. In PuchiDen, the dialler shows the destination country and the per-minute rate before you press call. If you meant to call a Japanese airline's Japanese desk and the dialler says United States, stop there. Check the number on the official site again.

If You Have Already Called a Fake Number

1. If you gave your card number, call your card company now and have the card stopped. ANA gives the same advice for people who entered their card details on a fake site: ask the card company to reissue the card.
2. If you gave your airline account password, change it on the official site.
3. Check on the official site that your booking has not been changed.
4. Report it. In Japan, you can contact the consumer hotline on 188 or the police consultation line on #9110 if you lost money. Neither works from some internet phone services, so call from a mobile or a landline. In the US, you can report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

Before You Call

Do not call a number straight from the search results. Check the number on the airline's official site. If someone contacts you about your booking, hang up and call the official number yourself. Those are the three things I stick to.

In the next post, I plan to list the call-centre numbers of airlines that are easy to reach from Japan, each with a link to the official page it came from.

Open the dialler and call the number from the official site