Altered image does not show S. Africa’s main airport selling unclaimed luggage
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on December 13, 2023 at 14:30
- Updated on December 14, 2023 at 12:58
- 7 min read
- By Tendai DUBE, AFP South Africa
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One post includes a picture showing hundreds of suitcases inside a warehouse and among them two yellow signs with the airport’s logo and a purported price tag of “R38” ($2) in a large black font (archived here).
“A suitcase with lost items from airport customers in South Africa for just R38. The airport has no storage space for lost luggage, so suitcases with various items and electronics are being sold for just R38!,” reads the post published by an account called “OR Tambo Airport” on December 3, 2023.
The post adds: “Online only. To order click on the button in the advert and go to the website!”
The account’s page transparency shows it was created in 2017 and is managed predominately from Colombia and Vietnam, not South Africa.
A second page responsible for publishing the luggage claims was previously named “The Guinea Pig Farm”. In November 2023 it changed to “O.R. Tambo International Airport” and began posting pictures of suitcase collections.
The posts are false and have nothing to do with a discounted sale of lost luggage by O.R. Tambo International Airport officials.
Florence airport
A reverse image search showed that the photo of the suitcases purportedly for sale was posted in July 2023 to a Reddit community for content related to Florence, Italy (archived here).
Florence Airport Lost Luggage Mess
by u/RhinestonePommelboy in florence
The user posted photos and a story about a family member who had struggled to locate their luggage after it was lost at the Florence airport.
According to the post, after three visits the family member was taken to the airport hangar where all lost and unclaimed luggage was kept.
Titled “Florence Airport Lost Luggage Mess”, the post includes the picture falsely linked to South Africa and another image showing a wider angle of the hangar in Florence.
A closer look at the original images also reveals that the yellow-and-black signs were digitally added to mislead social media users.
Comments on the recent posts shared in South Africa showing open suitcases filled with clothes and other personal effects helped to perpetuate the false claim.
“My suitcase was full of quality items from my favourite brands, Calvin Klein, Zara, Lev`is (sic) and others. It was a real hypermarket of fashion in one suitcase!” reads one of the comments.
However, a reverse image search showed the picture was published on Pinterest (archived here) in April 2023.
Two more similar posts (here and here) also used altered photos to which yellow "R38" price signs were added.
One of the photos was originally published on a Russian forum in November 2015 and another was taken at Edinburgh Airport in July 2022 (archived here and here).
Phishing scam
The links featured in each of the fake airport posts lead to a page promoting unrelated products — a cloud pillow in one case and a wireless charging pad in another.
Additionally, URLs, including “goodsalefee4.quest” and “baglost4.skin” appear to be mirror websites of a real online retail company called Madoxxy.
The mirror websites do not let the user make any purchases; all attempts to click on the buttons to "add to cart" or "buy it now" yield no follow-up action.
Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), which operates the country’s major airports, has warned of the scam on X (formerly Twitter) and urged passengers to visit their website to verify information.
“Passengers are advised to beware of baggage scams on social media, and syndicates claiming to sell lost/unclaimed baggage from any of our airports”, reads the statement from November 20, 2023 (archived here).
‼️Passengers are advised to beware of baggage scams on social media, and syndicates claiming to sell lost/unclaimed baggage from any of our airports. We urge passengers to visit our website at https://t.co/jkhjlis2GC to verify information. pic.twitter.com/yGfVbjcr2z
— Airports Company SA (@Airports_ZA) November 20, 2023
A keyword search of “lost luggage sale scam” on Google also found multiple articles and debunks in the last few months about similar scams around the world, including Dublin Airport, Auckland Airport, Malta International Airport, Bandaranaike International Airport, Ninoy Aquino International Airport and Singapore Airlines (archived here, here, here, here, here, here and here).
All the posts used a similar method but published different pictures to show the collection of lost suitcases.
The posts appear to be a phishing scam which entices social media users to visit the sham website allowing cyber criminals to steal their banking details or leading them to divulge personal information.
AFP Fact Check debunked a similar hoax earlier this year about selling electric bicycles at an unbelievable discount.
UPDATE 12/14/2023: Adds two more examples of scam posts
December 14, 2023 Adds two more examples of scam posts
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