Airport worker issues warning over sneaky luggage tag scam

A Reddit user who says they work at an airport has warned travelers of a scam involving your luggage.

When it comes to traveling through an airport, things can get a little tricky and stressful at the best of times.

However, the more you travel the more things you learn on what you should and shouldn’t do to ensure the easiest and smoothest journey for yourself.

But a Reddit user has warned people against this habit with their luggage as they claimed it can be used by scammers and that people need to be a little more vigilant.

Posted in the ‘r/delta’ forum on Reddit the user claimed to be a baggage claims manager and insisted people should not throw their bag tags away at the airport.

The Reddit user has called on people to make sure they aren't doing this one thing in airports (Getty Stock Image)

They wrote: “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 people on social media have said they would stop pulling off their tags when they collect their bags, a travel expert has weighed in on this potential scam.

Texas-based travel industry expert, Gary Leff argued that while it may be possible, it is unlikely that it is so prevalent that it is becoming a problem.

The scammers are allegedly reporting bags that are collected by the owner as lost (Getty Stock Image)

Speaking to Fox News Digital, he said: “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.”