Ticket fraud is probable
by man with scam recordWayne Abe allegedly ran a scheme
selling Hawaiian Air tickets
A Hawaii man with a long history of swindling residents appears to be behind a Hawaiian Airlines ticket scam that has cost hundreds of customers nearly $400,000.
Wayne Abe was identified by customers and a ticket agency representative as responsible for a scheme in which travelers were offered a bogus package of round-trip mainland tickets at prices far below the market rate.
Hawaiian said in a news release that the man was known to identify himself as "Wayne of Travel Discount" or other variations involving the use of "Wayne" or "Dwayne." He is described as about 50 years old and 4 feet 10 inches tall; he wears glasses and walks with a limp, Hawaiian said.
File a complaint
Hawaiian Airlines notified the Honolulu Police Department of the ticket scam and advises anyone who is a victim to call 911 to file a complaint and indicate when and where the transaction occurred. The airline also encourages customers who think they may have been scammed to call its customer advocate line at 838-3500 during business hours to confirm ticketed reservations.
Hawaiian said the scammer would solicit people to purchase five round-trip mainland tickets at $250 each, with a sixth round trip added for free. Payment was required in cash upfront, Hawaiian said.
In most cases, individuals were able to take one round trip and sometimes two, but the remaining trips ended up being worthless, Hawaiian and some affected customers said.
Hawaiian spokesman Keoni Wagner said 300 trips have been canceled since February because of invalid ticket numbers. He said it was difficult to estimate the total number of people affected because some might have had more than one trip scheduled, and there may be unreported cases.
However, the magnitude of the scam could approach $400,000 if 300 or more people purchased the five-round-trip package at $1,250 each.
"We want people to look out. We don't want people to fall victim," Wagner said.
"One thing we want to make clear is travel agencies are not involved in the scam," he added. "This individual is paying real money for real tickets, and then the scam takes place between the scammer and the customer."
In January a state Circuit Court Judge ordered Abe to repay $9,250 for airline tickets he sold but never delivered while doing business as an unlicensed travel agent for Wayne's Travel. The judgment cited four incidents in 2000 and 2001.
In February 2000 the state Regulated Industries Complaints Office investigated Wayne's Travel, a company run by Abe, after up to 36 bowlers paid him about $13,000 but their travel arrangements were never completed.
Abe's state travel agent's license was revoked April 25, 2000, following a 1999 complaint that he failed to refund money.
Abe could not be reached yesterday for comment.
Wagner said the man's apparent scheme involved holding a Hawaiian airline reservation with an invalid ticket number. Abe would then purchase an e-ticket from a travel agency either the day before or same day of the scheduled flight at a price far above what he charged customers. Once he gained the customers' trust on the initial tickets, Wagner said, he would attract other customers through word of mouth.
One group victimized was the Kokokahi Gymnastics Team, which purchased at least 50 tickets and has been able to use about half of them, according to coach Kalani Pa.
"We travel to the West Coast a lot because it's the only competition we have, and we heard about this guy through a travel agency," Pa said. "He told us that if we bought 12 or more, we could get the next one for free. We thought it was a good deal."
However, Pa said the parents of the club's participants began to get suspicious when they called prior to a January trip to Oakland and found out there were no reservations.
"We called Wayne, and he said we had paper tickets and they might be lost in the mail," Pa said. "He said he would take care of it, and when we got there it was fine."
The gymnastics club attempted again in February to fly to Oakland, Calif. Reservations were nonexistent ahead of time, but by the time they checked in, they were in the system.
With another trip scheduled for May, parents of the Kokokahi gymnasts found out Abe had been using Honolulu-based Prestige Travel Unlimited Inc. to purchase his tickets.
A spokeswoman at Prestige said yesterday that Abe was not an employee, but had been making purchases there for about two years.
"He would come in and buy tickets from us, and he'd always say he was buying them on the behalf of church members or team members," the spokeswoman said. "But he'd come in and pay us retail, which is almost double the price."
