I ata know better! This edition of Belly Ache will surely strike a familiar chord for many of you, as we’re quite sure, like us, you’re all used to receiving those absurdly obvious scam emails about so-and-so’s uncle who was an ex-general in Nigeria, or Uganda, or somewhere and rather inconveniently died leaving millions of dollars, or gold and gems stuck in a bank somewhere. And guess what – if you just send US$10,000 so that the Generalissimo’s niece can do the necessary paperwork, you’ll be rewarded with a cool half million for your efforts. Yes indeed… and have I got a bridge (or airline as the case may be) to sell you!

Occasionally, when we’re really bored (which almost never happens at work), we’ll open such emails for fun, just to see if there’s any new angle to this age-old scam. Just the other day it so happens we received one of these emails.

In this case it was not a particularly new tactic or topic, in fact we’ve received many of these ‘Overdue IATA invoice’ emails, but this time was different… this time we decided to far we could push the bluff! And yes, it was a particularly boring day in the office in case you’re wondering.

In short, the email purportedly came from a one, Anita Dzepina, Administrative Assistant at the Montreal office of IATA – which as it turns out is somewhat factual as indicated by Ms Dzepina’s LinkedIn profile. Address, phone numbers, email… all looking pretty respectable – well, accept for the email address it was sent from – ‘[email protected]; on behalf of; International Air Transport Association’. Really now, they could have put a little more effort into making it look authentic by creating an ‘iata_accounts@ gmail.com’, or something at least vaguely more plausible!

So to make a long story short, we replied to kagtnnanager626@gmail. com and asked for a copy of the outstanding invoice so that we could settle our ‘overdue account’. And lo and behold, we received a reply with invoice attached! And according to the rather official looking invoice – complete with IATA logo, etc – we owe a grand total of US$10,075!

We’re not quite sure what ‘Designator’ and ‘Prefex’ fees are, but apparently we owe for these services along with administrative fees. One thing is clear from this… we now know why so many people get upset with IATA, just look at the administrative fees they charge – US$2,825 in admin fees alone for one year! Ouch that’s gouging! Ok, ok… we’re just kidding – so don’t get all perturbed with us IATA, we’re just having some fun ok?!

So with the invoice in hand – we did think about having some fun with our finance manager, but he’s an odd character with little, or no sense of humour really and while we do enjoy torturing him we reckoned the downside temper tantrum just couldn’t justify the upside laughs we would reap – we replied to the perp (-atrator) that since we didn’t trust banking over the Internet we would send a bank draft to the Montreal address of IATA. Oddly enough, that provoked an immediate response that we were NOT to send any money to the Montreal address as only bank transfers were accepted! It would appear however that this particular ‘IATA’ has a very curious account at Lloyds bank! And so, hitting an impasse over payment method, we abandoned our fun and went back to work. Actually we went for lunch instead, having spent a fulfilling morning of mirth and skyving! And should you be reading this, Ms Maryam Jafarzada, it’s been a pleasure corresponding with you and should you be interested after accumulating your hardearned cash, we have a lucrative investment opportunity for you in the airline sector! And one final note for the rest of the Belly Ache readers… Google tells us that Jafarzada is a Nigerian surname… sheesh, what are the odds of that!?!