Every couple of months, I have to fly for work so it’s always a process whenever I have to go somewhere.
The worst part for me is the idea of leaving any kind of personal information on the outside of my checked luggage so it can be identified in case it gets lost. So far, I haven’t had any lost luggage so I am in the clear on that one.
However, the concept of someone harassing me always gives me the creeps. Thankfully, I was given a new option a couple of months ago.
I was talking with one of my friends and he had the thing where he would keep one of those prepaid phones with about a hundred or so minutes on it. He would keep a little bit of time on the phone and make that the number that he would leave on the outside of the bag. If anyone ever tried to harass him he would just change the number on the phone.
It’s a scary thought to think about how many people have access to your private information.
If you apply for a job, you sometimes have to provide your social security number. What will they do with that?
When you apply for a car loan, you have to give the dealer all your personal information. And when you check your luggage for a flight, the airline employees can see all sorts of personal information about you like where you’re from and what your cellphone number is.
This story is about that. One American Airlines employee took a phone number from a passenger’s bag and then followed her onto the plane because he found her very attractive.
He then proceeded to text her more than 100 times – all of the messages were extremely creepy – and completely violate all privacy agreements that American Airlines promises its passengers.
Ashley Barno suddenly started getting text messages from a man who identified himself as Ahmad. He told her that he swiped her phone number, name, and address from the information on her carry-on bag. Since he worked for American Airlines, he had easy access to that.
He then boarded the same flight Ashley was on from San Diego to Chicago, even texting her, “I am on board now. Are you going to Chicago, too??”
Ahmad then promised Ashley free flights and access to VIP lounges if she would only grace him with her presence.
After she told him to leave her alone and that him stealing her personal information was “not cool,” he tried to sweet-talk her into switching seats to be next to him.
“It’s up to you, but friendship with me will be very beneficial to you! I can always give you good seats, access to the lounges, and free flights, too! You can think about it. But if it’s still a NO, that’s up to you. I will not bother you again, but at least give me one chance to prove myself!”
Ahmad was not on duty with American Airlines at the time of the harassment but did have privileged information about the way things worked with the airline.
