The IT Nerd

Earlier today, I listened to my wife sit on hold with Porter Airlines. For 95 minutes I listened to her endure hold music while trying to get to an actual human being. And what made this worse is that their phone system claimed that there was a five minute wait and she was number 26 in line. Clearly neither of those things were true. So I hopped onto Twitter to express my displeasure:

I just listened to my wife try to call @porterairlines to deal with an issue & not get through after 95 minutes on hold despite the fact that the phone system said it was a 5 min wait and there were 26 people in line. Neither number changed during the time she was on hold. #Fail

— The IT Nerd (@The_IT_Nerd) October 30, 2023

Now as an aside here, this is a horrible customer experience. If you say that a customer only has to wait a few minutes, then it should only be a few minutes. This experience suggests to me that the wait time that the phone system that Porter uses is lying to customers. Ditto for the number of people in line to wait to get connected to a human. This suggests to me that Porter’s call centre is likely understaffed relative to the number of calls that they receive. Again, that’s not a good customer experience.

Now, I’m not here to talk about how bad Porter’s customer experience is. What I am here to talk about is what happened after I posted that Tweet. I got this:

Hello , It's unfortunate for the challenge encountered. We would like to closely look at the concern raised. Please, share with us via DM your WhatsApp number to allow us probe further.^Ha

— Porter airlines (@airlines__u) October 30, 2023

Now this looks like Porter’s Twitter account. Except it isn’t. Let’s start with the name of the account:

@Airlines_u is not Porter’s official Twitter account @PorterAirlines is. So right off the top, that’s a red flag. Second, there’s the quality of English. A phrase like “It’s unfortunate for the challenge encountered” isn’t something that a business would use. Finally, the ask to “DM your WhatsApp number” is not something that any business would ever ask. Clearly this is a fake account on Twitter that is trying to fool you into doing something that won’t end well for you.

But wait, there’s more. A second fake Porter Twitter account sent me a message:

Hi, there! We appreciate you contacting. We’re sorry about the negative experience you had, and we are more than willing to help you with this. Kindly follow back and share your number via DM so we can assist you promptly.

— porter Airlines (@porterairl) October 30, 2023

Again, let’s pick this apart. Starting with the twitter account name:

Well, “@porterairl” is marginally better than the last one, and this might fool someone who isn’t looking too closely. But it’s still fake. And the second tip off is that the phrase “Kindly follow back and share your number via DM so we can assist you promptly” sounds like a phrase that a non-native English speaker might use.

Here’s why this matters. This sort of thing is now an epidemic on Twitter as Elon Musk has just simply destroyed any means for Twitter users to use Twitter to get assistance from a company. And it’s not just me saying that. Sticking with fake airline accounts, here’s what others have said:

X needs to do a better job at dealing with these fake accounts. Come on @elonmusk, the number of fake airline and other business accounts is getting ridiculous.

— Brandon Farris Photography (@BDFphotography) October 28, 2023

⚠️Fake Accounts Impersonating Airlines ⚠️

There are several fake accounts impersonating as Airlines support handles, asking for personal information, mobile number over DM.

Just double check the support account before sharing any personal information.

Repost maximum. https://t.co/vEJEIIpY6L pic.twitter.com/xF5TcE1UKT

— Cashback Traveler (@IManthanJoshi) October 30, 2023

So we're gonna normalize fake airline accounts trying to "help" customers? Do smt abt this pls @elonmusk @X pic.twitter.com/ortYMNU87R

— 尺乇卂丨 (@realtraindev) October 23, 2023

Ughh the customer service scammers are real. As an airline a question on @X and get 10 responses from fake accounts telling you to DM them. #avgeek #travel

So sad for what this platform has become.

— Dana Freeman (@DanaHFreeman) October 28, 2023

Such is the dumpster fire that is Twitter. Given what I’ve experienced, I am surprised that any company would want to have a presence on Twitter as there’s just no way that they could conduct business in any meaningful way. Thus I would say that if you need help, and you need to reach out to a company, you can’t rely on Twitter to get that help. As for companies who are on Twitter, consider this your big hint to dump Twitter and beef up your other support channels. Because Twitter is not a credible platform for you to do business on.

UPDATE: I am now up to four fake accounts that have tried to reach out to me:

I honestly don’t know how Porter or any other company can conduct business on Twitter given this.

This entry was posted on October 30, 2023 at 11:06 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.