Is airline ticket overbooking fraud? What protects airlines (if anything) from fraud charges when they sell same ticket to multiple people for a single flight? Why might this be fraud? In most consumer transactions (the norm), if I sold what is perceived to be an exclusive right multiple times, I would assume a fraud had taken place (because everyone who did not receive that right has been deceived). Is an airline ticket transaction different from normal consumer transaction that makes this not fraud?
Airlines do not sell the same ticket to multiple people: each person gets their own ticket (you can verify that by looking at the ticket number, which is unique). They do sell more tickets than can be accommodated by particular airplane. In so doing, no material false claim is made. Consumers may have wrong ideas about what buying a ticket means, but airlines are not obscuring anything. The United Carriage Contract specifically says, rule 5G: All of UA’s flights are subject to overbooking which could result in UA’s inability to provide previously confirmed reserved space for a given flight or for the class of service reserved. In that event, UA’s obligation to the Passenger is governed by Rule 25. You can pretty much Google "contract of carriage ___" filling in the desired airline, to find the applicable clause.
This is an interesting and challenging question, with broad applications. The standard answer is &quot;read the contract&quot;, to which one should reply &quot;show me the contract&quot;. It has to be findable from a web page – a contract can't be a secret document that the accepting party cannot find. At the bottom of their main page, you can find a TOS. It states that This Website is provided solely to assist customers in gathering travel information, determining the availability of travel—related goods and services, making legitimate reservations or otherwise transacting business with travel suppliers, and for no other purposes. In other words, they disavow any implication that they are also selling you a product. The agreement is with &quot;the customer visiting the Website and/or booking a reservation through us on this Website, or through our customer service agents&quot;, which confirms that they are &quot;facilitating&quot; an arrangement (with a &quot;partner&quot; i.e. the airline). The agreement part comes where they say By accessing or using this Website, booking any reservations for travel products or services, or contacting our call center agents, you agree that the Terms of Use then in force shall apply In case of dispute, there is a section on &quot;working it out informally&quot;, which has the bottom line You and Expedia agree that any and all Claims will be resolved by binding arbitration, rather than in court, except that you and we may assert Claims on an individual basis in small claims court if they qualify. This includes any Claims you assert against us, our subsidiaries, travel suppliers or any companies offering products or services through us (which are beneficiaries of this arbitration agreement). The section &quot;SUPPLIER RULES AND RESTRICTIONS&quot; which starts Additional terms and conditions will apply to your reservation and purchase of travel—related goods and services that you select. Please read these additional terms and conditions carefully. In particular, if you have purchased an airfare, please ensure you read the full terms and conditions of carriage issued by the travel supplier, which can be found on the supplier’s website. You agree to abide by the terms and conditions of purchase imposed by any supplier with whom you elect to deal, including, but not limited to, payment of all amounts when due and compliance with the supplier's rules and restrictions regarding availability and use of fares, products, or services. Airfare is only guaranteed once the purchase has been completed and the tickets have been issued. Airlines and other travel suppliers may change their prices without notice. We reserve the right to cancel your booking if full payment is not received in a timely fashion. I went through the exercise, and it does offer a highly unintelligible stream of text that states the &quot;rules&quot;, though the text is hosted on Expedia and not the carrier's website (this refers not to the contract of carriage, but to the booking-specific contract details that state the flight-specific conditions. The contract of carriage is on the UA webpage). The next paragraph states In case of a no-show or cancellation, you may be entitled to a refund of airport taxes and fees included in the price of the ticket purchased. Where you are eligible for a refund, you can request such a refund from Expedia customer service, who will submit your request to the airline on your behalf. You will note the conditionality of this information. They do promise to submit your request to the airline – that's part of the contract. Your agreement with Expedia is murky, but it appears that you have not agreed to acquire a flight from Expedia in exchange for money, rather, you have agreed to allow Expedia to facilitate your contract with the carrier(s), where there is no clear statement of &quot;consideration&quot; in the agreement, but one may assume that what they get is whatever commission they have negotiated in their contract with the carrier. It is not clear to me that there is such a thing as &quot;Expedia credit&quot;. They refer to airline credit, which is certainly a thing. The first thing they say is &quot;If you’ve had to cancel or change your non-refundable flight, most airlines will offer you a credit instead of a refund&quot;. I can attest that issues do arise when an airline cancels a flight then issues a credit rather than a refund, however that was a foreign carrier who changed their policy after a year. The named airline has a (current) statement of refund policy. Your relation with the airline is ultimately reducible to their contract of carriage. Refunds are covered under Rule 27. In theory, they should therefore issue a refund, but also read Rule 24, where para D says In the event of a Force Majeure Event, UA without notice, may cancel, terminate, divert, postpone, or delay any flight, right of carriage or reservations (whether or not confirmed) and determine if any departure or landing should be made, without any liability on the part of UA. UA may re-accommodate Passengers on another available UA flight or on another carrier or combination of carriers, or via ground transportation, or may refund, in its sole discretion, any unused portions of the Ticket in the form of a travel certificate or travel credit. So it depends on the circumstances.
I can't speak for the US but in Australia this would not be binding. You entered a contract for the vacuum cleaner the terms of conditions of which were made known to you at the time of purchase &ndash; the ticketed price, any store or website displayed terms and whatever was written on the outside of the box. Any alleged terms that were not made known when you entered the contract e.g. because they are inside the box are just that: alleged. In addition, the manufacturer would have committed an offence under Australian Consumer Law by misleading you that such terms were binding. This could lead to a fine in the multiple millions of dollars if the breach is widespread and egregious enough.
You are conflating the crime against the state of possession stolen goods with the common law tort against the owner for conversion. To your questions: How would this proceed? It seems like it would be very difficult to prove (short of getting public surveillance footage) that I even bought the item. If you read the second paragraph of the page you linked it says: In many jurisdictions, if an individual has accepted possession of goods or property and knew they were stolen, then the individual is typically charged ... If the individual did not know the goods were stolen, then the goods are returned to the owner and the individual is not prosecuted. Proof of the crime involves a "beyond reasonable doubt" standard of evidence of both the fact that you have the goods and that you knew they were stolen. If you become aware that they were stolen (e.g. the police tell you) and try to keep them then you have just committed the crime. Proof of the tort requires a "balance of probabilities" standard of evidence that you have the goods and that they belong to someone else; your knowledge that they were stolen is immaterial. In the first instance, the police would probably knock on your door, tell you why they were there and ask if the version of the story they have from the thief is essentially true. What happens next depends on your response: "Yes, I knew it was stolen; you better arrest me and I will plead guilty." This will play out as you expect. "Yes, I didn't know it was stolen, I will go and get it for you." You return the goods, give a statement and may have to act as a witness in the prosecution of the thief. You are down $1,000 but are now older and wiser. "No, I have no idea what you are talking about." Well, you have now committed the crime of hindering a police investigation and have also committed the crime of possessing stolen goods - you can no longer claim that you didn't know the goods were stolen; the police have told you they are. What happens next depends on if the police believe you or the thief. Surely they couldn't/wouldn't get a warrant to search my house? Want to bet? They certainly have enough to get a search warrant if they want one (probably). Whether they seek one probably depends on the value of the goods, how busy they are and how much you pissed them off. Could I be prosecuted if I didn't know it was stolen? Not if you return it as soon as practicable after being made aware that they were. The scam This seems like a lot of work for a very small return - spend your time worrying about things that are more likely to happen. Good Title All of this is tied up with the concept of good title. Basically, you cannot gain good title to property from someone who does not have good title themselves; if you buy goods from a thief you do not own them. For example, if A has good title to the goods, B steals them and sells them to C who sells them to D then A still owns them and can demand their return from D, D could demand the return of their money from C and C could do likewise with B but as far as A is concerned it doesn't matter that C &amp; B have lost money; that is simply too bad for them.
The primary question is whether you actually committed a crime in signing a credit card receipt, when you are not the cardholder nor are you authorized to sign on behalf of the cardholder: did you commit fraud? It is not possible to accidentally commit fraud, you have to have intended to deceived the other party that you are authorized to sign. For the sake of discussion, I will assume that you had no such intention. Presumably, the person who ordered the stuff will wonder &quot;where is my stuff?&quot;, will complain to the vendor, they may then find the signed receipt and some evidence regarding where the goods were delivered. Whether or not they contact you asking for an explanation / return of the goods, the police would have to investigate the situation in light of some allegation that you committed fraud. The police will not just come knocking on the door and nab you (in the US: North Korean law is different). In many jurisdictions, there is a requirement for a warrant supported by probable cause. If the investigation provides sufficient credible evidence proving that you did intentionally falsely sign the receipt, to the point that given those facts you would be convicted of the crime, then there is probable cause for a warrant for your arrest. The fact of signing a receipt is not probable cause to support such an arrest, but other facts could be added to reach that level of evidence.
"Fraud" requires an intent to deceive. In cases like this I would fall back on the saying, "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence." Practically speaking: the email you received from them is an amendment to their Terms of Service. I.e., your contract with the company starts with their standard Terms of Service, and is modified by any agreement you reach that explicitly supersedes the ToS. Based on your description it is your credit card company that is in violation of its duty to adjudicate chargebacks. If you refuse the charge, and present the email agreement and evidence of A's "failure," then the card company has no grounds to impose the charge on you (unless the merchant in its response to the chargeback can convincingly argue that the email agreement is invalid).
Written Contract If there was a written contract, the fact that it wasn't signed is not relevant. While a signature is evidence of agreement with the terms there are other ways that acceptance can be indicated: like you paying them $600. Wrong Information Where the error is fundamental to the performance - e.g. you needed shipment to Alaska and they were offering shipment to Alabama, the contract would be void ab initio. That is, it never happened and everyone needs to be returned to their original positions as far as possible. However, in general, an error by one or the other party in their understanding of what was agreed does not invalidate the contract. For example, if you told them it was a "small" dog because it was small for a Great Dane but under an objective classification, it is, in fact, a "large" dog the contract must be completed and either you or they wear the additional cost of doing so. Whether they are entitled to ask for additional payment "due to some wrong information" depends on who took the risk under the contract for its correctness? Barring a specific term, the risk usually lies with the party that provided the "wrong information" but some contract will assign the risk for one party's errors to the other party - subject to a requirement to act in good faith. If they are not entitled to additional payment, they have to perform the contract for the original fee. If they are entitled, then you have to pay a reasonable price increase - you are not generally entitled to cancel. All of this turns on the specific terms of the contract and the exact nature of the "wrong information". Consumer Protection Law CPL in your state or their state or both will almost certainly have something to say about this beyond common law rules of contract.
Depends on where you are, and likely also on what they knew when. It is entirely normal to order some goods (like perishable food, or custom-fitted furniture) before it is produced. The contract may or may not include advance payment. Most jurisdictions require some sort of intent for fraud, so the non-fulfillment would not be fraud if circumstances beyond the control of the supplier prevent delivery. The question of civil damages and repayment is distinct from criminal fraud charges.