Do You Have to Pay a Deposit First to Get a Full Refund for an Air Ticket? A Shenzhen Lawyer Analyzes the Legal Characterization of Flight Refund and Rescheduling Scams and the Paths to Rights Protection
A "customer service" call that could accurately recite a flight number and ID card number, and a demand for an upfront "deposit," nearly caused Shenzhen resident Mr. Zhao to lose 3,000 yuan of his travel reserve before his Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day trip. Staff at the Chunfeng Branch of Postal Savings Bank of China in Shenzhen, relying on professional sensitivity, immediately helped Mr. Zhao verify the flight information through the airline's official website on the spot, exposing the "flight delay refund" scam. From a legal perspective, this attempted incident cannot be summed up simply as "be careful"—it reflects the operating logic of the telecom fraud industrial chain, the legal dilemmas victims face when safeguarding their rights, and how ordinary people should use legal tools to stop losses and pursue accountability after encountering such scams.
The Legal Characterization of Flight Refund and Rebooking Fraud: More Than Simply Swindling Money
From a criminal law perspective, impersonating airline customer service, fabricating a flight delay, and inducing a transfer under the guise of a “security deposit” already closely conform to the constitutive elements of the crime of fraud under Article 266 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China. The core of fraud lies in “fabricating facts and concealing the truth,” causing the victim to fall into a mistaken belief and, based on that belief, dispose of property. In this case, the perpetrator had precise knowledge of Mr. Zhao’s ticket purchase information and fabricated two key facts—a “mechanical failure delay” and that “payment of a security deposit would allow a full refund”—the purpose being to make Mr. Zhao voluntarily transfer 3,000 yuan.
It is worth noting that such fraud is often not committed by a single person. According to the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Several Issues Concerning the Specific Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Fraud, where a person uses telecommunications network technology to commit fraud and the value of the public or private property defrauded is 3,000 yuan or more, this reaches the threshold of a relatively large amount, and the person may be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention, or public surveillance, and shall also or only be fined. Even if Mr. Zhao was unable to actually transfer the money this time because the bank intercepted it, the perpetrator may still constitute attempted fraud—under Article 23 of the Criminal Law, an attempted offender may be given a lighter or mitigated punishment in comparison with a completed offender, but this by no means means that there are no consequences if no money is defrauded.
In judicial practice, courts in Shenzhen have continued to take a strict approach in cracking down on telecommunications and online fraud. Since 2025, among telecom fraud cases concluded by Shenzhen courts at both levels, many defendants committed crimes under the pretext of flight ticket refunds or rescheduling. Such cases usually show gang-based and cross-border characteristics: upstream are data vendors who illegally obtain citizens’ ticket purchasing information, midstream are call teams specializing in making phone calls, and downstream are runners responsible for money laundering. Once funds are transferred out, they are often dispersed across multiple accounts within minutes or even flow overseas, making the recovery of illicit funds extremely difficult.
Personal information leaks are the root cause of precision fraud—how does the law assign liability?
The reason Mr. Zhao nearly fell for the scam was that the other party knew exactly which flight he was on and even his ID number. Behind such precision, there is almost inevitably illegal acquisition and circulation of citizens' personal information. From the perspective of the legal chain, ticket purchase information may have leaked through various channels, including leaks by airline insiders, system vulnerabilities in third-party ticketing platforms, and hacker attacks. Whichever channel was involved, it implicates the Personal Information Protection Law of the People's Republic of China and the crime of infringing on citizens' personal information as provided for in Article 253A of the Criminal Law.
Under the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Infringing on Citizens' Personal Information, illegally obtaining, selling, or providing 50 or more pieces of tracking information, communication content, credit information, or property information constitutes serious circumstances. Flight information is tracking information, and illegally obtaining or selling 50 pieces is sufficient to constitute a crime. If an airline or ticketing platform causes user information leakage by failing to fulfill its information security protection obligations, under Article 66 of the Personal Information Protection Law, it may also face a fine of up to 50 million yuan or 5 percent of its turnover in the previous year, and the responsible persons may also be fined and prohibited from holding relevant positions for a certain period.
For ordinary travelers, after falling victim to such fraud, in addition to reporting the matter to the public security authorities, they may also seek civil compensation from the information processor under Article 69 of the Personal Information Protection Law. This article establishes the principle of presumption of fault: if an information processor cannot prove that it is not at fault, it shall bear tort liability such as damages. This means that if it can be proven that the ticketing platform has security vulnerabilities, the evidentiary difficulty for victims seeking compensation will be significantly reduced.
The Golden Window for Stopping Losses After Fraud: Evidence Preservation and Emergency Stop Payment
Mr. Zhao was fortunate that bank staff intervened in time, but not everyone can encounter such a “last line of defense.” If a transfer has already been made, the victim should immediately take three actions: First, call 110 or go to the nearest police station to report the case, and at the same time call China UnionPay customer service at 95516 or apply for emergency stop payment through the National Anti-Fraud Center app; Second, fully preserve evidence such as call records, text messages, chat screenshots, and transfer receipts, and take special care not to delete any record of communication with the scammer; Third, contact the bank where the account was opened to explain the situation and apply to temporarily freeze the account involved.
From the perspective of legal practice, securing evidence is the foundation for subsequent recovery of stolen assets and compensation for losses and for civil actions incidental to criminal proceedings. Under Article 101 of the Criminal Procedure Law, a victim who has suffered material loss as a result of the defendant's criminal conduct has the right to file an incidental civil action during criminal proceedings. In practice, however, defendants in telecom fraud cases are mostly “call operators” or “money mules,” while the real masterminds often hide overseas, making the actual enforcement of incidental civil actions quite difficult. Therefore, reporting to the police as early as possible and stopping payment as early as possible are far more effective than litigation after the fact.
The public security organs and the banking system in the Shenzhen area have established a relatively mature rapid payment-stop coordination mechanism. Generally speaking, the 30 minutes after a transfer is the golden window period for stopping payment, and after 24 hours the possibility of the funds being transferred away rises sharply. Mr. Zhao did not actually make a transfer this time, but if he had already transferred the money, bank staff discovering the abnormality and proactively reminding him and assisting with verification could likewise become important evidence in a subsequent report to the police—the testimony of bank staff, surveillance footage from the branch, and so on can all corroborate the existence of the fraud.
Legal Thinking for Fraud Prevention During Travel Season: From Not Believing to Knowing How to Verify
A staff member at the Shenzhen Chunfeng Sub-branch of Postal Savings Bank of China said something worth everyone remembering: How could an airline, when refunding a ticket and returning the money, have any justification for asking the customer to pay a deposit first? From a legal-logic perspective, this involves a basic principle of contract performance—in a lawful ticket-refund legal relationship, the passenger and the airline are in a contract of carriage, and refunding the ticket is an act by which the passenger exercises the right to terminate the contract. Under Article 816 of the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China, if passengers cannot travel at the time stated on the ticket for reasons attributable to themselves, they shall complete the ticket refund or change procedures within the agreed time limit. An airline's charging of a ticket refund fee is based on the contract, but there is absolutely no legal basis for requiring passengers to pay money first and receive a refund later.
Any operation requiring a transfer of funds before a refund constitutes an abnormal method of performance in civil legal relations. Fraudsters exploit travelers’ unfamiliarity with refund rules, their greed for a full refund, and the false sense of trust created when the other party can accurately state personal information. The advice from a lawyer’s perspective is: upon receiving any call claiming to be from an airline or ticketing platform about ticket refunds, changes, or rebookings, the first step is not to argue or inquire but to hang up immediately, and then proactively check the flight status through the airline’s official website, official app, or the original ticketing platform. Do not call back the incoming number, do not click links in text messages, and do not disclose your bank card password or verification code to anyone.
For companies, travel peak periods such as the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day are also periods when employees travel frequently for personal reasons. Some companies book tickets uniformly for their employees; once information is leaked, it may affect the entire team. Corporate legal or administrative staff should send anti-fraud reminders to employees in advance, clearly informing them that the company will not require employees to pay any security deposit through a private phone call. If a company causes employee information to be leaked due to vulnerabilities in its own ticket-booking system, it may also face internal accountability pursued by employees.
Guangdong Zhiming Law Firm reminds you that preventing telecommunications fraud and safeguarding rights is a systematic legal undertaking. If you unfortunately fall victim to a flight ticket refund or rescheduling scam, in addition to reporting it promptly, you should also consult a professional lawyer to assess whether there are grounds to claim compensation for personal information infringement against airlines and ticket-booking platforms. In cases involving relatively large amounts and cross-border money laundering, lawyers can assist victims in organizing evidence, following the progress of the case, and, when necessary, filing a criminal incidental civil action or a separate civil tort action. The first step in protecting your wallet is to stay vigilant, while the first step in protecting your legal rights is to find professionals to handle professional matters.
