When you have the opportunity and funds to travel with your family, it feels like you’re on the cusp of experiencing new and exciting places together while also creating long-lasting memories. It’s exciting! But It’s such a shame when something happens during your trip that dampens the entire experience. An Australian family watched their dream vacation suddenly being ripped to shreds when a misplaced suitcase along a stopover in Indonesia from Europe led to them to losing $28,000 in a travel scam in mere minutes.
A woman named Natasha and her family from Melbourne were stopping over in Jakarta for three nights on their way home from a European vacation in October 2025 when they accidentally picked up the wrong black Samsonite suitcase, the New York Post reported.
When the family of five arrived at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, they realized their mistake and they handed it off to the hotel staff, per News.com.au. Natasha told the news outlet that the missing suitcase belonged to her teenage sons and contained their birthday presents, but luckily, it could be tracked because they had stashed Apple AirTags inside.
When Natasha woke up the next morning, she was surprised to learn that the missing suitcase had traveled more than 2,000 kilometers away and was at Sam Ratulangi International Airport in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, News.com.au reported. The mom of three asked staff at the hotel if they could help.
She was told that her suitcase could be returned for a small fee, and she was sent a payment link from the individual at the airport via what she thought was the hotel’s WhatsApp messaging account, according to the Post. When she tried to put in her Qantas Titanium credit card information, it didn’t work. “I tried the card four times, and then I just thought, this is very strange,” Natasha explained.
When the mom tried her bank account instead, she received a text message that there had been a fraudulent attempt on her card and the card had been temporarily blocked, News.com.au reported. When she opened her Qantas Titanium app, that’s when she discovered $28,000 had been taken from her account in four transactions in just 30 minutes, per the news outlet. It appears someone had tried her debit card and when it didn’t work, moved on and were successful swiping the money from her credit card.
“Then I went to the hotel (and said) ‘Why did you send me an unsecured payment link’? They just didn’t really say anything and didn’t know what to do,” she explained.
Qantas could evidently do nothing to help her either. “I immediately called Qantas Titanium and told them to stop the transactions and they informed me that they couldn’t because they had gone to a cash app called Tokopedia. Qantas was mostly concerned about replacing the card,” she told the Post.
And a few weeks later, she received an email from the company asserting it would not accept liability, meaning she would have to pay back that $28,000, per News.com.au.
After lodging many complaints and speaking to everyone from the Marriott group, the National Australia Bank, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, Indonesian police, and many others, the couple were met with additional fees in order to get their lost suitcase back in their possession, News.com.au reported.
“It’s hard to talk about … I haven’t really told many people because I’m so ashamed about what happened. But I would really like it to be out there so it doesn’t happen to another family or person,” Natasha told News.com.au.
Hopefully this family’s traumatic experience can serve as a lesson for others to be extra cautious when traveling abroad and using a credit card, especially through unsecured links.
