Shortly after Qantas tweeted a warning to its consumer data base about an unspecified email scam this afternoon this infrequent user of its services remembered deleting via an email preview program a peculiar message from the Qantas frequent flyer program.

It provided links, none of which were enabled, to an app which would improve my selection of international flights.

Which was weird, since the only way Qantas can do that is to actually go back to flying to the places Australians seem increasingly keen to fly to.

An app isn’t going to give me more Qantas, just more somebody else, and I’m in somebody else’s program too, so why would I bother flying pseudo Qantas when I can fly a real airline, in which the flight code is the same as that of the airline performing the service.

But whether the Qantas email to me as a member was real or not, and I did incinerate it before actually downloading the message and anything else it may have contained, so I’ll never know for sure, the Tweet to beware shown below is itself ‘weird’.

If Qantas gives a flying rat’s *rse for its members integrity in such matters why would it fob us off by urging we report it to Scam Watch, rather than also referring it to them.

It is the Qantas brand that is being undermined by the scammers, and it’s confidence in their legitimate data base marketing and protection of confidential consumer information that is under threat here.

But see also the shameful nonsense which earned in a Choice Shonky overnight.

The mystery email that was deleted before it was studied in detail did carry all of the relevant details of a Qantas Club membership that is not actually in my full and correct name as in my passport and other important legal forms of proof of identity.

Those who are internet accustomed ought to have a reflex action that says do not download unsolicited apps, followed by the why-the-hell-do-I-need-such-an-app anyhow response.

Then again Qantas seriously approached consumers to install the app that won it a Shonky that would have shown it all of a Qantas Club member’s search inquiries for declared commercial purposes, which is indicative of intrusive, immature, and inconsiderate behaviour on its part, so maybe the original but now deleted email from Qantas was real.

It would be helpful to itself, and its members, if Qantas performed a purge of its policy settings on data base marketing and the security measures that it has in place and came back with a new, open, clearly enunciated explanation of exactly what it is up to with our data.

Meanwhile, Qantas needs to explain why any Qantas club member should trust any email it might send to them other than booking codes for itineraries they know they have purchased and screen captured anyhow.