Tali Shine took to Twitter to be heard over her allegation of being stalked by a Qatar Airways employee. Photo / via Twitter
Tali Shine took to Twitter to be heard over her allegation of being stalked by a Qatar Airways employee. Photo / via Twitter
The simple act of changing a flight turned into a horror nightmare for an Australian author and TV presenter.
Tali Shine was flying with Qatar Airlines and made changes to an online booking, which led to her being stalked and terrorised.
She said she was contacted relentlessly for five months by someone from the airline and her alleged stalker is relentless. She says he phones her time and time again in the middle of the night.
After changing her flight, the man was able to access a number of her personal details, including her passport number, credit card digits, address and phone numbers.
She told Nine News she booked a flight through Qatar Airlines online and a few days later called the airline to make some changes.
"This man began sending me WhatsApp messages," she said.
"He told me that he came across my picture accidentally and noticed that I had nice eyes. I blocked the number then started getting hourly phone calls from the same person."
She left Sydney and travelled back to London, but she still didn't manage to escape his constant messaging.
"He continued to call my phone hourly, tried to follow me on social media," she said.
He ignored her when she told him that he'd stored her details against the Privacy Act.
"I never replied to any message and blocked the number each time," she said.
"When he kept calling after the flight, I said, 'Please stop calling me, this is illegal and you should not have taken my details, if you don't stop I will report you'.
"I hoped that if I just continued to ignore him and kept blocking his requests to follow me on social media, it would stop. However, months later I'm still getting phone calls throughout the night. Each time I block the number, I then get more calls on another medium - it was Viber a few nights ago. He also calls me from private numbers."
Shine told Nine News she had alerted Qatar Airlines about the incident, but she claimed the airline did not take action. Photo / 123RF
The man would send her messages that said: "U (sic) have amazing eyes I just dialed (sic) wrong number I was searching for my friend."
"But saw this pic its amzing (sic)."
In another exchange he said: "Ur (sic) eyes wow."
Shine told Nine News she had alerted Qatar Airlines about the incident, but she claimed the airline did not take action.
"The craziest thing of all, is that they don't respond to complaints," she said. Shine ended up making a complaint to the police.
"The police took it seriously and suggested that I also think about getting a new passport and credit card because he has those details as well," she said.
Shine told Nine News she had not been the victim of credit card fraud.
She said she was contacted by the airline on Wednesday night and gave them details about how her personal information was available to a stranger.
She said people experiencing a similar issue should contact the police straight away.
News.com.au has contacted Qatar Airlines for comment.
