Beware of fraud / scam

I read about scams like this on the internet but never thought I would fall victim to one. However, I guess there's a first time for everything. I booked tickets to Central America through FlyFairTravels because the price was significantly cheaper than on Kayak or Google Flights. I was suspicious that it might be too good to be true, but the agency had good reviews on Google, so I decided to take a chance.

Later, I revisited the reviews and noticed they all seemed similar, leading me to suspect they were written by AI, which fooled me. Here's what happened: I booked the tickets (flying with United) at a much lower price than on legitimate websites. The next day, I received a call from the FlyFairTravels stating that United didn't have basic economy tickets available for the departure flight and that I needed to upgrade to the main cabin at double the price. When I refused and asked for a refund, they informed me I would have to pay a penalty of about 80% of what I paid because United had already reserved my return flight tickets.

I asked to speak with a supervisor and was transferred to Ernesto, who repeated the same thing. While waiting for Ernesto, I checked United's website and chatted with a United agent, who confirmed that the agency's claim was false and that plenty of economy seats were available on the flight I booked.

After arguing with Ernesto, he admitted that United did have seats available, but I would still have to pay a few hundred dollars more because prices had supposedly risen overnight. I asked the United agent about this, and they said the prices had remained the same for the past few days.

Ernesto's next excuse was that I couldn't get a refund or the tickets at the original price because United had already booked the return flight seats. However, the United agent told me that was also a lie, as they only book seats when they are available for all flight segments of the itinerary.

After spending almost an hour on the phone with Ernesto and proving that all of his arguments are lie he still refused refund my money or book the tickets according to their published prices, even though they still had those prices published on their website for the days and itinerary I booked. Luckily as soon as I felt the situation is a scam I start recording our conversation on which I inform Ernesto as well as I kept transcript of my chat with United and the screenshot of original booking. I have informed Ernesto since we're not coming to any agreement I am planning to sue this travel agency for scam and false advertisement and hang the phone. 5 minutes later somehow my money magically became refundable and I received an email from the agency that my book is is canceled and my credit card will not be charged. I assume that many people fall as victim of the scam and weren't as lucky as I was and either had to pay hundreds of dollars extra or lose their money.