Jesse Lingard, now playing his club football in Brazil with Corinthians, has become the face of a series of social media adverts for a company accused of defrauding customers out of thousands of pounds on supposedly discounted flight bookings, according to reports.
The company, Concierge First, markets itself as a UK operator offering business and first-class seats at steep markdowns off standard airline pricing.
Multiple people who paid for tickets say they never received them and were unable to get a refund once the company stopped communicating.
One customer, a London resident in his mid-40s who spoke to iBusiness.News on condition of anonymity, said he handed over roughly £2,000 for a business-class round trip to Dubai on Emirates — close to half of what the airline itself was quoting. He said Concierge First went silent after receiving payment and no tickets ever materialised.
“I paid Concierge First over £2,000 for Business-class return tickets to Dubai with Emirates, which was around half of the price I was seeing online on the airline’s own website,” they said.
“After I paid them, they stopped responding and never provided the tickets.”
A check of Companies House records shows no match for the company registration number listed on Concierge First’s own website, raising further doubts about its legitimacy. The firm appears to source most of its customers through targeted paid promotions on Meta-owned platforms.
Lingard appears in more than one clip promoting the service, including footage apparently filmed onboard a flight where he thanks the company by name, and a separate clip posted in late August in which he credits a contact called “Cam” with securing him first-class travel at a steep discount and encourages viewers to reach out to the firm.
“I recently used Cam and the team at Concierge First to arrange my first-class flights and they saved me up to 80%, which is really good,” the ex-Man Utd footballer said.
“Concierge First are the real deal guys, so get in touch with them,” he claimed.
Whether Lingard genuinely endorsed Concierge First — or whether the footage was manipulated using AI to fabricate his involvement — has not been established. His representatives at JL Commercial did not respond to enquiries by iBusiness.News about the ads, including whether he was paid for his appearance or whether the clips were doctored.
The identity of “Cam,” believed to be connected to the company’s leadership, remains largely unconfirmed beyond a sparse Instagram presence.
Now 33, Lingard came through Manchester United’s academy and made over 200 appearances for the club across a decade-long spell, also featuring for England at senior level before a string of loan moves — including West Ham and Nottingham Forest — preceded permanent exits from Old Trafford. He later had a brief stint at Sevilla before signing for Corinthians.
He isn’t the only public figure whose image has surfaced in Concierge First promotions. Rapper ArrDee and influencer Ed Matthews have also appeared in similar content for the firm.
