He was convinced he uncovered a massive airline conspiracy. Here’s what he found instead.

We love when our readers come to us to expose wrongdoing.

It’s helped to toss people in jail . Get new laws passed. And it teaches us all important lessons about scams, fraud and how to protect ourselves.

Sometimes, mistakes happen, but there can still be plenty of lessons to learn in those cases.

Let’s dive into one of them.

One of our longtime readers — we’ll call him Cal — thought he uncovered something big.

“I have what I think is a huge story for you involving airlines and travel agents,” he wrote. “I’d describe it as at least a scam, possibly a felonious one.”

Cal wanted to book a flight from Newark to Key West, Florida using mileage on his airline-affiliated credit card.

He called the number on the back of his card — or so he thought — waiting on hold for 40 minutes. When