Hotel fraud

[pyratt]

And the name of this fine establishment and suspected employee is: ?

We're not too homoginized here to pass a warning on to the rest of the DR1 community are we?

The credit card company is investigating and the hotel manager is aware....shouldn't we be as well?

[Chirimoya]

Thanks for all the replies.

Update: My friend's bank agreed to cancel her credit card before any charge could be made.

Sdyent: The guest does have a receipt for his $300 cash payment, which is being sent to the hotel, so they don't have a leg to stand on.

Pyratt - I have mixed feelings about posting the name of the hotel, especially as it appears that just one individual was responsible for fraud. However, we will only have the hotel management's word for it as to whether they actually deal with this person.

Maybe for the time-being we should just make this a general warning, and advise posters to proceed with extreme caution when using credit cards in any hotel, ensuring that all receipts are in order and holding on to the receipts in case of any situation arising.

[SantiagoDR]

Another thing to beware of, double billing with the same charge receipt.

This happened to me once, had a heck of a time to get VISA to understand.
They kept saying they have copies of both bills signed by me.

I told them YES, but it´s the SAME BILL submitted twice over several weeks time. Told them to hold the bills up to the light together, and see how they are the SAME bills.

After many debates back and forth, they finally saw the light come on......


Don ♥ SantiagoDR

[tflea]

Paying cash in hotels and/or resorts, same with purchases of other goods have not worked well for me here, as cash is just too damn tempting for employees. The hotel, the shop, the establishment, the country is not really the point I don't think. It's the integrity of the employee. Of course it reflects on the hotel/business. Maybe you can argue it's a hiring, screening or training issue but when someone flops cash down on the counter that represents big money to the receiving employee it is certainly a temptation , and cash is cash, with or without receipts, and can't be trailed as easily, or canceled as readily as credit cards. And if the employee gets fired, even if it's 'justa causa', they still win a lot of court cases on technicalities. Most companies don't even bother if they have a lot of employees, they pay the legal requirements and move on. I guess they/we find it worth it.
All that said, I agree with Chiri not posting the hotel's name.

[Chirimoya]

Update:
Happy ending.

...En relación al caso del pago del Sr. XXXX, antes que nada deseo
pedirle disculpa, el empleado que realizo el cobro nos mintió y lo tenemos
bajo investigación, pudimos confirmar que el Sr. XXXX pago cash como
usted nos informo, le agradecemos a usted que nos ayudó en resolver este
caso, como el dije le pedimos mil disculpa por los inconvenientes que le
hemos causado y a la vez le reiteramos agradecimiento, estamos a sus
ordenes...

"...Regarding the case of Mr. XXXX's pay, before anything else I would like to apologise, the employee who made the charge lied to us and we have him/her under investigation, we can confirm that Mr XXXX paid cash as you informed us, we thank you for helping us solve this case, as I said we are very sorry for the inconvenience we have caused and reiterate our thanks, we are at your service..."

No sh!t, Sherlock

Seriously, I'm glad it was all resolved. Can my friend ask them to refund the bank charges incurred when she cancelled her card?

[Chip]

Originally Posted by Hillbilly

the manager is also close to being illiterate....in his "native" language...

HB

It's a shame but true.

It's unfortunately apparently indictive of the majority of the people here from what I've seen personally(just check out some of the online forums). Pretty depressing - they ought to hang that madame who has that US$5M dollar house in Jarabacoa(figuritively speaking of course).

[tflea]

I am 'indictivating' that maybe some are in the same boat who post here?