My credit card was stolen and used by Mr. Pon at BBB INN
My credit card was stolen and fraudently used by BBB INN ex-supervisor, Mr. Pon. I stayed at the BBB Inn in January 2006. I paid with my bank ATM card on the day I checked out. In the hurry to get my language to the taxis waiting in RAMA 4 road, the staff forgot to return my bank card to me. Then I flew to Vietnam for the remaining vacation days (another 2 weeks). When I was in Vietnam, I realized I had forgotten to take the bank card back from the staff. Naive as I was, I thought BBB INN would not dare to mess with the card. They did. Actually, the staff gave the card to the supervisor, Mr. Pon. He used to swipe it on BBB INN machines as a payment for some other customers, who paid their room with cash. So Mr. Pon pocketed the cash, and used the credit card transaction on my bank card as the payment report to his manager. Of course his managers has no suspicion of his fraud.
Mr. Pon then used my card to go around town and buy clothes, jewelries, groceries, and dine at fine restaurants using my card, while I was vacationing in Vietnam. Total transaction was up to $2500 USD or close to $BTH 100,000, a substantial amount in Thailand, where a worker only make a few thousand baths a month. That's like 2 years of salary there.
When I get back to the States, got online, and check my bank statement. Holly shit! All these transactions took place in Bangkok while I was still in Vietnam. You can imagine my feelings at that time.
I immediately called the BBB INN phone number posted on their website. They told me to talk to the manager, Mr. Ulf, who's originally from Denmark (i think). Of course Mr. Ulf remember me, as I stayed there almost two weeks. He started the investigation, and later told me it was the supervisor, Mr. Pon, who used my bank card. There was nothing he could do except firing Mr. Pon. I would have to be in Bangkok to file a police report. He couldn't do it for me, because he was not the victim.
I filed a dispute with Bank of America, providing them with the details and the email from Mr. Ulf, acknowledging the crime. The bank gave me the temporary credit for the amount in dispute. After 45 days of investigation, the bank gave me the temporary credit as permanent.
You should contact your credit card company and file a dispute. They must have a record of the transaction with your signature. Otherwise they will have to credit the amount back to your account.
I have nothing against BBB INN. In fact, I enjoyed my stay. The staff were nice. The place was convenient and not so bad. However, I could not ever imagine the greed of Mr. Pon. I could never have thought he would stab me in the back, while I was nice and tipped his services very generously during the stay.
Just be careful when you are in Bangkok. $1000 dollars is not so big here, but it is huge over there. It makes any body greedy and does things that we normally would not imagine they would do. That's my lesson. Next time I will be very careful, and pay only cash! :)