BBB Inn - Bangkok

Does anyone know how a charge for staying at The BBB Inn in Bangkok appears on your credit card?

I stayed at the BBB Inn 5 or 6 months ago and in the last two weeks a charge has appeared on my credit card from 'The Boy Bangkok'. Anyone know if the BBB Inn charges appear as "The Boy Bangkok' on credit cards.

I have emailed bbbinn@thaiboy.net twice asking if this is a charge made by them and if so, why are they making this charge, but they have so far failed to respond. If it isn't them I need to contact my credit card company asap.

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[wowpow]

You may well be wise to contact your credit card company without delay and tell them that the charge is in dispute and request it being suspended.

[lo-so]

The go-go bar called the Boys Bangkok is part of the same group along with Dream Boys and BBB INN.

If you're worried about keeping your credit card statement virginal and white, why don't you just pay in cash?

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!

[wowpow]

I think that post proves the reliability of Wstern credit cards which are guarenteed against fraud. Thai credit cards are NOT in my experience. Take extra care of any Thai ATM or credit cards as they have no cover and you cannot always get to stop them over the weekend - even when a bank advertise a 24 hour system. Friends had an ATM card stolen and the thiefs found the pin code hidden elsewhere. That was on a Saturday and by the time they could get through to the bank to report it the thieves had taken out 3 x 20,000 baht.

Don't know what your experience has been TP, but I have experienced fraud on my Thai credit cards twice, and had the fraudulent transactions be reversed immediately without any fuss.

Thanks for your responses. I never did get a reply directly from the BBB Inn, but I found that a guy called 'Pan' (not sure Cuteboyasia if this is your Mr Pon mentioned in your post) who was answering questions and confirming bookings on the Thaiboy.net website under the BBBInn guestbook section. He kindly confirmed that 'The Boy Bangkok' is the correct retailer information which appears on credit card statements, I have no problem with this.

After checking my statements I didn't find any charge made on my card from the time I stayed at the BBBInn in early March 2006, or any subsequent month, the charge only appeared over 5 months later on my account. It does send me into a bit of panic when a sum appears on a statemment that you originally know nothing about.

[wowpow]

In the UK now all the credit cards have PINs which you tap in instead of signing. I don't know the PIN for one particular credit card but in Thailand I had not come across the pin machines. My card would not work without a PIN at Habitat. When they tried to use it without a pin at Villa Supermarket my card was REFUSED. I made a long phone call to the UK security for my bank and they told me that the card was stopped when the pin was not put in a Villa? They re-set the card to take pins until late September when I go back to the UK and my pin will be waiting. What a todo. The phone call took about 18 minutes. I was happy to be using www.jajah.com as it only cost 1.5 pence a minute. I now chat to London chums for free on my landline.