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Added by Jopie, at 08 June 2017
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15 June 2017
50th Birthday Trip Marred By Theft and Cloning of Credit Cards
First, I want to state that it was not easy writing this review. Chitwa Chitwa asked that I delay my review while they investigated the theft and cloning of our credit and debit cards. Since May 20th I have not had anymore communication from the lodge when I provided them with more details of fraudulent charges on my credit card.
I had planned our stay at Chitwa Chitwa over a year ago for my husband's 50th birthday surprise. My son and I put a lot of thought into choosing a game lodge and we felt Chitwa Chitwa was the place for us. We stayed from March 25 - 29, 2017.
Our time at the lodge was amazing , but everything fell apart after we left the lodge and moved on to Cape Town and the Winelands. Six days after we left Chitwa Chitwa both my husband and I started to receive phone call after phone call from the fraud departments of our various banks and credit card companies. I received the first phone call and we didn't think much of it as these thing can happen. However, an half hour later, my husband received a call from a different credit card provider and 6 calls later we were left with no usable credit or debit cards. The banks provided locations and times of where the cards were being used. We quickly Googled the locations - all in the Kruger National Park area. And how was it our cards were being used on the other side of South Africa when we were in the Winelands? Well, a very enterprising staff member(s) of Chitwa Chitwa cloned our cards. How could this be? Well, we never once needed our wallets while at Chitwa Chitwa and were left them in our hand luggage the whole duration of our stay. We were out of our suite more than we were in - morning game drive, breakfast, lunch, evening game drive and dinner. It was our naiveté not to use the safe, we know. You just would never expect this sort of thing to occur in a 5 star hotel / lodge / resort - especially in the African bush.
What has been even more disappointing is both the response from Icon Expeditions and Chitwa Chitwa. After discovering the fraudulent use of our cards (and some of the transactions were indeed successful) I immediately contacted Icon Expeditions as I thought they would like to know a lodge they were recommending employed staff committing these sort of crimes. Furthermore, the senior management of Chitwa Chitwa was not around during our stay and my husband were uneasy about contacting the lodge as the credit card fraud was more than likely committed by someone we had met at the lodge. Icon Expeditions expressed regret and passed my e-mail on to Stefan and Chantal of Chitwa Chitwa who did contact me. I responded to ever single e-mail each sent to 'assist' with their investigation. I have not heard anything from either since May 20th which is very upsetting. While the managers apologized never once did they offer to assist us, reimburse us for any of the costs we incurred because of the theft of our cards or offer us compensation. We did have some South African Rand, but this ran out quickly with 4 more days left of our trip. We ended up exchanging GBP at poor exchange rates and high commission. When we made our latter hotels aware our situation the managements went out of their way to help us and even offered to 'loan' us money. The loss of usage of our cards prevented us from fully enjoying our last few days of trip. We had to watch how we spent money (something we never ever do on vacation) and prevented us from buying gifts and souvenirs. We spent precious vacation time on the phone with banks and after we returned home spent weeks scrutinizing statements and resetting up standing orders and direct debits.
Before departing Chitwa Chitwa we wrote personalized thank you notes to the staff and left generous gratuities. And how did Chitwa Chitwa reciprocate. Well, my review pretty much sums it up.response / report this review
