Going to a restaurant, customer swiped card and had nearly 700 million VND deducted

After eating with friends at a restaurant in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, an Australian customer paid by card and was charged 39,429 AUD (about 683 million VND).

According to the petition of Ms. Le Kim Yen - the representative of Australian tourist named Caracciolo David John, on the evening of August 11, he went to Nightfall restaurant (8A/1D1-2D1 Thai Van Lung, District 1) to have dinner with friends. After using the card to pay for the food and drink there and then returning home, he discovered that the card had been deducted 39,429 AUD, equivalent to about 683 million VND in Vietnamese currency.

Ms. Yen said that the restaurant staff deliberately swiped the card multiple times (both cards from ANZ and Macquarie - an Australian bank). At that time, they asked Mr. Caracciolo David John to enter the password multiple times with the reason of a problem and did not give him any payment invoice or money transfer receipt.

A foreign customer who paid for dinner at a restaurant by card had nearly 700 million VND deducted. Illustrative photo

"Because of trust, Mr. Caracciolo David John did not check again. It was not until he returned home and received the bank statement that he discovered that Nightfall had swiped the card 8 times, the total amount of money stolen was 39,429 AUD, equivalent to 683,150,000 VND," Ms. Yen said, affirming that Mr. Caracciolo David John did not sign any invoice when paying at Nightfall.

Contacting the Nightfall restaurant at 8A/1D1-2D1 Thai Van Lung, District 1 - where Mr. Caracciolo David John paid by card, this place is now closed. Searching on the Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department, Nightfall Restaurant Company Limited is still in operation and the date of registration of the most recent change of information is May 12, 2016 with the new address on Nguyen Sieu Street, Ben Nghe Ward, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City.

However, there was no sign of activity at this new address as it was just a closed house and there was no company sign. When calling the registered phone number, someone answered and said that this was her family's private phone number and had nothing to do with the Nightfall restaurant.

On the HCM City Tax Department, Nightfall restaurant is still operating.

A bank leader said that in similar cases as above, the cardholder will usually request the issuing bank to verify the transaction. Accordingly, the card issuing bank will send a request to the bank providing POS services for the card acceptance point to re-check the transaction.

If the card acceptance point (as in the above case, Nightfall restaurant) proves that the customer has used the service, has full invoices, documents... then the above payment transaction is considered valid. In case the card acceptance point cannot prove that the customer has used its service as the amount has been deducted, the service providing bank will request the card acceptance unit to return the money, and the card issuing bank will refund the money to the customer's account. After that, the card issuing bank will ask the police to investigate and handle the card acceptance point according to the law.

The bank leader said that in the past, card-issuing banks in Vietnam also had customers who had their card acceptance points fraudulently used. "Most of these card acceptance points are usually set up just to swipe cards illegally. They have been investigated and handled by the police depending on the level of violation," he said, adding that it is very difficult to completely resolve these cases because they often set up new legal entities and then continue to violate.

According to VNE