daniellam

Bingo! Perhaps this happened during evening turndown service?

Might be possible that the maid left the door slightly open (sometimes they do this when they have to go out to refill the ice bucket or get more towels etc.) and perhaps with a sign on the door knob saying "Room Being Service" or similar.

Another person (could even be another guest!) just happened to see it as an opportunity and went into your room and swiped your girlfriend's credit card and left.

In situations like this, the door lock logs would only show one transaction, which is the maid opening the door.

I personally have a suspicion that this other person is another guest and looks more like a foreigner than a local. So even if confronted by the maid, he/she could have pretended it was their room and they came back to retrieve something they forgot. There's probably a ring of these people that travel around stealing from hotels and even from overhead bins on airplanes.

Newman

catocony

What's your point, Pete?

Kacee

I had a stolen item experience at GH Kauai several years ago. Management simply stopped responding to me. So I learned the hard way that the easiest response for the property is just to pretend this stuff doesn't happen.

zoqfotpik

I don't think it's unreasonable. I suggest you post your experience on TripAdvisor.

JayhawkCO

This is incorrect, as someone who works at a hotel that has its own thread on FT can attest to. If it's an RFID card reader, there is 100% a log of all access to that door, whether via assigned door keys or fobs that staff uses.

Chris

strife

Of course there are logs (and I am one of those who has worked at many properties that have threads on FT), but the point made was that probably no one with the requisite sophistication cares enough to actually investigate the door logs.

Frankly, at some properties I worked at even here in the USA, management response to potential or even likely employee theft was appalling. Sweep it under the rug and it never happened seems to be a prevalent MO across the globe, unfortunately.

fdem

writerguyfl

Yes, that's correct. It would be a brand standard to have locks with an electronic log for every chain hotel for a US-based hotel group.

TravelingNomads

OP, this may have already been said earlier in the thread, but I've had something similar happen and the CC company told me that they now can somehow transfer everything to another card. I don't know how it's done, but you could've possibly paid at a restaurant and they could have somehow made a copy of the card to another card. Again, I don't know how it all works, but this is how it was explained to me because I had possession of my card the entire time. I don't know if they do it from an online purchase or an in person one, but they've gotten much more sophisticated in how they do it.

GetSetJetSet

LOL @ the Marriott bootlickers in here saying this is no big deal and to let it go. The OP should 100% have had the GM pull records of who accessed the room, cross check with security cameras and made sure the offender was tossed in jail. For STARTERS your entire stay should be comped. Do not lie back and take it.

seat38a

I just don't understand the whole virtue signaling by some people who've never lived in a specific country or city. When I visited Peru, Mexico City and other parts of Mexico, it is the locals who tell me how messed up things are and what I should avoid to be safe. They seem to have no qualms about being honest about messed up situation in their country. I've known quite a few Brazilians and stories of the messed up situation in the country including corrupt police are common. I'm heading to Argentina this December, guess what, my Argentine friends have a laundry list of things and places I should avoid because of crime and or corruption.

RafKa

The time at which the fraudulent charge was made is completely irrelevant (i.e. OP was out for dinner) as most likely the card was skimmed at a merchant, ATM, or details stolen from a website.

I recently received SMS notifications of fraudulent charges work online retailers to my credit card while I was in the shower at the Hilton in Singapore. Said card was not used at all during the trip and remained with me the whole time - it never occurred me to blame the hotel. However, the credit card details were stored with some websites (Marriott/SPG, Hilton, British Airways), some involved in high profile hacks and most likely source of the fraud.

Moral of the story:
1- You may be wrongfully accusing the hotel: are you sure the card couldn't have been skimmed by a merchant, or at an ATM (very common in Brazil). Or perhaps used to book travel on a Brazilian website?

2- In the event the card details were indeed stolen by hotel staff: valuables should always be kept in a safe. The hotel provides it and declines liability for missing items for that very reason.

3- You're not $5K out of pocket. The cc company had sorted it out. This stuff happens while traveling. Move on with life.

Dr. HFH

Oh, please. So you don't want to see the person prosecuted but it's OK if s/he loses his/her job? The person committed (or attempted to commit) a crime. Either report it and the person is treated under the law made for that purpose or don't. It's not up to you to make these fine distinctions about how it should be handled by the management/authorities.

Snuggs