Bottom line: The Wild Orchid charged my credit card for $2200 in services that I did not purchase, and they refuse to remove the charges even though the sales receipt bears someone else's signature and thumbprint.
My husband and I went to the Wild Orchid on Saturday, November 8, along with a friend who was visiting from out of town. We brought some cash for tips and lap dances, and my husband gave his credit card and driver's license to the cocktail waitress in order to open a bar tab.
We stayed at the club for approximately one hour, during which we ordered two rounds of drinks on the bar tab. We purchased two table dances from the same dancer, using cash (total of $50). When we decided to leave, the cocktail waitress brought us the receipt for the drinks.including the tip, the bar tab was $110.
All three of us left together, shortly after midnight. We had drinks at the house and stayed up until approximately 4:30 A.M. At no point did any of us return to the Wild Orchid that night or the following day.
The following Monday, I logged into my credit card account at Chase.com and saw the $110 bar bill, as well as four additional charges from Discopolus (the name that the Wild Orchid uses for credit card charges), each for several hundred dollars. I immediately called Chase's fraud department. They cancelled our card and stopped payment on the last two charges, which were entered Sunday, November 9. Two charges which were billed on Saturday had already processed - for $980 and $1120. Chase sent us a dispute form, and we opened a fraud investigation.
In Feburary we heard back from Chase that they had closed the investigation and were going to bill us back for the $2200 because the Wild Orchid had provided them with receipts bearing signatures and fingerprints authorizing the purchases.
I called the Wild Orchid and asked to see copies of the receipts they had sent to Chase. The manager I spoke with, Ray, was initially helpful, and promised he would obtain the receipts from his accountant the following day and call me back. When he did not call, or return my phone calls, I drove to the Wild Orchid and spoke to Ray in person. He told me the accountant had pulled the wrong customer's receipts and I would have to wait until she returned the following week. He gave me his cell phone number and promised a call back. I left four messages for Ray over the course of the next two weeks and never received a return call.
I ultimately obtained receipts from Chase, after they charged the $2200 back to my card and began charging interest on it.
The two receipts were for "Dance dollars" and "Table dances" totaling $980 and $1120, respectively. The signatures on the receipts looked NOTHING like my husband's signature. He has a distinctive signature in which certain letters are very clear; the signature on the receipts was a scribble. On one of the receipts, the customer made a correction to the tip amount and wrote his initials next to the change. The initials he wrote were "J.P." These are not my husband's initials. Furthermore, each of the receipts has a thumbprint on it, which does not match my husband's.
I called the Wild Orchid and spoke to their accountant, Donna. I told her that there was a mistake of some kind, due to the signatures and fingerprints not matching. She curtly told me to contact my credit card company and dispute the charge. I told her that we had already done this. She said that our issue was with Chase and not her.
I tried reopening the case with Chase. After several weeks of leaving unreturned voice mails for the investigator who closed our initial case, as well as approximately a dozen other supervisors and investigators who also did not return our calls, I had an attorney send a letter to Chase requesting further investigation on our behalf. The attorney's letter got us a phone call from Chase - but only to inform us that they could not reopen our case without cooperation from the Wild Orchid. I gave the investigator Donna's phone number; she called her while I waited on the other line. According to Francine at Chase, Donna told her "We stand behind the charges. If they want to sue us, they can sue us."
I filed a fraud complaint with the Reno Police Department, which was closed due to lack of sufficient evidence, because we did not know the identity of the person who signed and fingerprinted the two receipts.
My husband and I will be filing a case in small claims court against The Wild Orchid in hopes of recovering our $2200. At this point, we have also incurred $129 in finance charges from Chase, as well as myriad hours of lost personal and work time.
Please, for your own safety, NEVER use a credit card at this establishment or any of the other clubs owned by the same people: The Men's Club and Fantasy Girls. One $110 bar tab has cost us thousands of dollars and a 5-month ordeal.
0 comments