TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin AAA/Travel Rent A Car Credit Card Fraud Charges

I reserved a car with AAA, but was serviced by Travel Rent A Car. That night I received a message from my credit card company indicating possible fraudulent charges and the card was locked down. I confirmed the charges were not valid. This was the only time the card was used on the island.

While I can't explained why you experienced this I have rented from AAA for nearly 20 years and never had a problem with charges. If you contact Alain I can guarantee that he will take care of the problem and I'm sure if there is a problem he would want to be the first to know!

When you say AAA, do you mean AAA in the US or AAA Car Rental in Sint Maarten? I just want to confirm because I think people are going to get confused as there is a AAA Car Rental and Triple A Car Rental (two totally seperate businesses) in SXM and someone might confuse the two.

Were the fraudulent charges even ON SXM?

Correct...Triple A would not be "serviced" by anyone other than Triple A

Alain runs Triple A car rental, not AAA car rental. They are 2 seperate businesses.

I positive that the original poster is referring to the American Automobile Association, not Triple A in SXM. As others have stated, a rental through Alain would be handled by him, and not by Travel Rent A Car.

Edited to add: I stand corrected.

To clarify, I rented through Alain Triple A but the car was provided by Travel Rent A Car. They are located in the same building as Alain, but next door. Travel Rent A Car did all the paper work with the credit card. The charges did not occur on SXM, but back on the mainland. I did notify the credit card company of my travel plans, so they knew where to expect charges. I have also rented with Alain before and never had a problem.

I have never had a problem with Triple A but they were out of cars and closed when we arrived last November and Travel Rent a Car picked us up at the airport and provided our car under our contracted terms. When we arrived earlier this month I learned that we got the last car available from Triple A and the two customers arriving after us were going to be serviced by Travel.

Interesting....I never knew that. I have seen the employees walk from one place to the other...kinda like it was the same operation

If the charges occurred back home in the US, why in the WORLD would you assume that it had anything to do with SXM???

oceanbreeze,

Many of the car rental agencies have agreements and arrangements with other agencies so that in the rare situation where they end up overbooked or short cars due to damaged vehicles, breakdowns or people extending their trips last minute, they can still service their regular clients rather than turn them away. That's called good business in my book.

AAA is not the agency we deal with, nor is his alliance partner, but he is a man who has been running his business for a long time and with a very good reputation with most on this forum who use him and I'm certain the OPs problems will be resolved rapidly, and if I'm reading the OPs posts correctly, they may not even have anything to do with these businesses.

We used to have similar problems with our Citicards when we vacationed on the island, but after the third time it happened to us, and while Citi never admitted it, we felt it had something to do with internal fraud at Citi, though we may have been wrong about that. It was a pain in the neck at the time, but in the overall scheme of things, not a big deal, at least not for us though it sure seemed as though it was then. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" />

In 2013 the following happened.....
On July 15, 2013, I made a reservation for a rental car with Nu Car Rentals for the period of December 14, 2013 through December 28 2013.
This was "in cooperation with TRIPLE A Car Rental". The bottom line for this rental was supposed to be $275.52 USD.
When I arrived at the rental office, I was informed that there was a (computer) mistake. The "correct" rate was $480.00 plus taxes and fees for a total of $528.96. The woman behind the counter then took off 15% or $72.00 for a new total of $456.96.
Now while this is slightly different than the situation the OP stated, I think Triple A should stop associating itself with other rental companies.
BTW, I complained to Nu Car rentals and they refunded the difference between the quoted price and the price I ended up paying.

I am still confused as to what fraudulant charges were made. Did the cost go through twice or was a charge put through by another sxm company?

The original poster said the fraudulent charge was in the US. I don't understand why he believes it has anything to do with his car rental on the island, and I do wish he'd come back and explain.

An update: If I had lost the card on SXM I would expect it to be used there, as only the card and no identification would be required. To use the card number over the phone or internet requires the 3 digit code from the back of the card. I had not used this card in more than a week and never use it for phone or online orders. I have one card I use for those types of orders. It was used more than 1,000 miles from my home at 1am in the morning. There were two charges within 5 minutes for several hundred dollars when the card company detected it. The card was only out of my sight when a hard copy was being made behind the counter, out of my view. When someone has the card number and code, they tend to use it quickly knowing that it will be detected and locked down.

I know everyone wants to protect local business but the most common credit card fraud is committed when you are handing your card to someone, especially when you are out of your element. Sounds like OP never uses this card out of his site and knows for sure that they were the only ones to have touched his card and seen the back of it. This has happened to my wife and I numerous times with gas stations in NJ, we cannot pump our own and must surrender our cards to get gas.

The last time my card was stolen it was used in Brazil and Boston on the same day. I haven't been to either recently. To discount OP's problem as not an SXM issue is nuts. Rarely will a card be used where it is stolen, the numbers are sold and then re-sold to the people who are using them rarely where they were stolen from.

Sorry but I have a hard time letting go of this since I have rented from this agency for years and a post accusing them of fraud on a board like this can really hurt their reputation. If someone has your card number and code it doesn't matter if they use it today or a month from today since you probably wouldn't know they have it and wouldn't take any proactive steps to change the information. Cards get compromised and the information sold all the time so I think I'll remain optimistic that it had nothing to do with AAA.

Chuck, I completely agree. To blame Alain and Triple A for this fraud is completely inappropriate.

Doesn't sound like the OP is blaming, Triple A, he reserved the car through him, but the rental was passed off to another company, which is who had the card, Travel Rent A Car.

Perhaps, but since both companies are mentioned it's not good publicity for either.

Sorry, you have absolutely NO evidence to support that this card was compromised on SXM. None at all.

My Citibank Mastercard was compromised six times over two years. Fortunately their fraud department caught each problem and did not approve the charges but checked with me instead and replaced the card. It was a pain in the neck each time but didn't cost me anything. None of these had anything to do with the island. I suspect it might have had to do with on-line transactions. I did have a problem with fraudulent charges to an ATM card after I tried to use it at a Dutch side ATM. It was resolved by my bank.

Sometimes it is obvious where these phony charges come from but more often than not it is impossible to tell.

My issues were also with Citi but in each case, the charges were made Stateside while we were on island and in each case the charges were made around the world but none in SXM. Because of the way the third fraudulent charge was made, we decided to STOP notifying Citi of our trips, and since then we've had no problems. We've taken to using only our Cap One cards with the general authorization being "customer frequently travels to SXM, STB AND AXA" and we've had no problems since we adopted this way of using our cards.

I completely agree with the others who have stated there is no way you can say with absolute certainty the issues stem from these SXM businesses. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" />

This thread should be deleted immediately. There is no proof of any wrongdoing by AAA. I have used them for years, and this ''accusation'' is totally unfounded. If this thread was titled with another sponsor's name here, it probably would've been taken down before it even got started. Hoping Carol or Eric take it down soon. What a horrible way to ruin someone's great reputation. SMH.

I don't agree it should be taken down. Knowledge is power and that is what this site is about. That being said, I use alaine and trust him implicitly. This could be as simple as the connection with their bank and card reader being over wifi and the wifi was compromised. You never know. Considering how many have great things to say about alaine it is purely a word to the wise.

Knowledge may be power, but in this case it appears to be misinformation. Alain and Triple A had absolutely nothing to do with this fraud, and there's no evidence at all that the compromise to the card occurred on the island. The fraudulent charge was in the states, and the card could have been compromised days or even months before the actual fraudulent charge was initiated. To head the post in the way it was done is unfair to the businesses named.

The OP stated that it is his opinion that the only time the card could have been compromised was at the Travel Rent A Car desk. He is entitled to that opinion and it may have happened just like he says. None of you naysayers have provided any hard evidence that it did not happen this way. It may have. If I were Alain, I would certainly want to know so I could investigate. Maybe he will find that there is someone new at Travel Rent A Car that he doesn't trust and that he will chose to no longer be associated with them. The OP never said Alain had anything to do with the fraud. he only said that Alain passed him to this other business that may indeed committed the fraud.

The bogus charge was in the STATES, there is zero proof that this had anything to do with anyone on island. The card could have been compromised in a million different ways, in the STATES. This one is done.