Desire Resort Forums

This was our second trip to Pearl. The first was for 5 nights last year. This one was for 8 so we could enjoy two foam parties. Going through customs at Cancun was a breeze. We used USA Transport to get to and from the resort and that went off without a hitch. During our stay we participated in the theme nights, meaning we both got our garb ahead of time for each one. The music provided before the disco was always great, especially the solo saxophone player. We participated in the kinky darts and human sundae daytime activities. We lost both times. It was a lot of fun. El got up for the erotic dance lessons twice during the week. She had brought her own sarong this year. We went snorkeling one day. The dive shop guide, Brenda and the boat captain Juan gave us the best of service. We made new friends and spent some 'quality' time at the Jacuzzi. We did body shots first El and then me on the bar one night. That was a first. The food and service at the Pearl and Aphrodite restaurants was top notch.
We did run into two problem incidents during our stay.
The first was when we were leaving the Pearl restaurant on our first night. El headed for the stairs but instead went too far to the left and stepped off the ledge next to ramp. She hit her head on the fall and was knocked unconscious for five to ten minutes. There was a nurse and an EMT who were resort guests that immediately lent aid, plus the resort medical staff guy. The front desk called for an ambulance from Cancun that took an hour to arrive (some guests said it was two). They got lost twice finding the resort. The resorts little device that that goes on your finger to measure pulse and blood oxygen did not work. The resort wheelchair leg supports did not work. El got checked out by the Cancun ambulance squad who advised going to the hospital for diagnostic test. El refused and the next day had quite the painful bump on her head. All the resort staff, guests, and the ambulance squad folks were attentive and greatly concerned.
The second incident was that I had two debit cards stolen from my wallet which I foolishly left in the night table drawer. We had pesos, USD cash and El's wallet stored in the room safe and these were still there. I received a fraud dept call for one debit card when one transaction tripped a dollar limit. There were three other smaller transactions, less than $100 USD each, that did not trip a fraud alert. I did not discover the second debit card was missing until returning home and looking through my accounts. For this one there were no fraud alerts. It was covered for overdraft protection by transfers from a savings account. The total for those fraud transactions was over $2800 USD. The transaction locations extended all the way to Juarez geographically. We had no guests in our room during our stay. What is intriguing is how the wallet had been found after someone searching, how the wallet had been left behind in the drawer, how the two credit cards were not taken, how the $6 was still there, and how long the search and thft must have taken. I have reported all of this to the resort and sent transcripts by email of the transactions. It doesn't look like there will be any help from Desire Pearl. In phone conversations with Pearl I have been told that this is the first time a guest theft has happened. I am, of course, working with my local banks and have filed a police report (not in Mexico). There is a decent chance I will recoup the fraud transaction funds but time will tell. Bottom line here is not to make the same stupid mistake I made. Get anything of value locked up in the room safe.
I don't want to make this report sound like a big fat complaint. We enjoyed so many other things during our stay and will strongly consider returning for another visit.
Regards, Ken (and El)

I have to make a correction, the amount of fraud transactions for second debit card totaled over $8,400 USD not $2,400.

Such a sad account.
The theft particularly, not the first by any means. The cynical part of me wonders is this because Pearl now seems to be employing people on short (6 month) contacts? One or the things we loved about Pearl was the face that the same staff were there trip after trip. But now, (a few "famous" faces excepted) the staff are being churned over? What loyalty have they for their employer?
A member of staff that is valued, and knows that their job is secure, is never going to steal from the guests.....

Glad to hear you will still consider going back to the Resort - but so sorry for your wife's accidental fall and your debit cards taken.

Just a query, though. We are assuming you don't need a PIN number to access your bank account with your debit card??

If that's the case, then it would be wise for us to leave our debit cards at home and only take credit cards.

KenandEl wrote:In phone conversations with Pearl I have been told that this is the first time a guest theft has happened.

Hey Ken - I sort of beg to differ with what they are telling you - check out this post:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=7164&p=61600&hilit=debit#p61600

We are glad all El had was a nasty bump and nothing more serious. We had a great time hanging with ya'll last week.

Scuba

I hate to hear you're dealing with these issues. This is Jeff and Lu from NC and we were in the room beside of you. We didn't have any issues that we can identify but I took a lock to lock the zippers of one of our suitcases as I didn't trust the in room safe after reading posts before arriving. We didn't know El had hit her head but glad to hear she's ok. Hopefully the bank can dismiss all of the fraudulent transactions. It was great to meet you at Pearl and we are glad you had an overall good time. We did as well and enjoyed meeting great people like you guys. Have a great day.

I spoke with someone from the fraud dept. of the card that got the very large transactions. The good news is that they say all funds will be restored by the end of this week. They have a fraud alert system to notify clients when unusual transactions happen. But get this, because the card was a chip card, the alerts didn't kick in. They said the assumption is that because the chip was used, the authorized client must be using it. They suggested in the future to get a temporary travel debit card with a fixed amount that doesn't have the overdraft advance feature. I have also learned that with a debit card you can choose to use it as a credit transaction and no pin number is required. I may get a small surveillance camera set up in the room next time to see if anyone is going through the drawers, the furniture kind, not the kind you wear.
Scuba, do you also remember Ellen yelling 'lick faster!' during the human sundae contest?
Ken (and El)

KenandEl wrote:They have a fraud alert system to notify clients when unusual transactions happen. But get this, because the card was a chip card, the alerts didn't kick in. They said the assumption is that because the chip was used, the authorized client must be using it. They suggested in the future to get a temporary travel debit card with a fixed amount that doesn't have the overdraft advance feature.
Ken (and El)

If the chip card was from any major banking institution, any single transaction of $50 or less can be processed using just the quick tap NFC mechanism without a PIN crosscheck(either as debit or credit) however, anything over that amount requires the entry of your PIN - they must have done a lot of tapping to run up that amount - I'm surprised that your financial institution didn't quickly pick up on it because of the unusual pattern of so many small transactions in a short space of time

miranda2 wrote:If that's the case, then it would be wise for us to leave our debit cards at home and only take credit cards.

I think that's a great idea. I've pretty much quit using debit cards after a couple of instances of fraudulent charges which locked up my accounts for days (some of which weren't recouped). If the credit cards numbers are stolen, it's THEIR money to worry about, not mine. I won't be taking any debit cards out of the country in the future, and I like the idea of the lock on the suitcase mentioned above.

Desire needs to get a handle on this problem of theft from the rooms and safes.

We are happy to report that the fraudulent debit card transactions have been restored to our accounts by our financial institutions. Yay!

KenandEl wrote:We are happy to report that the fraudulent debit card transactions have been restored to our accounts by our financial institutions. Yay!

The stream of transactions chronologically moved up the the the country past Juarez, just the other side of El Paso. I guess someone sold the cards to a group looking to get supplies to cross the border.

Thank you for sharing your comments. Unfortunately this situation was one in a million. As you know, we have never experienced this kind of issues before at Desire Pearl.
Our Human Resources procedures include to check the background of all candidates before they start to work with the company.
Actually, there is a Security Association in Cancun that provide us all the reports about the Mayan Riviera and Cancun employees who were fired for stealing, unfortunately, they had not anything in their records.
When we realized what happened with the thefts and knew about who was causing them this person just disappeared.
We are grateful for your understanding and we are giving the best possible follow-up

Front Desk,
Are you saying that you figured out who the thief was? Without naming him or her personally can you say if it was someone from housekeeping, beverage service, or some other service position?

I am sorry this happened. But thanks for posting and sharing your story with other visitors. I know for me when most of the guests and staff are friendly and inviting I tend to let my common sense go by the way side and forget about security issues. Your unfortunate story is a reminder that bad shit still happens even in the happiest of places. I am glad your wife is alright and you have recouped most of the money that was stolen. Take care.