David and Annie relating their ordeal to reporters at the Simpang Tiga police headquarters.
KUCHING: A Canadian couple on a week-long visit here yesterday expressed their bitter disappointment with the management of a resort in Santubong following the theft of cash from their hotel room.
The couple, David Bairnes and Annie Lok, told thesundaypost the incident occurred this past Monday, a day after they arrived in the city and checked into the five-star beach resort.
“We had gone to the pool around 5.15pm that day and returned to our room at approximately 6.30pm where we discovered RM850 in cash missing from our wallets,” said Annie when met at the district police headquarters at Simpang Tiga
She said whoever entered their room obviously had a master keycard to do so, as there was no sign of the door being tampered with, and had only taken a small portion of the total amount of cash in their wallets.
“Perhaps the culprit(s) had hoped that we would not notice the missing amount, but we did notice because we withdrew the money from an automated teller machine in the city earlier the same day and knew exactly how much was in our wallets.”
According to David, they immediately reported the matter to the hotel management and soon learned that another guest, who stayed in the room below theirs and was at the swimming pool the same time as them, had reported the theft of her RM50,000 diamond ring from her room.
He went on to say that it appeared whoever entered both rooms knew that they were all at the pool at that time, which suggested that their movements were being monitored.
“Initally, the management admitted to us that a security breach had occurred and that someone had used a master keycard to enter our room, but asked us to keep the matter quiet first while they conducted an investigation.
“However we were told later that they did not know who had committed the crime, despite the resort being equipped with CCTVs, and that they would not reimburse the stolen cash even though they had admitted liability,” lamented David, adding they were then ‘brushed aside’ by the management who refused to entertain them again.
Expressing their bitter disappointment over their treatment, the couple checked into another hotel and proceeded to lodge a police report, of which they are still awaiting the outcome.
They are scheduled to depart the city today but have engaged the services of a lawyer to monitor the case on their behalf as they do not want the matter to be swept under the rug once they have left.
“It’s not about the money anymore, but rather how badly we were treated by the management over what was clearly a problem on their side.
“They have ruined our holiday and we do not want something similar to happen to other guests in the future.”