Woman says defrauded by travel agency employee

The Guyana Police Force (GPF) is now searching for a travel agent who has allegedly stolen a total of $9M from over a dozen customers.

According to a police source, a woman from a city travel agency collected the monies from various customers who were paying for their tickets. Instead of the original tickets the customers were reportedly given a print out of a fake ticket.

One of the customers, Yolanda Bess, took to Facebook yesterday to complain about her plight. She explained that on July 29, she went to the travel agency to

purchase a return ticket and was required to pay $169,000. However, she explained that she made a down payment of $130,000 and later in the week she made another deposit of the remaining $39,000.

“I dealt with a customer representative …. She give me a print out of two tickets of which my return was a fake print out. In addition to that she gave me all assurance that my flight [is] confirmed,” Bess said in her post.

She went on to state that she subsequently called the airline only to hear that her details were not in their system.

“So I called the travel agency to query my ticket. They said that …(she) no longer works with them and apparently she made a reservation for my return and cancel it, which mean she stole my money and now I don’t have a return ticket,” Bess added, while stating that she made contact with the owner of the Agency who also indicated that the woman was no longer employed there.

According to the police source, the woman has done the same with several other persons and has since grabbed some $9 million.

The matter was subsequently reported to the police yesterday and an investigation has since been launched.