Police seek Australian travel agent after money goes missing
Police are looking for a Darwin travel agent over the disappearance of AUD200,000 or more of customers’ money.
The Northern Territory is a particularly bad place for consumers to be stung, as the Travel Compensation Fund (TCF) does not cover it. The TCF actively monitors the financial security of all licensed travel agents in Australia – except in the Northern Territory. The maverick NT did not join the compensation scheme.
Darwin’s Northern Territory News has named the travel agent being sought as Jennifer Pfitzner, former chief of Darwin’s Travelscene American Express. She is believed to be a cruise specialist, listed as a Master in Cruising “making her the only cruise specialist in Darwin with this highly esteemed qualification”.
According to the NT News, about 20 locals are believed to have been cheated after booking holidays with the company. The paper quoted one unnamed victim as saying they had regarded Pfitzner as a friend, even having gone on a cruise with her.
Pfitzner is reported to have gone missing at the end of last year as complaints from customers began trickling in. The paper said Travelscene had refused to compensate victims, claiming that the Darwin operation was an independently owned and managed franchise – even though Travelscene American Express was named four times on Pfitzner’s business card.
Nine News said that one victim, cancer sufferer Dianne Allard, was devastated after losing the AUD4000 she had paid for a cruise to Singapore.
Three weeks ago, the NT News reported that Pfitzner had “gone to ground” and Travelscene American Express was unable to contact her. It quoted Shaun Northcote, 67, and his 73-year-old wife Greta saying they had lost AUD5000 on a trip to Africa, eventually having to book it with another travel agency – which meant they were forced to pay twice.
Written by William Sykes
That is shameful. If I were a consumer looking for a travel agent, I certainly would not be going to Travelscene!
Guess it has rather more to do with the lack of promotion by the TCF…….pointing out to consumers that unless dealing with an Agency alligned to the TCF they are “out there on their own”..scare tactics work well but I guess this Lady has “done the business” for Travel Agencies in the NT!! Shame as I am sure there are some goodies out there !
We had the bad luck to deal with this person who we believed had a good reputation as a TA at the time of our cruise booking in August and who now has decided to go rogue and rip off unsuspecting clients. We have found out that she had been doing this since January 2011 if not before this time. I would request that the supplier (Princess) should also be more open when clients deal via a travel agent. If we had been able to see via our booking how much had been paid to them online we may have been questioning the TA sooner. We paid JP $800 and she only on paid $400 as the deposit. this payment was not visible to us online. No reason to suspect anything was amiss. Paid monthly to JP no record visible via Princess online. Discovered that no payments made to the airlines for flights – no way to check. Will go back to booking online myself. This episode does not make all TA’s rotten just one Jennifer Pfitzner. She will hopefully never work in the industry again, her name is just mud now.