Airline employees charged with credit card misuse

MUMBAI: The Oshiwara police have booked two employees of Qatar Airways for fraudulently using a Juhu resident''s Standard Chartered credit card to make purchases valued at more than Rs 36,000.
The purchases were made on a flight to Doha on April 8, 2001. However, the complainant, M.M. Satish, filed a first information report only last month.Mr Satish alleged that the card had been stolen by Nisha Ahuja (34) and her sister Tina, both of whom work as cabin crew for Qatar Airways.
Mr Satish told TNN that he lived as paying guest with the Ahuja sisters'' Andheri residence five years ago, but later away.Last month, his bank told him that it had received a voucher from the duty-free shop in Qatar for purchases valued at $764 made on a flight to Doha.
Mr Satish said that the card was invalid. "The bank cannot ask me to pay since it was a stopped card. But this discrepancy was ignored at the time of the purchase because the accused happened to be one of the airline staff who should have actually verified the card details," he said.
Mr Satish told the police that he had never flown to Doha and his passport could prove this. He said he had also complained to Qatar Airways about the Ahuja sisters.
The Qatar Airways wrote back to him admitting that though he had not flown Qatar Airways on the date, his card had indeed been used on the flight. However, the airline denied that one of its crew members had used it.
The police registered the FIR after verifying the procedure involving the use of credit card on a flight. "The flight purser or the air hostess who is in charge of purchases on board must verify that the credit card bears the name of the passenger as it is given on his or her boarding pass.
The passenger is then made to sign the purchase voucher and the signature is verified. Since, it is established that the complainant was not on the flight, it is clear that someone else used the card, forged his signature and the airline staff failed to avoid this from happening," a police officer said.
The police plan to question the Ahuja sisters when they fly to Mumbai. "It is time-consuming job but since it it is serious enough and it involves the alleged use of a global credit card on an international flight. It is to be verified whether the accused used it herself or it was a case of mere negligence on part of the airline crew when someone else used the card," a police officer said.