The owners of Global Asia Travelling Co reported to the Bangkok police on Monday to answer complaints of fraud in sales of tour packages filed by about 70 disappointed travellers, reports said.
Chao Lorphetcharat and his wife Thanya Yuplak were summoned to the Consumer Protection Police Division to acknowledge the charges against them.
A group of tourists who bought travel packages to Japan and South Korea from the company filed complaints against their firm after their trips were suddenly cancelled and the company refused to refund their money.
The couple told police that they bought the tour packages from another company and resold them to their customers.
They said they have been doing it for over a year. However, the company that they bought the tour packages from had suddenly closed down due to financial problems, which resulted in the cancellation of their customers' trips.
They said they intend to return all the money to their customers.
One of the unhappy travellers, Pakawal Phokaew, deputy director of Wat Nimma-Noradi School, said a partner in Global Asia had persuaded her to buy a three-night package to South Korea for 13,900 baht.
It was very cheap and therefore she brought together 25 people to buy into the tour, scheduled for Oct 19-23, at a total cost of over 370,000 baht. The money was paid in two installments. Ms Pakawal paid around 180,000 baht through Chao Lohpetcharat, and another group paid 190,000 baht through another sales person.
She said the company asked later if the group wanted to cancel their tour, citing the PC Air problem. They said they wanted to continue with the trip. However, they had been unable to reach the company's representatives since Oct 18 and the trip did not go ahead as planned.
Another woman said she bought five four-night packages to Japan at 25,900 baht each, or a total of almost 130,000 baht. The company promised to handle their visa applications, but they did not get visas by the travel date, and they suspected fraud.
A search on the Internet showed no evidence the company existed and that complaints regarding fraud with package tours and mobile phone sales by the company had been posted in the social media. People had filed complaints individually but there was no progress in the cases, so they decided to group together to lodge a compliant.