r/Tahiti • u/MoonBeam987 • 7d ago
Sharing for Awareness - to all surfers visiting Tahiti
This is NOT MY EXPERIENCE. Only sharing to share awareness
⚠️ Read Carefully – For All Surfers and Locals ⚠️ On July 11, 2025, I had an experience that deeply marked me, and today I feel the need to talk about it. Not to complain, but to raise awareness and prevent it from happening again.
That day, I went surfing with a friend at the peninsula. I tied my Jet Ski to a buoy with a carabiner, not far from another Jet Ski anchored there and a kayak also tied to the same buoy with a knot.
While we were surfing, I saw the guys from the anchored Jet Ski waving frantically at me. I realised something was wrong, and then I saw a guy (the one with the kayak) trying to hold onto my Jet Ski, which had just come loose. I caught a wave to try to get the Jet Ski out of the west bowl. But too late… I just brushed against it when a wave hit it, flipped it over. I rushed, turned it back upright, jumped on to try to start it, and then… another wave threw us directly onto the reef, high and dry. By a miracle, I wasn’t hurt. But my Jet Ski was seriously damaged.
I asked the guy if he was okay. He said: “Yes, yes, the buoy broke.” But a few minutes later, the three guys from the other Jet Ski came to me and told me that NO, the buoy didn’t break. It was him who untied my Jet Ski.
At that moment, I was lost, shocked. They caught up with me, towed me with their Jet Ski to the shore while following him. I asked him where he was staying, he answered vaguely and didn’t seem willing to cooperate…
I called my father to ask what to do, and he sent a friend of his to help me handle the situation. Together, we checked the damages with the guy (an American tourist), who then told me he didn’t have travel insurance and didn’t want to go to the police. Despite everything, I stayed calm, tried to remain human. I told him he would have to pay for the repairs. We took him to a Jet Ski mechanic friend who gave a quick estimate under pressure (because the tourist had a flight that same evening) of 250,000 XPF. But today, after the full repairs, the real bill was more than 400,000 XPF — plus I lost my phone, my glasses, and a lot of belongings in the water during the crash.
He only gave me 30,000 XPF at the ATM, saying he couldn’t give more. I asked for a transfer, he refused but said that if I found a credit card machine (TPE), then he could pay. I searched for a TPE, and thanks to friends who helped me, he eventually paid with his card, then left without apologising and without a word.
A few days later, I learned that he had returned to the United States, and even worse: he asked his bank for a refund, claiming that the payment was a mistake. To make matters worse, he no longer answers my messages or calls. I find it serious that at 40 years old this man is so dishonest and runs away from his responsibilities. On top of that, he tarnishes the reputation of honest foreigners by behaving like this.
This kind of behaviour creates huge tension with locals, and that’s why some become stricter. If you come surfing here, respect the place, respect the people, and above all take responsibility for your actions.
Message to all surfers and locals: Be careful. If this happens to you, don’t do like I did — even if the person seems honest at the time, don’t be fooled by their acting. ✅ Go directly to the police. ✅ Get an official statement. ✅ Have written and visual proof.
Too many people take advantage of our kindness. And this needs to stop.
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u/deetman68 7d ago
Wow. That is supremely horrid. I’m very sorry it happened to you.
I can’t imagine what would motivate someone to something that senseless. What a jerk.
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u/ShadowWhat 6d ago
Sounds like BS trying to rile up tension vs tourists.
If your property is damaged and the person who damages it doesn’t want to pay for the damage, you call the police. That’s how it works everywhere, in Tahiti, in USA, in France.
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u/Active-Loan2982 6d ago
If you read carefully, OP said the tourist paid it eventually via card mostly. The problem is when AFTER the event, person went home and disputed the payment as “a mistake”.
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u/Manor7974 5d ago edited 5d ago
Accepting payment by card in this situation is… incredibly stupid. Of course they're going to dispute the charges, that's why they insisted on paying with a card instead of getting their hands on cash.
The guy who untied the jetski (if the story is an accurate account of events that really happened, which seems unlikely) committed a crime, and the police are the correct people to deal with that. If you do want to just take some money to avoid that, have the common sense to insist on cash…
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u/Active-Loan2982 5d ago
Not a lot of people just keeps 400k xpf worth of cash in their checking, and if someone don’t have cash, they don’t have cash; what are you going to do? That isn’t the stupid part.
What the OP should’ve done on top of the card charge was a police report + detailed paperwork on what he was charging the card for with a signature by the guy. He can then go back to the bank and slap them with the docs. Kayaker won’t win the dispute then. Right now OP has nothing to argue his case aside from an unprovable verbal consent.
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u/Manor7974 5d ago
I think the kayaker would win the dispute, because whatever merchant agreed to run the card for OP isn’t the same entity whose jetski was damaged, not to mention repayment for damage probably isn’t something that merchant is allowed to run charges for (it’s not a service they provided or a good they sold). So they’re abusing their merchant account and won’t be able to win the dispute.
The kayaker could have got cash from their credit card if they really wanted to — clearly they had enough available credit, so at the most they’d need to call their bank to get some ATM limit changed. They didn’t want to do that because they planned to defraud OP by disputing the charge.
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u/MoonBeam987 6d ago
Again, I am only sharing this post seen on Federal Surf associations Facebook. It is not my experience. And if I may add, I don't see why someone would lie about it. Hope you have a good day
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u/tap-rack-bang 6d ago
This is second hand rumor. Why would you spread this gossip without knowing it to be fact? Take this post down and never do anything like this again.
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u/nattyDaddyo 7d ago
I hope you can clear up the issue with his bank and keep your payment. If worst comes to worst you can likely find someone who knows him. The surf world is still small.
Best of luck!
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u/RocketBlue57 6d ago
There’s a chance you can bring a civil legal case (“sue”) him from Tahiti. Find out what state he is in. Research the process for bringing a “small claims court case” in the state and county he lives in. These are cases for “smaller” amounts of money, often < $10000. Typically you don’t need an attorney. Because of COVID, many of these cases are now conducted over Webex or Zoom. Often just filing suit and giving notice to the other person convinces them to pay up.
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u/rg0s 6d ago
Man that’s messed up, at least you’re still in one piece after that hectic situation. Makes me wonder how easy is it to dispute a charge like that? Is that some rich people elite card shit? Sounds like he did not get much consequence for all the chaos he caused, that’s got to sting a bit…
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u/Manor7974 5d ago
Never accept payment by card for anything unless you have documentation that you provided some good or service. Any card payment can be disputed, and the burden is on the merchant to prove that the good or service was provided.
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u/wave_rider_11919 7d ago
Why did he untie your jet ski??