It was all my friend Dave’s fault. He had called to say he was having some difficulties with his girlfriend, and would I like to join him and some friends in drowning his sorrows in the West End? Never one to turn down an offer, I explained it to my wife and she said yes. Several hours later (during which some absinthe might have been consumed), three of us decided to peel off and go in search of ladies – of the dancing, entertaining kind.

Having temporarily lost the powers of speech and memory, we were delighted to hear our chummy minicab driver recommend a little place off Piccadilly, and soon found ourselves deposited in a heap outside an unassuming door on a pavement near St James’s Street. Normally, when you fall at the feet of a bouncer, they are unlikely to welcome you with open arms. On this occasion, though, the two men on the door were utterly charming. They picked us up, ushered us in – and charged us £20 for the privilege.

Quite what the club looked like is a bit hazy to recall. I remember a place that vaguely resembled a plush hotel lobby. Dave remembers a sticky-floored, mock-Tudor dive. According to our other (and most sober) friend, it was somewhere between the two, with a bar at one end and a separate area filled with booths at the other. Wandering around were several normal-looking, though quite saucily dressed, women.

This nameless, faceless establishment was a hostess bar. For those who have never been to one, they’re not the same as a brothel or strip club. They’re fairly innocent, in fact. All you do is buy drinks and pay money for girls to talk to you, Japanese-style. No more, no less. The girls don’t dance, or take their clothes off, they just encourage you to spend money. I learnt later that this place charges £55 per hour per girl, with drinks on top of that; champagne costs £255 a bottle.

So we ordered some drinks, chose four girls to sit with us and settled in. They looked nice enough – an eastern European, a couple of Antipodeans and an English girl – but it wasn’t the most exciting of experiences as, by now, my powers of conversation weren’t great. After 20 minutes, we left. And that, I thought, was that. I reckon I could have spent £500 at most.

However, when I tried to get cash out of the bank the next morning, I discovered that, somehow, I had maxed out my card. Cue an embarrassing phone call to my wife, warning her that the mortgage repayment due to go out that day might be a bit of a problem. Minutes later, she phoned back to inform me that she had checked our balance online and it appeared that I had spent £2,500 in five separate transactions in the same place. She also said that I was a filthy drunk.

A filthy drunk, yes, but I knew I couldn’t have spent that much. My friends had been taken to the cleaners, too: they had been charged £600 and £900 respectively, meaning that, between the three of us, we had spent £4,000 – the equivalent of 15 bottles of champagne. With or without added girls, that’s quite a lot to get through in 20 minutes.

The bank’s fraud squad was powerless to help me recover my money. Thanks to the advent of chip and pin, it is now almost impossible to recoup charges you claim aren’t legitimate. Previously, the signature on your receipts could be checked for authenticity; now, if your pin has been entered correctly, it is almost impossible to prove that it wasn’t you who did it.

I’m still not clear as to whether my details had been swiped from my card on entry, or whether the bar staff had casually looked over my shoulder as I drunkenly punched in my pin, before running my card through four more times themselves. Either way, it was impossible for me to prove to the bank that I had been conned.

I tried to call the bar but, not surprisingly, it was ex directory, and I didn’t feel like striding down there to sort out the matter in person – the bouncers might not be so friendly this time. Not to mention the fact that I would obviously get nowhere, seeing as the funds had “legitimately” exited my account. I just had to accept we were ridiculous, drunken mugs for falling for it.

We are far from being the only ones: I have since discovered five people who have all been fleeced, in the same way, at the same place. With the benefit of sobriety, it all seems obvious: the gleeful taxi driver who took us there, the welcoming bouncers, the ready girls. If you’re out and about and wasted, you’re a sitting target. People will welcome you in, show you a table and girls, and merrily take your cash, while you can’t see the wood for the trees – or the con men.

So, if you’re out this week, post the office party, riding high on vodka, adrenaline and adventure in the back of a cab, stop and think before you stumble into any strange bar, credit card at the ready. Or, if you’re still determined, only carry cash. At least that way, they can’t ruin you.

Phil Robinson is not the author's real name

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