Scam Alerts!
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Scroll down this page to search and view possible scam alerts that are reported by our readers! You can also search using the categories list or the text box tool.
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A reader has sent in a warning about a possible timeshare scam being perpetrated by companies calling themselves Accent Event Management and Legacy Closing Services. The alleged scam follows the same scenario where a timeshare owner received a cold call promising a buyer for their unwanted timeshare. The timeshare owner is then contacted by a representative from the "closing company" who demands "closing fees" before the promised sale proceeds can be released. After paying the advance fee, the promised sale does not occur and the timeshare owner is unable to obtain a refund for the monies paid.
If you believe that you have been the victim of consumer fraud perpetrated by either of these companies, please take the time to report the crime to the attorneys general in your home state, in the state where the timeshare property is located, and also in the states where the "selling and closing" agents claim to be located. You can find contact information for all the United States Attorneys General at http://naag.org/current-attorneys-general.php ..."We were contacted by VICTOR LEON from ACCENT EVENT MANAGEMENT and KELLY JACOBS from Legacy Closing services, unfortunately we did pay them for closing costs and taxes, obviously with no return. I have contacted the AG\'s office in both states (OK and TN)." -Mike T... A California federal judge granted class certification Monday to a group of resort club members who claim timeshare company New Raintree Resorts International LLC breached its contracts with them by charging a fee for improvement and maintenance work on the resorts.
The class includes all California residents who are Raintree Vacation Club members and were charged a "special assessment" fee for timeshare interests in October or November 2009, according to the order. The class could include more than 5,000 members, it said. To view the court filing, click the link below: http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/4:2010cv03125/229798/69/ Two telemarketing executives have pled guilty to a felony count of using a fictitious name as part of a mail-fraud scheme they carried out while selling $40 million in bogus auto-service warranties. Christopher Cowart, 49, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Cris Sagnelli, 45, of Boca Raton, Fla., await sentencing on Oct. 3.
Prosecutors have said Transcontinental Warranty Inc., with Cowart as its president and Sagnelli as vice president, ran the scheme starting in June 2007. A federal judge ordered that the company halt the use of deceptive "robo-dialer" telemarketing calls telling people their auto warranties were expiring and offering to sell them new service plans. That injunction followed a successful lawsuit against Transcontinental and another company by the Federal Trade Commission to halt as many as 1 billion automated, random, prerecorded calls about auto-service warranties. Cowart and Sagnelli, who currently are free on bond, each face up to five years in federal prison and as much as $250,000 in fines. Both could face an additional five years behind bars because the crime also involved telemarketing. Update: On 8/31/2011 the FTC issued a press release stating that they were going to be refunding more than $3million to consumers who were tricked into purchasing extended service contracts by robo calls from this company. The FTC Press Release can be found HERE. The Associated Press is reporting that three more individuals who reportedly scammed millions from timeshare owners under the business names Universal Marketing Solutions and later Creative Vacation Solutions. The telemarketing companies are accused of pitching bogus time-share deals and defrauding $30 million from more than 22,000 victims across North America and Puerto Rico.
The latest indictment accuses Ryan Brazel, 31, Steven Folan, 34, and Brian Morris, 45, all of Florida's Palm Beach area, of a dozen counts of mail fraud as well as a conspiracy count. The three defendants were managers of the Florida-based telemarketing companies under owner Jennifer Kirk, who pleaded guilty in June to charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud. Kirk, 31, of Howell, N.J., faces up to a quarter century in prison and $250,000 in fines when she is sentenced Oct. 24. Federal prosecutors have alleged that employees of the companies falsely told time-share owners in unsolicited calls that they had buyers for their properties. They solicited upfront fees of up to several thousand dollars from victims in purported closing costs they promised to refund when the promised sales closed. But Kirk's companies sold few if any of the time-shares and simply pocketed the upfront fee closing costs, refusing to refund the victims money. A possible timeshare marketing scam is again being reported in the media. In a CBS News story, a timeshare owners claims to have been defrauded by a timeshare marketing company called Vacation Property Resellers.
If you believe that you have been the victim of consumer fraud perpetrated by this company, please take the time to report the crime to the Florida Attorney General. Reporting timeshare fraud is the single best way to see timeshare con artists punished. The legal system moves slowly, but when the judge's hammer finally descends, it often comes down very hard! While most of you readers have known this for quite some time, it is still progress to have a major news organization run a feature on the drastic increase in the amount of consumer fraud targeting timeshare owners.
CBS News published an article which relates the dilemma many timeshare owners are facing, a steady bombardment of false claims and broken promises in return for large upfront marketing fees. Follows is an excerpt from the article. Please visit the link above to read the document in its entirety. "...An increasing number of timeshare owners across the country are being scammed out of millions of dollars according to law enforcement officials. The Florida Attorney General's Office says timeshare fraud tops their list of complaints with over 12,000 last year alone, outnumbering the second most frequent complaint by more than three-to-one. "I don't think there's an honest person involved in this," says Darrell Bifano, one of approximately 8 million Americans who owns a timeshare. After he was laid off from his job at a propellant plant in central Washington state, Bifano joined the growing ranks of the American unemployed who are in need of money. So when representatives from timeshare companies called Bifano in the spring of 2010 offering to advertise his timeshare in Oahu, Hawaii for rental, he jumped at the chance. He would soon come to regret it. "I'll never do anything like this again," says Bifano. Bifano believes he is a victim of timeshare resale fraud, a scam in which telemarketers call people throughout the country offering to sell or rent their timeshares in exchange for a fee. When the victim gives the telemarketer his or her credit card information, the telemarketer charges a fee to the card which can range from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. In Bifano's case, he says he was approached by four of these "timeshare marketing" companies in quick succession, to which he paid a total of $4,000. As is often the case with these companies, according to law enforcement, his timeshare went unrented, and he hasn't seen or heard from the telemarketers again..." A reader has submitted a new possible timeshare scam operating under multiple business names and identities. In the submission, the reader claims that a company previously identified in a timeshare scam alert is now attempting to use another business name to avoid detection. Follows is the warning message submitted by the reader regarding a caller allegedly identifying himself as Attorney Mark Wilson and a possible timeshare scam using the name Travel Options America.
"...A few days ago I received a call from a gentlemen who introduced himself as "Attorney Mark Wilson", and said he was preparing to close the sale of my timeshare in Florida. He said that upon receipt of a cashier's check or wire transfer in the amount of $1986.67 to their 'processing center' in Florida, they would deposit in my bank (or send a cashier's check) the amount of $25,500 within seven days. To shorten the story somewhat, I have received documents with the name of "Travel Options America", but when I call the number shown on their forms, I get a recording saying, "thanks for calling American Vacation Solutions. Our office is closed. Please call back M-F, 8:00 to 5:00, Pacific". Of course, I was calling during those hours. I have had numerous conversation with this alleged lawyer, but I can find no reference to their 'company' in Las Vegas, no reference to either his or his 'lead attorney' at the Nevada Bar. When I only found this thread on the web after researching the name of American Vacation Solutions...." These scam alerts do work! Sharing information about potential timeshare and consumer fraud is the single best way to combat the con artists. If you believe that you have been the victim of a timeshare scam- please take the time to report the crime to the Attorney General for your state. If a con artist tried to scam you and failed, be sure to report the potential scam attempt and we'll post an alert to help warn other consumers! Consumer warning published by Sharon R. Bock- Clerk and Comptroller for Palm Beach County:
Palm Beach County residents need to be on alert for two potential scams that appear to be targeting senior citizens. At least two callers to the Clerk & Comptroller’s office said they were contacted by someone named Jose Suarez, who directed them to send him $250 through Western Union. Suarez told them that they were entitled to probate case money that he would get for them, if they paid him the $250. When the victims called the Clerk’s office with case numbers Suarez had given them, it was discovered that the case numbers were invalid. In a separate incident, an out-of-state woman trying to sell her timeshare property was contacted by someone claiming to be a Palm Beach County courthouse employee. She was told to send $649 through Western Union to Jose Suarez, in exchange for $27,343 from an alleged timeshare victim’s fund. Thankfully, in these cases, the victims called the Clerk’s office rather than sending the money. If you think you’ve been the victim of a scam, you should contact your local law enforcement agency. It’s important to remember: No one who works for the Clerk’s office will call you and ask you to wire money to them. Please be wary of anyone who calls and says you’re owed money, then demands payment up front to help you get that money. Chances are it’s a fraud. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to call my office at 561-355-2996 or e-mail me at [email protected]. New reports state that a company that had set up shop in North Myrtle Beach last year has left town leaving dozens in their wake with complaints and less money. Martha Smith, a grandmother from Alabama, is one of the apparent victims of Timeshare Legal Counsel, a company based out of Lenior City, Tennessee, according to their web site. Smith had purchased a timeshare week in Tennessee. The Orange Lake Company subsequently took over management of her purchased property.
Not liking some of the new company policies, Smith became disgruntled with her purchase. Enter Timeshare Legal Counsel. Smith said a representative from Timeshare Legal Counsel called and asked if she was happy with her Orange Lake timeshare week. When she said she wasn’t, the representative told her that for $1,400, his company could get her out of the sales contract for the week. “I told him I didn’t have that much money,” Smith said. “He told me to send him $399 upfront and I could pay the rest after everything was settled.” She was told to send the money to 730 Main Street in North Myrtle Beach. That address is a UPS store that has personal mailboxes that individuals can rent. The address of the company was listed as 1019 Highway 17 South in North Myrtle Beach. That address is a group of offices located within a strip shopping mall. TripAdvisor has posted several reviews by consumers warning of aggressive and abusive developer sales tactics being used to try and pressure guests into high dollar timeshare purchases.
..To say that we were speechless at this point is an understatement....having been there for over an hour with no breakfast (as was promised ) we decided that this was not for us and they could keep thier gift, but the $20. deposit that we had given the original rep and that was to be totally refunded, NEVER was, They said we had to find the guy ourselves and get it back from him....WE have been to a few presentations and this one was the WORST case of misrepresentation we have ever come across..... ...“WHAT A SCAM!! Dont waste your time here...”... ...Not only was the Sales Manager over 20 minutes late, he brought his son and was dressed as if he was going to play soccer. Very unprofessional salesman! The trip up the hill is TORTURE, reminds me of an old wooden roller coaster, but louder!! My wife and I are currently here in Puerto Vallarta looking to buy vacation property, and visited this place yesterday morning, 7/25/2011. They were jerks, and treated us as if we were second rate. BIG MISTAKE guys... ...The time share presentation that brought us there was HIGH PREASURE! There were offers made that were never follow through with. I WAS RIPPED OFF. filed a claim with my credit card to get my money back.... |
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