Mr. William accept a title sponsorship to support the Children Dignostic and Treatment Center of Broward County, the event that we organized in a partnership with The convention and vistors bureau of the county and the Hall of Fame of NFL.
Mr. Williams kept excusing when paying until the very last day and got his partners and board of directors to the three days events to support sales, including his PR company.
Mr. Williams and his partners argue during the event about the paying but they agree to pay in a few weeks.
After 10 months, they never pay one cent of the $42,500 sponsorship value.
Mr. Williams keep promising the payments and even got an attorney that I think gave up on his scam.
All this group and Mr. Williams are to still money, they do not own the land yet nor have permits for ANY of what they are asking investors to fund.
Looks for yourself!!! You can find him taking advantage of media and branding during the event.
We have been to other time share presentations in the past and have always taken pride in the fact that we were able to hold out, and not give in to the hostage tactics they generally use to try and get your money any way they can. We were always just as committed as they were to walk away with the free gift as they were to poke our eyes out.
In Cancun they get you at the airport when you step foot out of immigration. You barely have a chance to look at what lies outside the front door when you are bombarded with English speaking people all wanting to help you get a ride to your hotel and sell you a tour or excursion. Since it was our first ever trip to Cancun (August, 2013) and we definitely needed to book tours and excursions anyways, we decided to listen to the speel and see what he had to offer. Afterall we needed a cab to our hotel anyway. Intermingled in the discount flim flam tours he presented us the whole intention of the charade finally came out. It was a free buffet and transportation to a beautiful resort and a great discount romantic sunset dinner tour. We went along and since we were not planning on buying anything but souvenirs felt safe to submit and play along.
Even the cab driver who was commissioned to pick us up the next morning to drive us to the 90 minute presentation tried to warn us in his own humble way that we were going to be taken and he hated taking people to this place because his fee was also discounted and he felt guilty knowing they were going to try any take us for alot of money. We assured him that we were only going for the free buffet, prize and discount dinner offer. No worries and thanks for the friendly local advice.
Then began the parade of sales people starting with the obvious rookie instructed to not only take our eyes out, but a couple of limbs as well. He escorted us to the tasty food buffet and began asking us all the required questions about our lifestle and plans for the future. He had to have been all of 19 years old so we may have been too bright and overeducated for the con job he had to offer us. He showed us the Bliss and Grand Bliss units, pools and more pools, but never any part or the ocean or beach. Once we turned down his starting offer in the $100,000 range complete with circles, squares, triangles, lines, arrows, bullet points, and dots he had to turn us over to his manager, who also could not speak without drawing a new set of diagrams and stick figures. His concern was that his protoge was not able to close the deal so he was there to offer his special expertise to the sales pitch. I was especially taken by the total mind control tactics, white paper covering the windows so you could not be distracted or enjoy the view, the furniture placement, etc. etc.
The price would come down several thousands with every new sales scammer we got but we stayed firm and continued to say no and we want to go enjoy our vacation now, thank you and let's get the heck out of here. I guess they tried every lie and tactic they could dream up with us but they refuse to let you go or even let you go to the bathroom. They followed me there and back. I thought it odd or that she had to go to the bathroom too, but after reading another article on the same presentation I see it is planned that way. They don't want you to sneak out the closest exit. They even bring on the salesman with a Britsh accent to appeal to any shred of possibility they can to sell you something but even he didn't convince us to buy.
The very last sales person Roxanne Quintana was a fellow Texan from El Paso who was the absolute used car sales rep of the bunch who was only into rock bottom deals, complimenting any and everything she could even without knowing much about us or our lifestyle. She promised us so many things that we are just now finding out are nowhere near true. The clincher for my frugal, accountant husband was the promise of selling back the weeks that we were not planning on using at approximately $900 per week so "all we had to do was call and say we wanted our money because we were not going to use our 2 bedrrom unit." An accountant's mind works quick when figuring out money and especially a return on investment.
Come to find out the $7400 we ended up buying for is a discount vacation plan that won't get you any more savings than if you were to comparison shop for your vacation. The 2 bedroom unit was also a lie, even though they mentioned it as they were talking over the contract, the best we can get is a one bedrrom unit for $399 for the week at their resort. The $900 refund that all 5 sale reps mentioned is a complete fantasy and does not exist in the vacation club option only in the timesahre option. This was even highlighted by Roxanne and her brother over and over both before and after the sale so there was no misunderstanding in what we heard and what the promised.
Our decision to purchase has been a regretful one and if we had not been so anxious to just leave and not so busy thinking of how the selling back of weeks could get us our money back we would have seen it for the waste of money that it is. The resort is not as spectacular as they want you to believe it is and it is sad to know that these people know their psychology better than I do and that is what my degree is in. Bottom line is that there is no way to profit from this type of scam and they are there to get as much money out of you as they can without any hesitation to straight up lie to you. Beware and just avoid them altogether at the airport.
We were on a family vacation and were directed to the agent to help us find our transportation to our resort. We then became involved in a sales pitch with many special gifts in return for our short 45 minute breakfast disclosure. We did arrive the next Day for the breakfast and our 45 minutes became 5 hours and a very savvy sales pitch for a purchase With Vida vacations. We became very suspious and I began to read the reviews on this pressure sale tatics. We are stopping the transaction. We want to warn others not to fall in to this trap. They are very fast talkers and will convince you they are helping you instead they are harming you. I hope this helps someone else.
Every year my fiance and i celebrate our birthdays in wonderul Mexico, sadly we will end this tradition after our last visit. If you are reading this -- you were ripped off or doing some research because your gut feeling is that you may be getting ripped off. Well please listen to your gut feeling!
My fiance and I stayed in the Grand Mayan and we were greated by Katerina and right away she invited us to a "timeshare disclosure" meeting. We quickly declined becuase we currently own timeshare (US property). She was not pushy and promised us we would find it interesting specially since we were already timeshare owners. We were offered two tickets to the "Fiesta" dinner, since it was something we had planned on attending, we accepted the offer. They recommend you attend the very next morning in order to attend the dinner or they will run out of capacity. This is where the lies start! The reason why the Vida Life ("Vida") staff wants you to attend a meeting upon arrival is to hopefully trap you into buying a --- non-existent luxury golf resort timeshare.
The day of the presentation we were paired up with Eduardo Vega. Eduardo claimed to have traveled the world through Vida Life and even showed us pictures of various vacations. He even cried when he got to a picture of his so-called ex-fiance that was killed in a car accident. My next comment may sound cruel but i think this was all part of his sales tactic!! How can I believe anything this man said when everything he represented was a huge SCAM!
Through out the walkthrough of the premises we got to know Eduardo and he got to know us. Little did we know he was gathering all the details for his sales pitch. We shared the fact that we had recently gotten enganged. Worst mistake we did! Once we said this Eduardo promised us a honeymoon vacation anywhere in the world through Vida Life or SFX. He even printed out resorts in Bora Bora, Turks and Caicos and Thailand with availability in the timeframe we needed. These were all locations we listed as "dream" honeymoon locations. These print outs were sent over during the presentation from a fictitious concierge department.
The hotels Eduardo showed us do not participate with Vida Life or SFX. We discovered this once we were back home. We could not book our honeymoon and now we are out of our honeymoon fund = $5,000. Vida Life claims to have access to 5 star resorts all over the world. If you are already an RCI member, you will see that it is no different. By the way, RCI is the same company Vida tried to discredit during the presentation but at the end of the sale they give you one year membership for FREE. They said it is given away for free so you can compare the sites and see that SFX is a better deal.
We already tried disputing the $5k deposit we gave to Vida with our credit card company. These funds were supposed to go towards our honeymoon and unfortunately they were not able to help us recoop our loss. Even the 2,000 Vida points that were promised were never deposited into our account. I wish I could paste a screenshot to thi review, the current balance is 3 points. When using the Vida website all hotels, car rentals, airfare rates have been inflated. There are no discounted rates on this site ($300 yearly membership fee we also paid in full) (AGREEMENT CPRT0448)
Additionally, Vida claims to acquire US based timeshares for wealthy Mexican business owners. Owning US property will allow these business owners to be granted US visas by the Mexican government. Another LIE!!! This is where Equity Acquisition ("EAS") comes into the mix. This company applied a $12,500 credit towards our Grand Mayan purchase. However, when EAS received copies of my timeshare contract they stated they have a "vast amount of properties to transfer and resell" so now they are selling my timeshare back to me for ONLY $700. If I decide to move forward with my transfer then I have to send them my original deed, power of attorney, original membership contract, certificate of use, copy of my ID. They basically want all documents and money up front but there is no guanrantee that the transfer will go through. I have gone through the purchase process in the US and closing fees are paid at closing of a deal and nothing up front. Another SCAM! Tatiana Kay and Oscar Fink seem to have pre-scripted responses when replying to any of my emails. (EAS 34720 RM)
I wish I had done more research!!! I feel i was manipulated by the sales representative - Eduardo. He knew we were looking forward to our honeymoon and advised us to purchase the timeshare putting down only $5,000 and we could go anywhere in the world. Even Bora Bora that would normally cost approximately $10,000. How could we do our due diligence if there is no wifi in any of these 5 or 6 star resorts?!?!? Initially I was happy to be disconnected from reality but his is part of the SCAM. You can only cancel within 5 days of signing but by the time you get home, it's TOO LATE. When we contacted Vida they offered to lower our debt from $11k to $4k. This sounds great but it will not solve my problem. I still cannot book my honeymoon and i'm out of $5k and now stuck with the US timeshare I thought i had traded in and $4k debt. We are at the mercy of these people and no one has offered a fair solution to this problem.
Even if we keep this property, we have discovered we will not be able to rent out the weeks we will not use. The five companies Vida suggests you contact for ownership rental or resale are: Golf Network, Resort Rentals, Vacation Time Company, Destination International and Global Golf Connections. These companies are all listed on this site as possible ripoff companies. From reading other complaints these firms will ask for money and you will never hear from them again.
All this explains why you can't go back to the resort for the first 5 years from date of purchase! Little do they know, I don't ever want to go back to any of these properties and will make sure word gets out there of their SCAM. I will use any site and all social media possible. Hoping i also reach someone that may be using a hotspot while staying at these shady resorts and help them!!
On 3 July 2014, my wife and I were on vacation and attended a timeshare presentation sponsored by Vida Vacations at the Mayan Palace Resort in Rivera Maya (Cancun), Mexico. These people are slick. They employ sales associates to match the ethnicity of the perspective clients. In our case, we had an American named Josh who made us very uncomfortable. We were with another couple who already had a time share and they were very focused on getting them to give up their "equity" to buy into the Vida plan which was supposed to be a much better deal. A few times a person in our group would ask questions and Josh would tell them "don't worry about it" and quickly moved on. I had to put him in check because of his poor customer service skills.
My wife and I politely declined the offer but they refused to back down. After the third guy came to our table to offer a new deal, they sent in the big guns "Oscar". He made us new offer at a low and affordable price. We started to reconsider. However, we wanted to research the company and the contract and informed Oscar that we would not be making a decision on that day. They offered to take a good faith deposit in order to draw up blank contracts for us to review until our next appointment on 6 July, 2014. We were informed that a $300.00 hold would be placed on our credit card in order to review the contract and the money was fully refundable if we did not agree to the terms of the contract and declined the offer. However, if we agreed to proceed forward with the purchase, the $300.00 dollars would be applied torward the down payment. Considering the $300.00 dollars was fully refundable if we declined, we agreed.
Later that evening, I researched ARDA and the Vida Vacations website to review the corporate structure. The website tells you absolutely nothing. I then found a ton of RipOff Reports on the very same company. One of the RipOff Reports on this very site detailed everything we were told on the day we attended. It appeared as if nothing changed since the other vacationers who previously attended Vida Vacations presentations were ripped off.
I made up my mind that night that I would not have anything further to do with Vida Vacations.
The next day I returned with my buddy to inform the Vida representatives that I wanted a receipt that my card woudl not be charged the $300.00 fee if I declined. I spoke with a representative named Luca Ciccone who stated he was in management and he assured me that my card would not be charged. He specifically stated "you did not sign anything so we cannot charge your card". It was true, I did not sign contracts or a credit card receipt authorizing the charge so I walked away thinking I can report the fraud to Visa in the event the charges appeared on my card. Luca refused to provide me with anything in writing.
When my wife and I arrived home we checked our account and Vida sent an authorization code on 7 July, 2014 to charge my credit card in the amount of $300.00. We currently have a dispute pending with Visa.
I can't tell you how happy we are that we did not purchase into Vida Vacation Club. they are the crooks that everyone has stated they are.
My girlfriend and I travelled to The Grand Mayan Resort in Playa Del Carmen for vacation on 05/2013 with another couple for the week. Upon arrival and numerous phone calls to our room we finally got duped into looking into a timeshare or what the call a "vacation package" for a $300 resort credit. My girlfriend and I were very reluctant because we had already owned a timeshare in Florida.
After the sale pitch from "The Bliss" and a gentleman named Lucca, we arrived at the end to listen to what they had to offer. After coming down from $60,000 we ended at a grand total of $19,000 which included my timeshare buyback at $9,500 and included 4 total weeks of vacation. Those 4 weeks included 2 weeks to sell at $2,300 a piece and 2 weeks to use for ourselves either to trade or use at their resorts.
After a $5,400 down payment and $250 per month for 8 months I had quit paying because I had little to NO response from this company concerning the sale of my current timeshare nor my monies coming to us for the sale of our 2 weeks for $4,600 that we would obviuosly use towards our monthly payments and a future vacation. To good to be true? Well as you could guess the answer was YES!
Stuck with paying 2 timeshares we had to stick with our original as we actually hold a deed and tangible property that we could one day sell. Plus in our original timeshare through Vacation Village we can always talk with someone immediately. Mayan Resorts and Vida Vacations totally lied to us about every detail of our Timeshare and was completely misled to but into this SCAM. What makes is doubly worse is that our friends had purchased one with us. They have continued to pay and has called Mayan Resorts every month and they keep saying that their 2 weeks of vacations have sold and their monies are on the way. This has been since January when the money was originally promised.
All I hope is to recoupe some monies back as we are out almost $8,000 and have not used 1 vacation. It's too bad because we really loved the resort and Mexico but will never go back there nor reccommend to my worst enemy. PLEASE stay away from Mayan Resorts and Vida Vacations.
My experience is the same as the others and I am looking for an attorney to help me end this.
In October 2011 while my husband and I were vacationing in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico when we were told we could get a free excursion if we visited the Mayan Resorts. While there we were pressured into buying a timeshare for $7,000. We were wined and dined, pressured, told about all these benefits (none of which actually worked), and stupidly believed it all.
We tried to cancel, and were told we missed our time period to cancel - which they never told us about. Then told us in 3 years we can sell the timeshare and get our money back. Three years later, we are trying to sell this timeshare back and they are saying 1) we have to sell it on our and 2) pay them $5,000+ (10 times the mandatory maintenance fee) to allow us to sell the share. ARE YOU KIDDING ME. They say "it's in the contract!" Yea, but when we asked all about this, none of this was explained or told to us. In fact we were told the opposite.
All I want is to just end this relationship with this horrible company. I am looking for assistance, specifically an attorney since when we just spoke to Vida they were not willing to work with us and in fact, continued the lies - "your maintenance fee is waived you don't have to pay it if you don't use your timeshare," yet that's not listed anywhere on the bill and what happened to the three years worth of maintenance fees we paid but didn't use the time share because we couldn't.
Oh and they never did sell all those extra weeks the told us we would get and would pay our $7,000 back. All the companies Vida told us we have to pay and they sell our "weeks" - well we paid, but nothing was sold.
Sunday, January 19 my wife and I boarded a US Air flight in Charlotte, NC at 6:30 p.m. est to start our trip to San Jose Cabo, Mexico. We landed in NYC at 8:20 p.m. est and did not depart until the next morning around 6:30 a.m. est. We then flew to Houston, TX and landed around 10:04 a.m. ct. We departed from Houston and landed at San Jose Cabo, MX at 12:55 p.m. mt. We were in airports 22 hours. After going through airport immigration procedures for the next hour we were exiting their airport to find our pre-paid transportation to the Pueblo Blanco in Los Cobos. A man told us he would give us free transportation to our resort and took us to the Mayan Resorts desk. We were immediately bombarded with a presentation of gifts including free transportation to our resort. Instead we were taken to the Grand Mayan in San Jose, MX.
We then informed the saleperson that we could not pay anything to upgrade our already existing Grand Bliss ownership with Vida (Mayan). After three hours we agreed to a program where we would pay $5388.00, which they set-up with Interval Internation for 2.99% interest for a limited time. They accepted our Great Smoky Lodge by Wyndham and Shawnee Village Resort as properties to lower the price. In addiiton we were offered a program to rent two of our Grand Mayan weeks each year to take care of $15,000. We agreed, however even with this deal I was completely satisfied with my Grand Bliss and should have not accepted any changes.
Then we went to another office to sign 12+ pages with numerous signatures. I questioned a form that had us paying the $15,000 and the salesperson was brought back. He did not talk to me in front of the person presenting the forms to be sign, but we went into a hallway for him to explain again the rental program. We re-entered and signed.
The pages that we signed were not given to us at this time, but instead were mailed to us weeks later at our home address.
At the beginning of April I received a bill for $15,000 due by April 21. Later I received an amended bill for $13,420 that reflected the two Mayan weeks being rented this year.
Currently I am waiting to see if Vida will accept my offer to keep my original contract with Grand Bliss and I loose $5388 plus $749 I paid to trade my Great Smokey Lodge by Wyndham property.
Got totally ripped off by this company, was there to celebrate going back to work and spend time with my family. They made it sound so wonderful, spoiled us while we were there and told us how great an investment this would be. We were lied to and made to believe we were making a great income producing purchase. As soon as we got back and had to call someone about the transaction should have been our first clue, but we went on paying our monthly payment for over a year, before we caught on to them. Unfortunately, because we were not smarter at the time, we lost over eight thousand dollars $8,000.00.
Mayan Resorts Reviews
Mr. William accept a title sponsorship to support the Children Dignostic and Treatment Center of Broward County, the event that we organized in a partnership with The convention and vistors bureau of the county and the Hall of Fame of NFL.
Mr. Williams kept excusing when paying until the very last day and got his partners and board of directors to the three days events to support sales, including his PR company.
Mr. Williams and his partners argue during the event about the paying but they agree to pay in a few weeks.
After 10 months, they never pay one cent of the $42,500 sponsorship value.
Mr. Williams keep promising the payments and even got an attorney that I think gave up on his scam.
All this group and Mr. Williams are to still money, they do not own the land yet nor have permits for ANY of what they are asking investors to fund.
Looks for yourself!!! You can find him taking advantage of media and branding during the event.
We have been to other time share presentations in the past and have always taken pride in the fact that we were able to hold out, and not give in to the hostage tactics they generally use to try and get your money any way they can. We were always just as committed as they were to walk away with the free gift as they were to poke our eyes out.
In Cancun they get you at the airport when you step foot out of immigration. You barely have a chance to look at what lies outside the front door when you are bombarded with English speaking people all wanting to help you get a ride to your hotel and sell you a tour or excursion. Since it was our first ever trip to Cancun (August, 2013) and we definitely needed to book tours and excursions anyways, we decided to listen to the speel and see what he had to offer. Afterall we needed a cab to our hotel anyway. Intermingled in the discount flim flam tours he presented us the whole intention of the charade finally came out. It was a free buffet and transportation to a beautiful resort and a great discount romantic sunset dinner tour. We went along and since we were not planning on buying anything but souvenirs felt safe to submit and play along.
Even the cab driver who was commissioned to pick us up the next morning to drive us to the 90 minute presentation tried to warn us in his own humble way that we were going to be taken and he hated taking people to this place because his fee was also discounted and he felt guilty knowing they were going to try any take us for alot of money. We assured him that we were only going for the free buffet, prize and discount dinner offer. No worries and thanks for the friendly local advice.
Then began the parade of sales people starting with the obvious rookie instructed to not only take our eyes out, but a couple of limbs as well. He escorted us to the tasty food buffet and began asking us all the required questions about our lifestle and plans for the future. He had to have been all of 19 years old so we may have been too bright and overeducated for the con job he had to offer us. He showed us the Bliss and Grand Bliss units, pools and more pools, but never any part or the ocean or beach. Once we turned down his starting offer in the $100,000 range complete with circles, squares, triangles, lines, arrows, bullet points, and dots he had to turn us over to his manager, who also could not speak without drawing a new set of diagrams and stick figures. His concern was that his protoge was not able to close the deal so he was there to offer his special expertise to the sales pitch. I was especially taken by the total mind control tactics, white paper covering the windows so you could not be distracted or enjoy the view, the furniture placement, etc. etc.
The price would come down several thousands with every new sales scammer we got but we stayed firm and continued to say no and we want to go enjoy our vacation now, thank you and let's get the heck out of here. I guess they tried every lie and tactic they could dream up with us but they refuse to let you go or even let you go to the bathroom. They followed me there and back. I thought it odd or that she had to go to the bathroom too, but after reading another article on the same presentation I see it is planned that way. They don't want you to sneak out the closest exit. They even bring on the salesman with a Britsh accent to appeal to any shred of possibility they can to sell you something but even he didn't convince us to buy.
The very last sales person Roxanne Quintana was a fellow Texan from El Paso who was the absolute used car sales rep of the bunch who was only into rock bottom deals, complimenting any and everything she could even without knowing much about us or our lifestyle. She promised us so many things that we are just now finding out are nowhere near true. The clincher for my frugal, accountant husband was the promise of selling back the weeks that we were not planning on using at approximately $900 per week so "all we had to do was call and say we wanted our money because we were not going to use our 2 bedrrom unit." An accountant's mind works quick when figuring out money and especially a return on investment.
Come to find out the $7400 we ended up buying for is a discount vacation plan that won't get you any more savings than if you were to comparison shop for your vacation. The 2 bedroom unit was also a lie, even though they mentioned it as they were talking over the contract, the best we can get is a one bedrrom unit for $399 for the week at their resort. The $900 refund that all 5 sale reps mentioned is a complete fantasy and does not exist in the vacation club option only in the timesahre option. This was even highlighted by Roxanne and her brother over and over both before and after the sale so there was no misunderstanding in what we heard and what the promised.
Our decision to purchase has been a regretful one and if we had not been so anxious to just leave and not so busy thinking of how the selling back of weeks could get us our money back we would have seen it for the waste of money that it is. The resort is not as spectacular as they want you to believe it is and it is sad to know that these people know their psychology better than I do and that is what my degree is in. Bottom line is that there is no way to profit from this type of scam and they are there to get as much money out of you as they can without any hesitation to straight up lie to you. Beware and just avoid them altogether at the airport.
We were on a family vacation and were directed to the agent to help us find our transportation to our resort. We then became involved in a sales pitch with many special gifts in return for our short 45 minute breakfast disclosure. We did arrive the next Day for the breakfast and our 45 minutes became 5 hours and a very savvy sales pitch for a purchase With Vida vacations. We became very suspious and I began to read the reviews on this pressure sale tatics. We are stopping the transaction. We want to warn others not to fall in to this trap. They are very fast talkers and will convince you they are helping you instead they are harming you. I hope this helps someone else.
Every year my fiance and i celebrate our birthdays in wonderul Mexico, sadly we will end this tradition after our last visit. If you are reading this -- you were ripped off or doing some research because your gut feeling is that you may be getting ripped off. Well please listen to your gut feeling!
My fiance and I stayed in the Grand Mayan and we were greated by Katerina and right away she invited us to a "timeshare disclosure" meeting. We quickly declined becuase we currently own timeshare (US property). She was not pushy and promised us we would find it interesting specially since we were already timeshare owners. We were offered two tickets to the "Fiesta" dinner, since it was something we had planned on attending, we accepted the offer. They recommend you attend the very next morning in order to attend the dinner or they will run out of capacity. This is where the lies start! The reason why the Vida Life ("Vida") staff wants you to attend a meeting upon arrival is to hopefully trap you into buying a --- non-existent luxury golf resort timeshare.
The day of the presentation we were paired up with Eduardo Vega. Eduardo claimed to have traveled the world through Vida Life and even showed us pictures of various vacations. He even cried when he got to a picture of his so-called ex-fiance that was killed in a car accident. My next comment may sound cruel but i think this was all part of his sales tactic!! How can I believe anything this man said when everything he represented was a huge SCAM!
Through out the walkthrough of the premises we got to know Eduardo and he got to know us. Little did we know he was gathering all the details for his sales pitch. We shared the fact that we had recently gotten enganged. Worst mistake we did! Once we said this Eduardo promised us a honeymoon vacation anywhere in the world through Vida Life or SFX. He even printed out resorts in Bora Bora, Turks and Caicos and Thailand with availability in the timeframe we needed. These were all locations we listed as "dream" honeymoon locations. These print outs were sent over during the presentation from a fictitious concierge department.
The hotels Eduardo showed us do not participate with Vida Life or SFX. We discovered this once we were back home. We could not book our honeymoon and now we are out of our honeymoon fund = $5,000. Vida Life claims to have access to 5 star resorts all over the world. If you are already an RCI member, you will see that it is no different. By the way, RCI is the same company Vida tried to discredit during the presentation but at the end of the sale they give you one year membership for FREE. They said it is given away for free so you can compare the sites and see that SFX is a better deal.
We already tried disputing the $5k deposit we gave to Vida with our credit card company. These funds were supposed to go towards our honeymoon and unfortunately they were not able to help us recoop our loss. Even the 2,000 Vida points that were promised were never deposited into our account. I wish I could paste a screenshot to thi review, the current balance is 3 points. When using the Vida website all hotels, car rentals, airfare rates have been inflated. There are no discounted rates on this site ($300 yearly membership fee we also paid in full) (AGREEMENT CPRT0448)
Additionally, Vida claims to acquire US based timeshares for wealthy Mexican business owners. Owning US property will allow these business owners to be granted US visas by the Mexican government. Another LIE!!! This is where Equity Acquisition ("EAS") comes into the mix. This company applied a $12,500 credit towards our Grand Mayan purchase. However, when EAS received copies of my timeshare contract they stated they have a "vast amount of properties to transfer and resell" so now they are selling my timeshare back to me for ONLY $700. If I decide to move forward with my transfer then I have to send them my original deed, power of attorney, original membership contract, certificate of use, copy of my ID. They basically want all documents and money up front but there is no guanrantee that the transfer will go through. I have gone through the purchase process in the US and closing fees are paid at closing of a deal and nothing up front. Another SCAM! Tatiana Kay and Oscar Fink seem to have pre-scripted responses when replying to any of my emails. (EAS 34720 RM)
I wish I had done more research!!! I feel i was manipulated by the sales representative - Eduardo. He knew we were looking forward to our honeymoon and advised us to purchase the timeshare putting down only $5,000 and we could go anywhere in the world. Even Bora Bora that would normally cost approximately $10,000. How could we do our due diligence if there is no wifi in any of these 5 or 6 star resorts?!?!? Initially I was happy to be disconnected from reality but his is part of the SCAM. You can only cancel within 5 days of signing but by the time you get home, it's TOO LATE. When we contacted Vida they offered to lower our debt from $11k to $4k. This sounds great but it will not solve my problem. I still cannot book my honeymoon and i'm out of $5k and now stuck with the US timeshare I thought i had traded in and $4k debt. We are at the mercy of these people and no one has offered a fair solution to this problem.
Even if we keep this property, we have discovered we will not be able to rent out the weeks we will not use. The five companies Vida suggests you contact for ownership rental or resale are: Golf Network, Resort Rentals, Vacation Time Company, Destination International and Global Golf Connections. These companies are all listed on this site as possible ripoff companies. From reading other complaints these firms will ask for money and you will never hear from them again.
All this explains why you can't go back to the resort for the first 5 years from date of purchase! Little do they know, I don't ever want to go back to any of these properties and will make sure word gets out there of their SCAM. I will use any site and all social media possible. Hoping i also reach someone that may be using a hotspot while staying at these shady resorts and help them!!
AGREEMENT CPRT0448
EAS34720RM
On 3 July 2014, my wife and I were on vacation and attended a timeshare presentation sponsored by Vida Vacations at the Mayan Palace Resort in Rivera Maya (Cancun), Mexico. These people are slick. They employ sales associates to match the ethnicity of the perspective clients. In our case, we had an American named Josh who made us very uncomfortable. We were with another couple who already had a time share and they were very focused on getting them to give up their "equity" to buy into the Vida plan which was supposed to be a much better deal. A few times a person in our group would ask questions and Josh would tell them "don't worry about it" and quickly moved on. I had to put him in check because of his poor customer service skills.
My wife and I politely declined the offer but they refused to back down. After the third guy came to our table to offer a new deal, they sent in the big guns "Oscar". He made us new offer at a low and affordable price. We started to reconsider. However, we wanted to research the company and the contract and informed Oscar that we would not be making a decision on that day. They offered to take a good faith deposit in order to draw up blank contracts for us to review until our next appointment on 6 July, 2014. We were informed that a $300.00 hold would be placed on our credit card in order to review the contract and the money was fully refundable if we did not agree to the terms of the contract and declined the offer. However, if we agreed to proceed forward with the purchase, the $300.00 dollars would be applied torward the down payment. Considering the $300.00 dollars was fully refundable if we declined, we agreed.
Later that evening, I researched ARDA and the Vida Vacations website to review the corporate structure. The website tells you absolutely nothing. I then found a ton of RipOff Reports on the very same company. One of the RipOff Reports on this very site detailed everything we were told on the day we attended. It appeared as if nothing changed since the other vacationers who previously attended Vida Vacations presentations were ripped off.
I made up my mind that night that I would not have anything further to do with Vida Vacations.
The next day I returned with my buddy to inform the Vida representatives that I wanted a receipt that my card woudl not be charged the $300.00 fee if I declined. I spoke with a representative named Luca Ciccone who stated he was in management and he assured me that my card would not be charged. He specifically stated "you did not sign anything so we cannot charge your card". It was true, I did not sign contracts or a credit card receipt authorizing the charge so I walked away thinking I can report the fraud to Visa in the event the charges appeared on my card. Luca refused to provide me with anything in writing.
When my wife and I arrived home we checked our account and Vida sent an authorization code on 7 July, 2014 to charge my credit card in the amount of $300.00. We currently have a dispute pending with Visa.
I can't tell you how happy we are that we did not purchase into Vida Vacation Club. they are the crooks that everyone has stated they are.
Please, stay far away from these people.
My girlfriend and I travelled to The Grand Mayan Resort in Playa Del Carmen for vacation on 05/2013 with another couple for the week. Upon arrival and numerous phone calls to our room we finally got duped into looking into a timeshare or what the call a "vacation package" for a $300 resort credit. My girlfriend and I were very reluctant because we had already owned a timeshare in Florida.
After the sale pitch from "The Bliss" and a gentleman named Lucca, we arrived at the end to listen to what they had to offer. After coming down from $60,000 we ended at a grand total of $19,000 which included my timeshare buyback at $9,500 and included 4 total weeks of vacation. Those 4 weeks included 2 weeks to sell at $2,300 a piece and 2 weeks to use for ourselves either to trade or use at their resorts.
After a $5,400 down payment and $250 per month for 8 months I had quit paying because I had little to NO response from this company concerning the sale of my current timeshare nor my monies coming to us for the sale of our 2 weeks for $4,600 that we would obviuosly use towards our monthly payments and a future vacation. To good to be true? Well as you could guess the answer was YES!
Stuck with paying 2 timeshares we had to stick with our original as we actually hold a deed and tangible property that we could one day sell. Plus in our original timeshare through Vacation Village we can always talk with someone immediately. Mayan Resorts and Vida Vacations totally lied to us about every detail of our Timeshare and was completely misled to but into this SCAM. What makes is doubly worse is that our friends had purchased one with us. They have continued to pay and has called Mayan Resorts every month and they keep saying that their 2 weeks of vacations have sold and their monies are on the way. This has been since January when the money was originally promised.
All I hope is to recoupe some monies back as we are out almost $8,000 and have not used 1 vacation. It's too bad because we really loved the resort and Mexico but will never go back there nor reccommend to my worst enemy. PLEASE stay away from Mayan Resorts and Vida Vacations.
My experience is the same as the others and I am looking for an attorney to help me end this.
In October 2011 while my husband and I were vacationing in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico when we were told we could get a free excursion if we visited the Mayan Resorts. While there we were pressured into buying a timeshare for $7,000. We were wined and dined, pressured, told about all these benefits (none of which actually worked), and stupidly believed it all.
We tried to cancel, and were told we missed our time period to cancel - which they never told us about. Then told us in 3 years we can sell the timeshare and get our money back. Three years later, we are trying to sell this timeshare back and they are saying 1) we have to sell it on our and 2) pay them $5,000+ (10 times the mandatory maintenance fee) to allow us to sell the share. ARE YOU KIDDING ME. They say "it's in the contract!" Yea, but when we asked all about this, none of this was explained or told to us. In fact we were told the opposite.
All I want is to just end this relationship with this horrible company. I am looking for assistance, specifically an attorney since when we just spoke to Vida they were not willing to work with us and in fact, continued the lies - "your maintenance fee is waived you don't have to pay it if you don't use your timeshare," yet that's not listed anywhere on the bill and what happened to the three years worth of maintenance fees we paid but didn't use the time share because we couldn't.
Oh and they never did sell all those extra weeks the told us we would get and would pay our $7,000 back. All the companies Vida told us we have to pay and they sell our "weeks" - well we paid, but nothing was sold.
Someone please help me!
Sunday, January 19 my wife and I boarded a US Air flight in Charlotte, NC at 6:30 p.m. est to start our trip to San Jose Cabo, Mexico. We landed in NYC at 8:20 p.m. est and did not depart until the next morning around 6:30 a.m. est. We then flew to Houston, TX and landed around 10:04 a.m. ct. We departed from Houston and landed at San Jose Cabo, MX at 12:55 p.m. mt. We were in airports 22 hours. After going through airport immigration procedures for the next hour we were exiting their airport to find our pre-paid transportation to the Pueblo Blanco in Los Cobos. A man told us he would give us free transportation to our resort and took us to the Mayan Resorts desk. We were immediately bombarded with a presentation of gifts including free transportation to our resort. Instead we were taken to the Grand Mayan in San Jose, MX.
We then informed the saleperson that we could not pay anything to upgrade our already existing Grand Bliss ownership with Vida (Mayan). After three hours we agreed to a program where we would pay $5388.00, which they set-up with Interval Internation for 2.99% interest for a limited time. They accepted our Great Smoky Lodge by Wyndham and Shawnee Village Resort as properties to lower the price. In addiiton we were offered a program to rent two of our Grand Mayan weeks each year to take care of $15,000. We agreed, however even with this deal I was completely satisfied with my Grand Bliss and should have not accepted any changes.
Then we went to another office to sign 12+ pages with numerous signatures. I questioned a form that had us paying the $15,000 and the salesperson was brought back. He did not talk to me in front of the person presenting the forms to be sign, but we went into a hallway for him to explain again the rental program. We re-entered and signed.
The pages that we signed were not given to us at this time, but instead were mailed to us weeks later at our home address.
At the beginning of April I received a bill for $15,000 due by April 21. Later I received an amended bill for $13,420 that reflected the two Mayan weeks being rented this year.
Currently I am waiting to see if Vida will accept my offer to keep my original contract with Grand Bliss and I loose $5388 plus $749 I paid to trade my Great Smokey Lodge by Wyndham property.
Got totally ripped off by this company, was there to celebrate going back to work and spend time with my family. They made it sound so wonderful, spoiled us while we were there and told us how great an investment this would be. We were lied to and made to believe we were making a great income producing purchase. As soon as we got back and had to call someone about the transaction should have been our first clue, but we went on paying our monthly payment for over a year, before we caught on to them. Unfortunately, because we were not smarter at the time, we lost over eight thousand dollars $8,000.00.