Our vacation started off great. We were impressed with the property and service was good at the Grand Sunset Princess, in Riviera Maya, Mexico. That is…until the near constant badgering by shady salespeople for a company called Royal Holiday. We have sat through these pitches before, but this one was different. It actually made sense. Well at least…the way the described how our membership would work. Much to our dismay, the membership is nothing like the way they described. We were told that we could get two weeks for free with 30K membership points. That is how we normally vacation and it would pay for itself in 6 years. Wow, imagine that, a lifetime of vacations paid for in three short years. I can assure you this is not how it works. The points will get you a vacation at a second-rate resort that nobody in their right mind would frequent. Anything nice will cost you money and many black-out dates exist. So we essentially paid for a membership to continue paying, which is not how the sales pitch went. Cathay and Oscar were very convincing and assured us that we would be happy with our investment. Again, more lies from the shady salespeople. Upon arriving home, we tried to cancel our membership after seeing all the disappointed people online. We were told that we could not cancel because it was not a business day and then the following Monday we were told it was too late to cancel and the five days had come and gone. Trying to escalate anything with this company pointless and will get you nowhere. Nobody is going to help you unless you have your wallet out. Being stuck, we tried to keep an open mind and see how things stacked up to what we normally book and the pricing/availability. After sending our sales rep, Susanne (Shane) Gaertner, our vacation dates, it took her over two weeks to respond. When she did respond, it was some cryptic message just listing the available properties with no real assistance. As you can imagine what direction this is heading, the Bavaro Princess would cost us what we would normally pay with no membership. The other two dumps available were not even worth the effort. I hope this letter reaches others before they make the same mistake that we did. It is a scam!
I am joining the ever growing victims of Royal Holiday tonight as I write this report. I too was sold a dream of wonderful vacations in Cozumel and Cancun. I was solicited in the Cozumel Plaza by a local Royal recruit agent and was given a free jeep one day rental to explore the Island, which I took. They know how to lay down a rosy path! Anyway, the hook to the rental was to commit to a lunch meeting of Royal Holiday presentation. The presentation was endless (took about five or six hours) where I was presented to several Royal sales people, executives, managers and the like.
I was given the usual song and dance about how wonderful Royal was and even though they were not as big as RCI, I would be able to use RCI facilities. Oh, but they forgot to tell me ( as I later found out from RCI) that I also had to pay RCI membership. I later also payed RCI membership for a couple of years because I wanted to book a hotel in Margarita Island, which I cancelled because upon calling Margarita Island Hotels found I was not saving much through RCI.
I was presented with several plans for years of vacationing in Mexico and other World Class facilities, all featured in there Book. I told them I could not afford the plans they were suggesting of $20,000 or $30,000 dollars so they went to The $15,000 and $10,000 dollar plan. I told them I would need time to think it over since that was a lot of money for me just to go on vacation. They quickly went to plan B. I should of walked out at that point, but the beauty of the beach I had visited the day before kept playing in my mind. At that point they proposed a plan where I could put $6,319 dollars on my credit card and continue to make monthly payments of $279.00 dollars for 36 weeks interest free. They did not specify who was lending the money or real specifics of the loan. I told them I would still like to think it over since I had time left in Mexico. They said it was an offer that would only be given at that particular moment. Of course that was a lie, but then they left and came back and added"" if you sign today we will include a free airline ticket of up to One thousand dollars. It all seemed great and I thought, I can't go wrong because it would be like having $15,000 dollars in the bank and for $365.00 dollars membership fee I can come to Mexico every year. And so with a little more coxing and smiling and two elderly people that where announcing there extension of membership to many applause I made the BIGGEST MISTAKE of my life and signed that contract without advise or a lawyer. Had I had proper counsel I would have seen how vague and one sided that contract is.
I payed my monthly payments faithfully for about three years or until the hurricane hit Cozumel and I got a letter from Royal that because of hurricane damages they were having to implement a membership fee of $600 or so dollars. A couple of months prior to that I had decided to use the one thousand dollar airfare bonus I was given since it would soon expire. I had never used any part of my Royal Plan or sold my time (which I had been told was one of Royals' benefits that you never lost unused vacation weeks and could sell it to pay membership, NOT SO!) Tried to get information on that once, and was told point blank to go to a real estate agent. That gave me an indication of how helpful and polite Royal was going to be. I proceeded to call Miami and was told to call Cozumel in order to reclaim my free airfare bonus. This was when I really began to understand how Royal operates. I made around ten calls to find the right person to speak to about using my bonus certificate. I was told to call Cancun and speak to Roxanna Ruiz. When I finally reach her, I gave her my information and when I wanted to travel. I had a few weeks before I planned my trip and was flexible, and she was to get back to me. I waited a week or two and no return call. What was I thinking, I really still believed they would call back. I thought, It's Mexico, they don't have the same sense of urgency. Finally, realizing she was not going to call back I began calling almost everyday and leaving messages which were never returned. I then became totally enraged at the lack of business courtesy and total disregard to client satisfaction. Not even a returned call and no one to even complain to. I called Miami again only to be shrugged off several times. I finally booked my fare and took my trip at my own expense. Much later I finally got in touch with the only nice person at Royal, Maya Morgan who told me she could not even reach the Cancun people. That gave me a very dim picture of my future with Royal. With Ms Morgan's help I was finally reimbursed for me plane fare.
We, my husband and I, have had no end of trouble with Royal Holiday Club (Corporate Offices, Mexico City, Mexico). We have tried to get our concernes and complaints addressed by this company right from the beginning but to no avail. Requests are ignored, information is never given, and no answers given for their fraudulent business practices, broken promises, and lack of customer service.
Our complaints are many and refer to RHC Contract # 151-150128, Lead No. 425142:
1. We were told that our initial investment of $2915 would be charged to our Visa 45 days after signing our contract. This was a factor to us purchasing a membership. However, contrary to what were promised and led to believe, this amount was charged to our Visa immediately. After agreeing to our request of a 45-day delay of all charges, we discovered too late that when the contract was drawn up, what was discussed and agreed upon was NOT what was written into the contract. We are extremely disappointed that the sales pitch was not upfront and honest, and was, in fact deceptive and misleading. (Salesperson Carolina Solorzano and a fellow named Alexjandro.)
2. We were told and led to believe that we earned holiday credits every year that were accumulative. Upon getting home, we discovered that this was a misrepresentation of the facts and that the true facts were not revealed to us in the interest of full discolsure at the time of purchase. We cannot roll over credits and build enough up for a holiday. This knowledge, had we had it upfront, would have definitely influenced our decision whether or not to buy into the club. We're extremely upset with the high-pressure selling tactics that included a lack of full disclosure, misrepresentation of all the facts, including outright lies.
3. We were granted a signing bonus of an additional 15,000 holiday creidits. This offer was used to influence us to sign up. These credits - not indicated or pointed out to us at the time - had an expiry date of nine months from date of issues. If that wasn't enough, the date of issue is not the date the contract was signed, but is predated one month earlier. This is deceptive and fraudulent by itself, especially so as we informed them BEFORE signing that we didn't intend to take another holiday within the following year.
4. We informed Royal Holiday of our issues in emails dating 2 weeks after our contract signing (March 5, 2006). We never ever recieved any reply or answer from Royal Holiday addressing our serious concerns.
5. In the first 2 weeks, we had our personal customer service agent named Henry hang up on us when we tried to discuss our issues with the Club and resolve our issues. We have never heard from him since. It appears that this company is only interested in getting a person's money and they have no intention of providing any actual customer service or answers in regards to their business practices and operation.
6. We were only told of our monthly payment costs and not a the yearly ""RCI Membership"" fees they charged us later on. This yearly fee was never revealed to us during the sales meeting.
7. We were led to believe a lot of other ""benefits"" were available such as ""renting out credits"" and not-restrictive holiday bookings. Nothing has been easy or straightforward with this company, and we've been unsuccessful in accessing these benefits or getting their assistance in these areas.
8. We have, in writing, requested that any and all further communication from them be delivered in writing, and that they give us detailed information regarding our concerns and questions in writing. We have asked that they discontinue leaving messages on our home phone. Royal Holiday has refused to acknowledge any of our written requests for answers or assistance and have continued to harass us via the phone. They refuse to put any of their communications or reasons for their practices into writing as requested.
As a result of the above complaints, we have refused to pay Royal Holiday any more money. We will not support the fraudulent business practices and deceitful tactics of this SCAM. We do not wish to be scammed and defrauded of any more money for an inferior quality of service and lack of benefits that are contrary to what was disclosed and promised us in the beginning.
Instead of addressing our concerns or getting back to us in writing, Royal Holiday has followed through on their threat to turn our file over to collections. We are now be harrassed regularly by Red Flag Collections.
We want all collection calls to cease and desist, our contract to be voided and any and all dealings between us and Royal Holiday to be terminated, and all monies lost to their scam to be refunded in the amount of $17,931.32 USD (payments made from March 2006 - January 2011, not including any yearly RCI memberships charges).
Royal Holiday Reviews
Our vacation started off great. We were impressed with the property and service was good at the Grand Sunset Princess, in Riviera Maya, Mexico. That is…until the near constant badgering by shady salespeople for a company called Royal Holiday. We have sat through these pitches before, but this one was different. It actually made sense. Well at least…the way the described how our membership would work. Much to our dismay, the membership is nothing like the way they described. We were told that we could get two weeks for free with 30K membership points. That is how we normally vacation and it would pay for itself in 6 years. Wow, imagine that, a lifetime of vacations paid for in three short years. I can assure you this is not how it works. The points will get you a vacation at a second-rate resort that nobody in their right mind would frequent. Anything nice will cost you money and many black-out dates exist. So we essentially paid for a membership to continue paying, which is not how the sales pitch went. Cathay and Oscar were very convincing and assured us that we would be happy with our investment. Again, more lies from the shady salespeople. Upon arriving home, we tried to cancel our membership after seeing all the disappointed people online. We were told that we could not cancel because it was not a business day and then the following Monday we were told it was too late to cancel and the five days had come and gone. Trying to escalate anything with this company pointless and will get you nowhere. Nobody is going to help you unless you have your wallet out. Being stuck, we tried to keep an open mind and see how things stacked up to what we normally book and the pricing/availability. After sending our sales rep, Susanne (Shane) Gaertner, our vacation dates, it took her over two weeks to respond. When she did respond, it was some cryptic message just listing the available properties with no real assistance. As you can imagine what direction this is heading, the Bavaro Princess would cost us what we would normally pay with no membership. The other two dumps available were not even worth the effort. I hope this letter reaches others before they make the same mistake that we did. It is a scam!
I am joining the ever growing victims of Royal Holiday tonight as I write this report. I too was sold a dream of wonderful vacations in Cozumel and Cancun. I was solicited in the Cozumel Plaza by a local Royal recruit agent and was given a free jeep one day rental to explore the Island, which I took. They know how to lay down a rosy path! Anyway, the hook to the rental was to commit to a lunch meeting of Royal Holiday presentation. The presentation was endless (took about five or six hours) where I was presented to several Royal sales people, executives, managers and the like.
I was given the usual song and dance about how wonderful Royal was and even though they were not as big as RCI, I would be able to use RCI facilities. Oh, but they forgot to tell me ( as I later found out from RCI) that I also had to pay RCI membership. I later also payed RCI membership for a couple of years because I wanted to book a hotel in Margarita Island, which I cancelled because upon calling Margarita Island Hotels found I was not saving much through RCI.
I was presented with several plans for years of vacationing in Mexico and other World Class facilities, all featured in there Book. I told them I could not afford the plans they were suggesting of $20,000 or $30,000 dollars so they went to The $15,000 and $10,000 dollar plan. I told them I would need time to think it over since that was a lot of money for me just to go on vacation. They quickly went to plan B. I should of walked out at that point, but the beauty of the beach I had visited the day before kept playing in my mind. At that point they proposed a plan where I could put $6,319 dollars on my credit card and continue to make monthly payments of $279.00 dollars for 36 weeks interest free. They did not specify who was lending the money or real specifics of the loan. I told them I would still like to think it over since I had time left in Mexico. They said it was an offer that would only be given at that particular moment. Of course that was a lie, but then they left and came back and added"" if you sign today we will include a free airline ticket of up to One thousand dollars. It all seemed great and I thought, I can't go wrong because it would be like having $15,000 dollars in the bank and for $365.00 dollars membership fee I can come to Mexico every year. And so with a little more coxing and smiling and two elderly people that where announcing there extension of membership to many applause I made the BIGGEST MISTAKE of my life and signed that contract without advise or a lawyer. Had I had proper counsel I would have seen how vague and one sided that contract is.
I payed my monthly payments faithfully for about three years or until the hurricane hit Cozumel and I got a letter from Royal that because of hurricane damages they were having to implement a membership fee of $600 or so dollars. A couple of months prior to that I had decided to use the one thousand dollar airfare bonus I was given since it would soon expire. I had never used any part of my Royal Plan or sold my time (which I had been told was one of Royals' benefits that you never lost unused vacation weeks and could sell it to pay membership, NOT SO!) Tried to get information on that once, and was told point blank to go to a real estate agent. That gave me an indication of how helpful and polite Royal was going to be. I proceeded to call Miami and was told to call Cozumel in order to reclaim my free airfare bonus. This was when I really began to understand how Royal operates. I made around ten calls to find the right person to speak to about using my bonus certificate. I was told to call Cancun and speak to Roxanna Ruiz. When I finally reach her, I gave her my information and when I wanted to travel. I had a few weeks before I planned my trip and was flexible, and she was to get back to me. I waited a week or two and no return call. What was I thinking, I really still believed they would call back. I thought, It's Mexico, they don't have the same sense of urgency. Finally, realizing she was not going to call back I began calling almost everyday and leaving messages which were never returned. I then became totally enraged at the lack of business courtesy and total disregard to client satisfaction. Not even a returned call and no one to even complain to. I called Miami again only to be shrugged off several times. I finally booked my fare and took my trip at my own expense. Much later I finally got in touch with the only nice person at Royal, Maya Morgan who told me she could not even reach the Cancun people. That gave me a very dim picture of my future with Royal. With Ms Morgan's help I was finally reimbursed for me plane fare.
We, my husband and I, have had no end of trouble with Royal Holiday Club (Corporate Offices, Mexico City, Mexico). We have tried to get our concernes and complaints addressed by this company right from the beginning but to no avail. Requests are ignored, information is never given, and no answers given for their fraudulent business practices, broken promises, and lack of customer service.
Our complaints are many and refer to RHC Contract # 151-150128, Lead No. 425142:
1. We were told that our initial investment of $2915 would be charged to our Visa 45 days after signing our contract. This was a factor to us purchasing a membership. However, contrary to what were promised and led to believe, this amount was charged to our Visa immediately. After agreeing to our request of a 45-day delay of all charges, we discovered too late that when the contract was drawn up, what was discussed and agreed upon was NOT what was written into the contract. We are extremely disappointed that the sales pitch was not upfront and honest, and was, in fact deceptive and misleading. (Salesperson Carolina Solorzano and a fellow named Alexjandro.)
2. We were told and led to believe that we earned holiday credits every year that were accumulative. Upon getting home, we discovered that this was a misrepresentation of the facts and that the true facts were not revealed to us in the interest of full discolsure at the time of purchase. We cannot roll over credits and build enough up for a holiday. This knowledge, had we had it upfront, would have definitely influenced our decision whether or not to buy into the club. We're extremely upset with the high-pressure selling tactics that included a lack of full disclosure, misrepresentation of all the facts, including outright lies.
3. We were granted a signing bonus of an additional 15,000 holiday creidits. This offer was used to influence us to sign up. These credits - not indicated or pointed out to us at the time - had an expiry date of nine months from date of issues. If that wasn't enough, the date of issue is not the date the contract was signed, but is predated one month earlier. This is deceptive and fraudulent by itself, especially so as we informed them BEFORE signing that we didn't intend to take another holiday within the following year.
4. We informed Royal Holiday of our issues in emails dating 2 weeks after our contract signing (March 5, 2006). We never ever recieved any reply or answer from Royal Holiday addressing our serious concerns.
5. In the first 2 weeks, we had our personal customer service agent named Henry hang up on us when we tried to discuss our issues with the Club and resolve our issues. We have never heard from him since. It appears that this company is only interested in getting a person's money and they have no intention of providing any actual customer service or answers in regards to their business practices and operation.
6. We were only told of our monthly payment costs and not a the yearly ""RCI Membership"" fees they charged us later on. This yearly fee was never revealed to us during the sales meeting.
7. We were led to believe a lot of other ""benefits"" were available such as ""renting out credits"" and not-restrictive holiday bookings. Nothing has been easy or straightforward with this company, and we've been unsuccessful in accessing these benefits or getting their assistance in these areas.
8. We have, in writing, requested that any and all further communication from them be delivered in writing, and that they give us detailed information regarding our concerns and questions in writing. We have asked that they discontinue leaving messages on our home phone. Royal Holiday has refused to acknowledge any of our written requests for answers or assistance and have continued to harass us via the phone. They refuse to put any of their communications or reasons for their practices into writing as requested.
As a result of the above complaints, we have refused to pay Royal Holiday any more money. We will not support the fraudulent business practices and deceitful tactics of this SCAM. We do not wish to be scammed and defrauded of any more money for an inferior quality of service and lack of benefits that are contrary to what was disclosed and promised us in the beginning.
Instead of addressing our concerns or getting back to us in writing, Royal Holiday has followed through on their threat to turn our file over to collections. We are now be harrassed regularly by Red Flag Collections.
We want all collection calls to cease and desist, our contract to be voided and any and all dealings between us and Royal Holiday to be terminated, and all monies lost to their scam to be refunded in the amount of $17,931.32 USD (payments made from March 2006 - January 2011, not including any yearly RCI memberships charges).
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Story?id=4627886&page=1
http://www.redweek.com/forums/messages?thread_id=18077
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1W2HVGnNls.