I received a phone call at 10.00am this morning (26 February) from Deana Fox, (Employee Id. No. 1047) from Great Destinations Holidays saying I had been selected from a survey I had filled in, and had won a holiday comprising:
• 7 days, 6 nights holiday in Orlando, Florida staying at the Radisson Hotel, for 4 people,
• Choice of 7 day car hire or Theme Park tickets including Universal Studios,
• 4 day/3 night cruise on Carnival lines cruise ship to Bahamas,
• 3days/2 nights stay at Hilton Hotel, Fort Lauderdale.
The only condition was that we had to view a 90 minute presentation on Timeshare, and that we had 18 months to take the holiday, and would need to purchase our own return air flights to Florida.
She then put me onto a travel consultant, Dinario? Everett (Id No. 8149) who went through the prize package again. He then requested a booking deposit of $699 which I could pay by VisaCard or MasterCard, to secure the room bookings. I then told him that I don’t give out my credit card details over the phone to someone who cold called me. He went to great lengths to explain that the payment would be done through a different department, who would be in contact with VisaCard. I told him again that I had been scammed before, and was not comfortable giving my credit card details to someone over the phone.
They had all my details, home phone number, email address and postal address. I told him to send me an email and I would get back to him and pay the deposit online on a secure site. He said that I would be charged an additional fee to pay online.
He then put me through to his manager, Darren Scott, who wanted to assure me that his company would not want to compromise their reputation, as they deal with well known companies such as Raddison, Carnival and Hilton.
While I was talking to Darren Scott I went online to the Scambook Website and typed in the Great Destinations company name. I told Darren Scott that his company had a number of complaints logged against it, and asked for his phone number and I would ring him back. He said to ring the customer services number on their website, and hung up.
Needless to say I did not pay the “booking deposit”.
I’m not sure whether the offer is genuine or not, so will be interested on what happens.
I would rather miss out on a holiday then be subject to a scam.
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