As embaressing as it is to admit, I also fell for this unbelievable SCAM - Please read this report before doing anything! Let's join together and stop these people!!!
So i first heard about this scam in the mail. I recieved a letter telling me that i had won a free Ramada vacation and cruise. I called the number and i spoke with the representatives for a while telling me all the amazing things that were included and then the catch..."all this will cost you is $798, for this whole thing!" I thought it was great but i was very skeptical becuase it sounded way too good to be true and being that I am a college student i dont have that kind of money to spend so after they kept me on the phone for over an hour, I declined.
Two weeks later they called me back and they offered me this same offer again but this time for half the price, plus they promised a million little extra things like free airfare i can bring 5 people with me, a better suite, etc... And to top it all off they told me all i had to pay was $99, right now and when i recieve the package in the mail i could decide then whether i really wanted it and pay the rest. They were so pushy and kept me on the phone for so long that i agreed thinking, "What the heck, noone could be so coniving to cheat someone like this" I was being very naive and innocent because I want to believe in the good of people and the representatives assured me over and over that this wasnt a scam and they would never do that, etc... So i decided to believe them.
I recieved my package in the mail and immediately i relized i had made a huge mistake. The information was extremely unclear and I just kept seeing notes that i owed more money than they had said originally, plus no airfare was included! I was so confused so i called their office. They were very rude to me on the phone and so i said that i wanted to cancel the contract on the grounds that i had been shamefully misled. The representative told me to hold on and a "manager" he called himself got on the line. He was so rude and told me that there was nothing i could do, and they would be taking the money from my account. I could not cancel, they basically scream / mocked me and then he basicaly hung up on me.
I was so embaressed and i felt so taken advantage of afterwards but then i decided that i need to research this fully. That is when i found usacomplaints.com. This site is amazing and i think that there should be alot more media about this. Basically i read a few reports first about people who were ripped off and i began to feel more and more stupid, and then i got to a letter about someone who got their money back - i read the report and i realized that I had tha FULL right to get a REFUND!
Acoording to the Florida State Law, you have a right to cancel your purchase and receive a refund within 30 days of the date of purchase. I was still within my 30 days of purchase, thank G-d, so the representative at the company had completely lied to me! There is a website: boakes.org which i found, which spells out step by step how to get your refund because the company is legally obligated to give you your money back! Check out this site - it really works!
Thanks to that site and rippoff report I am hopefully getting my refund.
Right after i read this report i went to my bank and told them what happened and i withdrew the money i had in there so they wouldnt take any more. Then i called ramada consumer services and followed the steps on boakes.org. Telling them that i was in fact entitled to a full refund and they were legally obligated to give it to me.
The represenative tried to distract me and i was on the phone for over an hour getting transfered from one person to another and finally i was told that the cancellation office was closed. The office, they said closed at 9:30, mind you i was speaking to her at 9:00 and i had originally called at 8:00. Fine i gave in and i took her name and reference number, (which im almost positive was a fake name because she said her last name was Johnson and two other reps there also said their last name was Johnson) and i told her i would call back at 9:00 tomorow when they open.
That was last night and this morning I called back. Again it took forevor to transfer me to the right department and when i finnaly got through the representative tried a million ways to get me to reconsider. She even offered to give me a letter from the president of the company garunteeing me a full refund after the vacation if i wasnt satisfied. I was not trusting that one so i again and again just kept saying i would like to cancel. It took awhile, an thankfully she was not rude, ony deceitful, and she finnally told me that i would be getting a full refund.
At this point i called my bank again to document that this happened and i am sending a letter of cancelation to the company that will document the day i requested the cancellation so that they wont try and say i never called. (i wouldnt put it past them to commit more fraud) i want to cover all my bases. Hopefully tht money will be returned within 7 days and if not i promise that i will take action.
They messed with the wrong girl. This is in complete violation of the law and there are enough of us that we should be able to join together to do something and get these people shut down!
If anyone has any more advice for me of what else i can do to ensure that i get my refund please let me know.
I am sad to say that i have lost some faith in mankind for this, because I truly didn't believe that people would/could do this.
Please be smart and do the research and know that the law entitles you to a full refund! Thanks to Ripp off report and boakes.org, I think i was saved here but now i just have to wait and see if it really worked. I will definitely be smarter next time...
Tami
New york, New York
U.S.A.
0 comments