Beware, this company is out to take your money and will lie to get it! They want to SELL, SELL, SELL at any cost, and they make statements and promises they deny making once you sign their contract.
My 74 year old parents owned two weeks in a nice room at the Mayan Palace in Mazatlan, Mexico. They started having money problems, so they asked about possibly renting the room out for one of the weeks each year. They were immediately directed to a tour that would "help them learn how to rent the unit out".
The company's "solution" was that my parents needed to pay $8,000 USD to upgrade their place from a one bedroom to a two bedroom unit. This way the unit is "guaranteed" to be rented each year.
Unfortunately, my parents fell for this "solution" and signed a contract. They said that their sales representative (Michael Matthews) was so friendly and wonderful and made it sound like such a great deal, that they had paid $10,900 USD before they knew it. It turns out that the $8k did not include taxes or the $1,400 USD "closing costs".
This took place in December and as of August not one person has asked to rent my parent's unit. When we telephoned the company a few days ago, we were told that there was nothing they could do to help us. We asked about possibly cancelling the contract and were passed around to so many people and had to make so many calls that it took us three hours to finally talk to James Nolan, the "person in charge" of the contract.
James told us, in so many words, that the company has a policy of not changing or cancelling any contracts for any reason. He said they only honor such a request if it is within five days of the signing of the contract, which turns out to be required by Mexican law. My parents said they were never told about the five day grace period.
So in the end, my aging and struggling parents are out $10,900 USD with no rental income in sight. They now dislike and distrust Grupo Mayan so much that they want to sell their unit but can only get a small percentage of the money that they have put into the place.
My parents own timeshares with two other resorts in Mazatlan and have loved their experience with them for almost 20 years now. Sadly, Grupo Mayan is giving the timeshare business a bad reputation and its shady business dealings and practices should be stopped before too many other innocent people loose their money!
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