Recieved an offer for a complimentary cruise in exchange for listening to a travel presentation. Once there, we were asked to sign off on the terms and conditions of the offer, which was littered with conditions, restrictions and fees which we were not told about prior to our arrrival so obviously we felt decieved right off the bat.
After a 45 second tour, we sat down and listened to their spiel in which they tell you that you can travel at highly discounted rates thru the use things called FAM trips (familiariztion trips) that only travel agents have access to. They say that you dont even have to sell travel to get these FAM trips, but if you do sell travel for them, you will earn 60% of the commissions that Goldrush Getaways recieves. They also give you access to timeshare's as one of their independent agents. After the presentation, the sales people come at you and really put the screws to you. When we tried to leave, we were reminded that we needed to stay the full 90 minutes or we would not recieve the free gifts. When I told them they could keep their so called complimentary vacation, the manager, Bill Corigan tried to calm us down, but I had had it by that time.
When I got home, I did some checking on these folks. The BBB rated Goldrush Getaways "D" (http://www.la. BBB.org/BusinessReport. Aspx? CompanyID=13193052) although the price information BBB has is not correct as the price of membership is over 7000.00. I then found out that the manager Bill Corigan may have pulled the same type of deceptive program in Northern California (search Bill Corigan on usacomplaints.com). According to this report, Mr. Corigan is also affiliated with another one of these types of companies called Polaski travel or Hallmark Travel in Concord CA. If you google them (Polaski Travel and Hallmark Travel), you will find quite a few complaints about thier deceptive marketing tactics.
The whole thing smells bad to me. Why would the travel industry give out these so-called FAM trips to travel agents that do not sell travel? Can anyone say they are a travel agent and get the same access to these "to good to be true" deals? According to many of the Travel Agent web sites that there sales people were so kind to show us, it turns out that in nearly all the cases, you need a travel agent credential which is either an IATAN card (Interntional Airlines Travel Agent Network) or a CLIA card (Cruise Line International Association) This point is omitted in thier presentation however (go to Mailpound.com or FamNews.com)
Beware of these folks. If they have to trick you into coming in, then it is my opinion that they are not ethical people. People should be made aware of all the facts before they lay down there hard earned money. I am sure that California has laws about this kind of trickery and these folks surely have not read them.
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