I was contacted by Vacation International (Curt Swanson) about selling my timeshare in Mexico in mid May. The offer was too good to be true, so I should have known something was up. He sent me a proposal, which I had my attorney go over, and, because it looked legit (this is what "got" me all along!), I signed it and e-mailed it back. Soon Sean Goodwin from Alliance Title called with his grand explanation about how he was there to protect me, keep the money in escrow, and to be sure that both the buyer and seller were represented by a third party. He said I would find out who the buyer was when the sale went through, but until then, I could rest assured that this was not a scam.in fact, he told me that if I called Playa del Sol, they would tell me this was a scam because they did not want corporations buying up their property. (Where was my red flag???) At this point I had a "contract" and "transfer of ownership" which I signed and returned. I sent the first wire transfer for the closing costs, which made sense.By contract these were to be reimbursed. Later I received a call that a tax that Mexico had all along been able to collect but never did (duh... Another red flag) was now being imposed, so I needed to wire 19% which, again, would be reimbursed. Like a dummy, I sent that, too. Too bad my savings account had a bit of a cushion and I was really wanting to redo my kitchen. Greedy! Closing date was July 13. I know some of the rest of you had this closing date, too, because I got an e-mail addressed to someone else but with my information attached. I had requested a cashier's check (at least I was smart enough not to give them my account information), but when it hadn't arrived on the 14th, I e-mailed to ask for confirmation that it had been sent. This morning, July 15th, I called the Alliance Title Service numbers. Surprise... They had been cancelled. I did leave a message at Vacation International, but when I called it later, their number had been cancelled, too. Have I taken action. Yes... And I encourage you to, too!!
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