We attended a Home Show or Expo in our hometown. One booth offered a free drawing for travel prizes. A couple of weeks later, we received a phone call telling us we had won the drawing for a free trip to Las Vegas or a 7 day cruise on Royal Caribbean plus a voucher for $40 worth of gas for making the trip into Tampa's Embassy Suites Hotel. A compelling presentation was made by the son of the owner of Resorts Plus International. If we paid a huge fee of $8,000 for membership in their travel club we would be entitled to $4,000 in credits off hotel charges per year. The same was true for condo rentals ($4,000 0ff per year) as well as wonderful discounts on cruises. All we had to do was pay $6,174 to join if we would give up our prize and gas credit. Four family members or friends could be included to share this program with us at no extra charge. We signed a contract with a 3 day clause for backing out, but we couldn't get into their system by phone or the Internet until over a week had passed. That's when we discovered that their hotel prices were the same as those we could find on the Internet for nothing. A local travel agent verified that the cruise prices were also comparable. When I asked one of RPI's travel consultants about the $4,000 discount per year for hotels, he said that was just for condo rentals, not for hotels. Needless to say we have been trying to get our money refunded to no avail. They also had a large banner at the presentation advertising their membership in BBB of Orlando, but they do not belong. Our credit card company is investigating as well as county and state consumer protection agencies. We think there is a link between this company and others with different names but the same misleading agenda. The attorney general of Florida is currently investigating one of these operations in Fort Lauderdale.
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