I am pasting a letter I wrote to the Attorney General in Texas. I have since been refunded $300 of the $1737.95 but still am out of over $1400 excluding the other hidden charges.
Texas Attorney General
Consumer Protection Division
1600 Pacific #1700
Dallas, TX 75201
Hello,
Thanks for taking the time to read my complaint about the Travel Union of North America, Inc. Their address is 4020 North MacArthur BLVD, Suite 122-295, Irving TX 75038-6412 United States of America. I was referred to your offices by the Better Business Bureau of Metropolitan Dallas, Inc.
I contacted my lawyer after the Better Business Bureau complaint was unanswered. My lawyer informed me that I could sue and win the case; but, probably will not collect a dime from them and spend even more money on legal fees. To make a long story short, I received a fax at work in Minster, OH 45865 about a travel deal that clearly said All Inclusive Cancun for $288 a person. I checked into everything about the company with the BBB in Dallas.
With the phone number provided by Travel Union, there were no complaints on record. Well I went ahead and purchased 6 packages for 2 married couple friends of ours and my wife and I. We specifically informed them that we could only travel in the summer of 2005 and the Travel Union Sales woman, (Amy Bliss ext 5192) said that it would not be a problem. We filled out all the info, asked many questions and made several calls to Travel Union to make sure everything we did was by the rules before we sent it in.
Travel Union sold us the packages and then had a second company, Mini Vacations, a travel agency, set up the vacation. We were never informed of the process until after we paid for the packages. We mailed everything in within days of when we received it.
After over a month of mailing and paperwork, it was time to schedule our vacation over the phone with Mini-Vacations 410 Wake BLVD, 9th Floor, Tampa FL 33619. They said that they were totally booked for the summer for Cancun and they could not go beyond the summer because they did not have the contracts with the resorts yet. They tried to get us to go to one of the 5 or 6 different locations they offered in Central America. I said no and asked for a refund. Mini-vacations refunded all of our money back but told us we would have to deal with Travel Union to get refunds back on our Vacation Packages we bought.
Travel Union refused to give us our money back. They only way they communicate with customers who want refunds is by mail and they ask you to allow 90 days for a response. I have called (there is no live operator to talk to) and faxed over 50 times and have been totally ignored.
I have saved everything that I have sent and received from Travel Union and Mini-Vacations, including Cancelled Checks, Priority Mail receipts and the actual Package itself. After reading the BBB of Dallas's report on Travel Union after I found the phone number that was registered with the BBB, they have had a very unsatisfactory record and need to be stopped. Here is the link to their report with the Dallas BBB - http://www.dallas. BBB.org/commonreport.html? Compid=43001392&code=
After reading the original advertisement that was faxed to my employer in Minster, OH, 45865 you can clearly see it says nothing about any other destinations but Cancun. On that same advertisement, it says they allow 12 months to complete the travel.
On the denial of the refund letter from Travel Union, they claim I have 18 months from the date of purchase to travel. Why would they give me an extra 6 months to travel if they feel they didn't make an error? My travel period time when I bought the package expires on December 29. How am I supposed to travel to Cancun when every day was booked from February until the end of August and they couldn't take reservations for any time after August because they didn't have the contract with the resort in Cancun? Mini Vactions agreed that they had made a mistake and refunded my money, $198 per each couple within 30 days of the request. Why won't Travel Union?
We feel that we have been scammed by the Travel Union. We feel that they stole $1737.95 for the packages and $72 in Air to There registration fees from us. My wife is a school teacher and I work in a factory. We have 3 small children at home so I'm sure you can imagine the bills we pay. After quite sometime, we have saved enough money to take a nice modest vacation to Cancun with some of our friends. When we talked about taking a vacation, it was agreed that the only time we could take this vacation would be in the summer of 2005 because my wife could not get the time away from school during the school year and our friends were planning to try and have more children after this summer.
When I bought the packages from The Travel Union, I was assured everything would be fine and run smoothly. I was told by their salesperson, Amy Bliss, extension 5192, that I would have absolutely no problems taking a Cancun Vacation this summer with my friends as long as we had 60 days prior notice and advances-we had over 100 days notice.
It was a total scam to try to get us to go to a different location other than Cancun and threatening us with losing all of our money we spent on the packages because they provided us with what we purchased. Please see that Justice is swift and fair. I will include all documents for any additional information you need. Please help us; we desperately need our money back.
Thanks for your time
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