Sunset Group - Sunset Royal Hotel - Sunset Lagoon - Sunset Fisherman's Village
Ripoff Misrepresentation practices and fraudulent promises of sales team to scam us out of money for timeshare purchase, Q. Roo

My family and I arrived at the Sunset Royal Hotel on Saturday, December 17 through an RCI exchange for a week vacation prior to Christmas.

We found the facilities to be nice despite massive damage from the hurricane and the staff at check-in to be courteous and pleasant. We had contacted the hotel in advance and were told the resort was 100% operational. We were somewhat upset to find out there was no beach and only one restaurant, but felt we could still have a good time in the pool with our children and going on sight seeing tours.

Since we are already happy time-share owners in the United States we knew we would be approached about a tour. We were, and decided to check out the facilities the next morning to see what was being renovated/upgraded since the hurricane. We set up an appointment for breakfast the next morning with no intention of buying and met with Luis Campo. During breakfast Luis explained the basics of the hotel, asked us if we were time-share owners already and then took us on a tour of the facilities. Then we were lead into a very active sales room and given a complimentary mimosa.

During the 90 minute presentation which lasted 4 hours, they wanted us to trade in our current weeks for time at their resort, we declined saying we were satisfied with our current ownership and company. He then asked his brother Roman Campo, the sales manager, to explain how we could purchase a week and then rent it out through their affiliated company. Being new home owners we explained we couldn't afford this either and we already had 3 weeks of time-share. Roman explained it was an excellent investment due to the rental income, if we didn't use our weeks we could rent them out through their affiliate company (Resorts International Marketing Corporation) and profit $1,700 per week.

We explained it still wasn't feasible until they came up with a buy one week and get 2 VIP weeks in which we could rent all three weeks at $1,700 per week within 90 days and we could pay off our loan and still make a profit. This was confirmed by the head sales manager Alberto Benray, who then sat in at our table and increased the offer to buy one week and get 3 VIP weeks at a substantially discounted price due to the hurricane. This way they could begin increasing tourism back to the area as long as we promised not to use 2 of the VIP weeks and they would rent them out with their affiliated company so they could get more customers. He explained that for our two bedroom unit they rent out three studios thereby making a profit for them. I explained our family wouldn't be going back to Mexico for at least 5 years due to the cost of plane fare, etc. And he replied that it would then be an excellent investment for both parties since we would be renting out all 4 weeks profiting $6,800 per year.

My wife and I still questioned the reliability of Resorts International Marketing Corporation so we were given business cards and handed the telephone where we spoke to Larry Peters of Resorts International Marketing Corporation who reaffirmed that our units would be rented in 90 days because they aggressively market rentals throughout the world and they had a 95% rental rate.

My wife and I finally agreed to sign a contract, but were told we had to sign a waiver of our 5 day "cooling off period" because of the reduced deal we were getting. A copy of this document, we discovered, was not included in our paperwork and upon further research have found that according to Mexican Law is an illegal practice. My wife and I were going to cancel before we left, but thought we couldn't because we signed the waiver. They intentionally lied to us, causing us to believe we could not cancel this contract when in fact our actual rescission period had not expired.

Since we returned home we contacted the affiliated company Resorts International Marketing several times. The first time was approximately one month after we returned to find out how the rental process was going. The representative told us business was slow to the area due to the hurricane and rentals were more like 90 to 120 days. During the most recent contact in June, we were told it would be more realistically 180 days before we would get any money and we could rent it ourselves to our friends and family if we wanted. Why is this company involved then if they couldn't come through with the promised rentals? Each time we keep getting the run around about either the hurricane or something else.

Finally, in June we began the endeavor of trying to recover our losses and cancel the contract after finding many other complaints about this company. The phone contacts and e-mails which have transpired are too numerous to mention.

Finally, we filed a claim with our credit card company and were credited our down payment and four monthly payments. Soon after that we began receiving calls from a collection agency for payment of over $5,000 more than our original $17,000 contract.

December 26th of we were rebilled by the card company for over $5,000 because Sunset Group says everything in the contract is valid (Merry Christmas!). We are in the process of filing for arbitration for this part. Additionally, we have contacted a lawyer to assist us with the collection agency.

I cannot believe the government of Mexico allows companies to function like this. Tourism is the lifeblood of the Cancun region and if they continue to allow innocent tourists to be ripped off they will lose much needed revenue for the area.

We are hoping by posting here, and to as many other sites as we can find, we will speed up the recovery/settlement process from these swindlers. Sunset group needs to be stopped; they have defrauded us out of approximately $5,000 and are seeking payment according to the acceleration clause in the contract.

They promise rental income, which never comes, in order to entice tourists into signing a contract whose sole purpose is to enforce full payment on units they never intend to rent.

Company: Sunset Group - Sunset Royal Hotel - Sunset Lagoon - Sunset Fisherman's Village
Country: Mexico
State: Mexico
City: Cancun
Address: Boulevard Kukulcan Kilometro 10. 3, Lote 13-B, Zona Hotelera
Phone: 9988818750

  <     >