Bottom line, the lovely membership book revealed that there just was no tangible product or true benefit beneath all of the colorful pictures and promising words. Also, every other page seemed to come back to the rewards promised for sharing this wonderful opportunity with other innocent victims.
The prospect of being a part of such a farce makes us sick, and that is why we cannot bring ourselves to do the only thing the GCTN rep said we can do at this point, advertise it online and try to sell it. All we would be offering is a bunch of hot air in exchange for the several thousand dollars needed to retrieve our investment.
After we signed on the dotted line and paid over $3000.00 (yes, we're glad we didn't get taken as badly as some who paid as much as $9000.00!) for what we thought were two free condo weeks per year (we later discovered they were not free but our silver membership allowed two weeks as the limit of access to special condo deals, so we still had to pay for them, transportation, and food, and pricing is seldom close to the $199 they mentioned-which we thought was on offers in addition to our two free weeks!), plus 2 free memberships for our children (We were so embarrassed when they pointed out they were doing better on their own for the few times they could get away for a vacation and after the first year, did have to pay an annual fee like we do.
Also, we never could get their passwords to work for them online!), plus access to the lowest-priced travel packages (my research tells me otherwise when comparing their advertised specials on the web to other sources), plus rewards for shopping at a lot of places we were familiar with (we just didn't know how complicated it would be to jump through all the hoops to shop that way, then get credit for purchases), plus special deals at local restaurants. (When we punched in our zip code and that of nearby Rapid City, SD, there just weren't any of these plum opportunities in our area. They suggested we keep checking back.)
By the time we got home with one day to spare on the 3-day deadline, I was determined to get out of this whole deal, especially since my husband was less than enthusiastic about it from the beginning and only signed on based upon the salesperson and I convincing him we could pay for it with our dream Alaskan cruise.
I emailed the salesman (per the card he gave us), tried to call, plus tried to mail the paperwork back, all on my first day back to work. We had a blizzard that day and no mail went out so I gave up trying to get things packaged up, especially when advised it probably wouldn't be accepted since it would not get there until after the 3-day period. The weather may also have caused me not to reach anyone at GCTN? Anyway, I never received any response from them.
I recently sent them a letter with a copy of the email I'd sent on the third day, indicating our disappointment and great distress in money lost. I have not yet heard back.
Granted, some people may actually be okay with this company if they have plenty of bucks, plenty of travel time, and prefer to let someone else make all of the arrangements, while remaining ignorant of cost comparisons. The point is that they are presenting and gearing these offers to middle class people, trying to convince them that this is the way they can afford to travel like the wealthy people.
First, we don't have nearly enough time to pursue such travel and even if the condo deals are good, the accompanying costs are prohibitive to pursue more than once a year, if that.
Oh yes, we also received a so-called free vacation weekend for coming to their presentation. We tried to schedule at several of the offered places within driving distance to us and every possible date we gave them was already booked, so were unable to use this opportunity before it expired.
I mostly feel sad to be on the defensive about all of this with my husband. We just don't discuss it anymore, but I know he blames me for all of the money wasted that we're still paying off on our credit card. I would love to redeem myself in his eyes.
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