I am joining the ever growing victims of Royal Holiday tonight as I write this report. I too was sold a dream of wonderful vacations in Cozumel and Cancun. I was solicited in the Cozumel Plaza by a local Royal recruit agent and was given a free jeep one day rental to explore the Island, which I took. They know how to lay down a rosy path! Anyway, the hook to the rental was to commit to a lunch meeting of Royal Holiday presentation. The presentation was endless (took about five or six hours) where I was presented to several Royal sales people, executives, managers and the like.
I was given the usual song and dance about how wonderful Royal was and even though they were not as big as RCI, I would be able to use RCI facilities. Oh, but they forgot to tell me (as I later found out from RCI) that I also had to pay RCI membership. I later also payed RCI membership for a couple of years because I wanted to book a hotel in Margarita Island, which I cancelled because upon calling Margarita Island Hotels found I was not saving much through RCI.
I was presented with several plans for years of vacationing in Mexico and other World Class facilities, all featured in there Book. I told them I could not afford the plans they were suggesting of $20,000 or $30,000 dollars so they went to The $15,000 and $10,000 dollar plan. I told them I would need time to think it over since that was a lot of money for me just to go on vacation. They quickly went to plan B. I should of walked out at that point, but the beauty of the beach I had visited the day before kept playing in my mind. At that point they proposed a plan where I could put $6,319 dollars on my credit card and continue to make monthly payments of $279.00 dollars for 36 weeks interest free. They did not specify who was lending the money or real specifics of the loan. I told them I would still like to think it over since I had time left in Mexico. They said it was an offer that would only be given at that particular moment. Of course that was a lie, but then they left and came back and added" if you sign today we will include a free airline ticket of up to One thousand dollars. It all seemed great and I thought, I can't go wrong because it would be like having $15,000 dollars in the bank and for $365.00 dollars membership fee I can come to Mexico every year. And so with a little more coxing and smiling and two elderly people that where announcing there extension of membership to many applause I made the BIGGEST MISTAKE of my life and signed that contract without advise or a lawyer. Had I had proper counsel I would have seen how vague and one sided that contract is.
I payed my monthly payments faithfully for about three years or until the hurricane hit Cozumel and I got a letter from Royal that because of hurricane damages they were having to implement a membership fee of $600 or so dollars. A couple of months prior to that I had decided to use the one thousand dollar airfare bonus I was given since it would soon expire. I had never used any part of my Royal Plan or sold my time (which I had been told was one of Royals' benefits that you never lost unused vacation weeks and could sell it to pay membership, NOT SO!) Tried to get information on that once, and was told point blank to go to a real estate agent. That gave me an indication of how helpful and polite Royal was going to be. I proceeded to call Miami and was told to call Cozumel in order to reclaim my free airfare bonus. This was when I really began to understand how Royal operates. I made around ten calls to find the right person to speak to about using my bonus certificate. I was told to call Cancun and speak to Roxanna Ruiz. When I finally reach her, I gave her my information and when I wanted to travel. I had a few weeks before I planned my trip and was flexible, and she was to get back to me. I waited a week or two and no return call. What was I thinking, I really still believed they would call back. I thought, It's Mexico, they don't have the same sense of urgency. Finally, realizing she was not going to call back I began calling almost everyday and leaving messages which were never returned. I then became totally enraged at the lack of business courtesy and total disregard to client satisfaction. Not even a returned call and no one to even complain to. I called Miami again only to be shrugged off several times. I finally booked my fare and took my trip at my own expense. Much later I finally got in touch with the only nice person at Royal, Maya Morgan who told me she could not even reach the Cancun people. That gave me a very dim picture of my future with Royal. With Ms Morgan's help I was finally reimbursed for me plane fare.
The frustrating experience of trying to get service from Royal, coupled with the fantastic hike in membership made it clear to me that the complaints and distressing stories I was beginning to see on the Internet concerning Royal were true and alarming. I thought, here is a company in the business of service, not giving one bit of service, with not a ounce of business etiquette and expecting to be paid for the privilege of being in a vacation club. Ridiculous! So, I called my bank and tried to stop payment. I was told to call Royal and they would have to cancel the automatic payments on my card. I was lucky and was successful at stopping payments. Whaoh! Faster than you could say, Jack in the Box, Concord Services got on the phone to tell me my payment was overdue. So, they were able to contact there members when money was due, but not when they needed service or answers to questions about contracts or how the $15,000 dollars would be returned after the plan expired. No mention of that in the contract. I finally read my contract really well and found no mention of anything even resembling client rights. I also found the contract to be totally favoring Royal with no mention of real service rights and specifics of any kind. The rest of my story with Royal is basically a repeat of other people's experiences with Concord calls, rudeness, treatment not unlike a criminal, absolutely no acknowledgement of
bad business practices on there part, unbelievably oblivious to customer complaints, NO customer complaint service, no management, no addresses or names for customer contact, in short total disregard to providing customer service and information of any kind. EXCEPT Payment.
Since I stopped payment, it has been a few years of constant calls at all hours. They call my mother's house and leave messages, even though her caretaker has told them I am not there. My mother is 92, so she is fragile and not even able to understand what they want. The last year I have been called hundreds of times by RMI, a collection agency to try to intimidate me into paying$3000. Or so which is a lot of interest and penalties. I have spoken to these collection people many times, but they don't listen to you, and it is a futile exercise to try to make any sense with them because they don't even hear what you are saying. They have not called in a few weeks, so I imagine they are getting ready for court or law suit or who knows what. I am 67 years old and retired with a $650 monthly income so I can not afford a good lawyer or a prolonged court battle, but I refuse to give in to these tyrants.
If there is any advise or information you can give me, I would sincerely appreciate it. If there are official groups bringing complaints against Royal or class action suits please inform me as I would like to join. I have lost hope of getting back the money already paid, but I don't want to keep rewarding Royal with more money. Does anyone have good legal suggestions on how to proceed or personal experience along the same lines. Does anyone have a lawyer they can recommend. Any legal information would be of help. Lastly, keep the fight up and keep telling other people, especially those going to Mexico on vacation NOT to even think about getting entangled with Royal.
Airplane
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