Here is the story.
My girlfriend Cindy and I go to Cancun for vacation in Aug. 2007. We are approached by a sales-person offering a free day trip in exchange for a 90 minute sales presentation on a timeshare that includes free breakfast. We accept thinking it was a good deal hah!
After the breakfast and tour of the facilities at Hyatt Regency Cancun we are lead to a sales office and given a speech about the benifits of purchasing a timeshare program. We are promised:
Garaunteed bookings *not true*
Being able to roll over our points form one year to the next * not true*
company buying back unused portion of contract if we wanted to sell * not true*
company renting out our timeshare at our request * not true*, and
5 years unlimited use of facilities * there is a hidden all-inclusive fee *
After listening to the sales pitch for about 2 hours, we had been there for around 4 hours total so far, we declined and said we were not interested at this time. After some more selling and telling us of the advantages of buying " vacations for life" they said they would add some one time incentives just for us that day. They offered us 2 flight credits for $450US ea, a spa credit for $400US, 2 15000 credit vouchers to be used towards our vacations, and a $500US meal credit. We still said no.
After another few hours of listening to them talk and try to sell us we said no, not right now, but we would think about it and come back the next day to tell them yes or no. We were getting quite tired as we had been there almost 7 hours at this point. Then they called in the sales manager, he said, " well, if we can trust you to come back, why dont you just leave a deposit and if you change your mind you can cancel at anytime, no questions asked." We had been there so long, that we decided that was ok. I put a $2400US deposit on my mastercard. Big mistake.
When we returned home from vacation we read through the contract and holiday book and noticed many things were not as they told us in the sales presentation. I sent an e-mail to the sales rep requesting cancellation. He replied and said he would look into it and get back to me. A few days later I got a call from Royal Holidays head office and they told me there was no way for me to cancel the contract. That once it was signed it was too late. I complained and told them the story about all the differences between what the sales person said, and what the contract stated. They told me that it was my word against the slaes reps and that there was nothing they could do. I told them about the slaes rep telling me I could cancel at anytime, again they said there was no way for them to know that he actually said that.
Now, its been almost 6 months. Im unable to get my money back, and they are sending the debt to collections. Im not sure what to do. I see some people on here have been able to get some sort of settlement from Royal Holidays. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.
Roger
New Westminster, British Columbia
Canada
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