My husband and I attended a “travel club seminar” at Roark. Mid-August. We were provided 3 night stay at Branson, Missouri for $99 if we attended this 90 minute “travel seminar”. During our (I’ll call it our interrogation), they asked us what type of vacations that we like to go on. We specified that we go on All-Inclusive. We enjoy these vacations because its one price and we really don’t need to worry about additional money when we are on vacation. We don’t have to worry about where we are eating, I don’t have to cook, don’t have to worry about drinking and driving, worry about cab’s etc...
The seminar oozzzed about wholesale travel discounts going to Hawaii and Alaska for approx. $800 (I don’t have the exact price). The speaker had copies of Expedia costs from the Internet in his hands to show how their costs vs. Expedia. He was going on and on about the travel savings and that this was not time-share.
Sounded good... I asked if this included All-Inclusive travel, and the response was “ we can handle all your vacation needs”. It’s sounded good. I even asked on the ROI. Based on what they discussing in the sales pitch, it’s usually 3 trips. They talked about the 50 years plus in business. We went for it. It cost us $4500... With the exchange rate, it cost us $4900 CAD.in addition, there is $99 US year membership.
Towards the end of August, I received my member ship number in the mail. So, I started to call and inquire about some vacations. I requested vacations, NYC, St. Martens, Bahamas, and Cuba. I actually asked for ANY wholesale packages, ANYWHERE as we were promised. I didn’t see any wholesale discounts in the pricing that they were providing me. The most I seen was 15% or approximately $100 in savings. This just covers my yearly membership fee.
So my burning question is... Where is this wholesale travel discounts that we purchased for $4900? I asked CRI/Roark, where these vacations are? How do I effectively use this travel club to see these types of benefits? I was told by Lingell Johnson to give him a few days. So, I gave him the benefit of the doubt to prove to me that there are “wholesale vacations” available and do exist. I had one gentleman call me back on behalf of Lingell (I think his name was Bob) and he hung up on me!!! Nice customer service eh? As of September 25th (approx one month from signing up with them) Lingell was not able to provide me with a list of wholesale vacations. I even emailed the call center to provide me a list of these vacations. No response. I requested that my money be refunded. Of course my calls are now being ignored. I have begun to search the internet, and found that they have complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau. Also, there is an article in / link removed/
I have supporting emails of my requests along with the phone log and what transpired.
Roark Travel / CRI have misled us, misrepresented as to what was actually being sold and would like to have my HARD earned money refunded. This is a lot of money for us just throw away. How can these people sleep at night or have a conscious scamming people and referring themselves as a reputable company?
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