In early october of I was contacted by Pat from sundance vacations, saying congratulations I'd been entered in a contest and I'd been selected as the winner of a "Ultimate Package", a 3-day Royal Carribean Cruise from Miami to the Bahamas, including air-fare.
I returned her call at 800-291-0500 and spoke to Janet. Janet informed me they gave away the prizes in order to promote their vacation packages, which were like time shares. She informed me that to claim the prize I would have to watch a one-hour presentation on their packages. There was no commitment to buy and at the end I would receive a voucher to claim my trip prize. The caeveat was that I had to attend in person, and since I live in miami this was difficult. (I had entered their contest at a Cubs game, during a summer trip for a family reunion to chicago). She said I could have a family member or friend attend the presentation for me to claim my prize though.
In any event I finally found a relative who would do this for me. So I called sundance back on 1/21/09, and said my relative was available to pick this up, and gave her the information. She said they needed to speak to the person directly, so I had my cousin call in. Then they told my cousin that it didn't matter what they did with the travel voucher, it would be theres but they could give it to me if they chose, but as an attendant she would be required to bring her husband or fianance if she was engaged. And her fiance works opposite shifts as her, so this wouldn't be possible... And called me back.
So I called sundance and asked why did they tell her all this stuff and sort of drop the whole bit about me being the winner of a prize. And they said that some people at sundance don't "tell it like it is", but that she was not one of those people and that I never won a prize. I was just part of a marketing promotion to attend their vacation packages. Which I said was bait and switch, and she didn't argue with this other than to say that she makes a point to "tell it like it was", again implying that other people at sundance maybe don't tell it like it is.
In any event, I talked to probably 10 different family members about picking this up because I thought it was a prize (I had actually entered a raffel-type of thing at wrigley field, so I thought this is what I had won). My cousin was the only person who could attend, but she couldn't attend with her fiance and they had no intention of purchasing anything.
From what I understand sundance usually does provide the travel vouchers, but their tactics are not very reputable and their ethical standards are very low. I am not sure if "baiting and switching" is illegal, or if this is technically a bait and switch. But I was mislead and I would certainly never encourage anyone to do business with sundance other than to collect free stuff. They obviously are not very respectful of people's time or expecations.
I told them I didn't care so much about missing out on the travel, since I live in miami anyways... But I was very unhappy about spending time on this and the way it was explained to me suddenly changing... And that I intended to write a thread saying that I had a negative experience with them. She just laughed and said she didn't care.
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