What a Nightmare! First I will apologize because this is going to be a long story. I also received an Orlando/Ft. Lauderdale/cruise vacation voucher offer sometime last year but never called about it. Then two weeks ago, we decided to take a cruise and I remembered the voucher and noticed that it had not expired. I called the customer service number where Michelle gave me the sales pressure talk. Before I could even get a word in edgewise, she had me putting down a payment of $798 on my credit card towards the balance of $1,600. I received my travel documents like she said 6 days later.
Thinking I had a fabulous deal, I called back yesterday and purchased the second half of the trip as well as two more boarding passes for my children. This time, Lalise, another rep. Convinced me that I should definately upgrade to a window location on the Carnival cruise because it is so much nicer. She told me that I needed to purchase a second cabin at an additional $260 on top of the cost of $640 for my 2 children because there was no rooms available for the four of us in the upgraded "ocean view" rooms. On top of this we paid another $400 ($200 each) for the two upgraded rooms. When it was all said and done, we had forked out a whopping $2,931.00. That was yesterday and I decided to look on the internet last night to find the resort hotel that we were told we would be staying for 3 nights before boarding our cruise. When I asked for the name of the resort/hotel, I was told it was the Ft. Lauderdale Inn Resort, LaLise was quick to point out that I would be receiving confirmation and all the itinerary when it was booked, and that would be 3-4 days. I decided to look up this so-called resort and what to my suprise did I find but this website.
I was curious of course and started reading all of the horror stories and immediately felt nausious. My husband immediately called the credit card company and cancelled our card and the transaction, only a few hours after talking to LaLise, but it was too late we found out today that the transaction already went through. I called today to talk to LaLise and explained that I had information about a military discount which I had found that night while surfing the web. I called to tell them that I wanted to cancel and of course got the same as everyone else... The runaround. One guy named Philly Polle argued with me for at least 30 minutes, and I made him say that he would not give me a 0 refund, I also said that I hope that it was recorded so that it could be played back when this is turned over to the attorney general's office/BBB/Florida Consumer Affairs, etc.
He was absolutely relentless, except at one point early in the conversation he said he would refund all but the original $798 - what a SCAM! These people contradicted themselves several times and tried to say that when I called the second time and talked to LaLise that I was "reconfirming" my reservations with them, and that makes the package non-refundable. I did find a clause is the back of the reservation booklet which states that I may cancel this agreement by mailing notice via certified mail before midnight on the 7th business day after receving the package. I will have it in the mail in the morning which will be before the 7th day. I will also be contacting the Attny general/bbb, etc, asap. Good luck to all.
Lisa
Hill AFB, Utah
U.S.A.
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