On December 23 my wife and I agreed to purchase a timeshare membership from Residence Club La Jolla, Nuevo Mazatlan, Sinaloa Mexico. This decision was based on a representation made by RC La Jolla's sales manager that they had a working relationship with a timeshare broker who would purchase one or more of my exisiting time shares.in fact, RC La Jolla's sales manager even provided written proposals from this ancilliary company "Swap Global Vacations" which quoted a "guaranteed sale price", and stated that "SWAP will be sending your payment in no excess of 2 days after closing confirmation via check or wire transfer".
On the evening of December 23 over dinner my wife and I began to reflect on the days events. We reached the conclusion that RC LaJolla's representations were too good to be true. On December 24 we returned to Residence Club La Jolla to announce our decision to cancel the contract. We were seated at a poolside table, given a pad of paper and a pen and instructed to write our letter of cancellation. After about an hour we were escorted into the office of the resort manager, Francisco Kelly. After about an hour of haggling we were offered a 25% refund, which we rejected.
Mr. Kelly initialed our copy of our notice of cancellation and we departed.
On December 26 I contacted my credit card company (Captial One) and Profeco, which is supposedly the Mexican Consumer Protection Agency. The person at Profeco said "No Problema" as we had notified the hotel within 5 working days of our decision. Mexican law states that the buyer of a timeshare has 5 working days during which to rescind the contract. I have learned that this law is enforced about as much as Mexican drug and migration laws.
In June I had my first "hearing" at Profeco's Mexico City offices. At this hearing Hoteleria Nadia, dba Residence Club La Jolla alledged that we had not given timely notice, and that the initials on our notice of cancellation were not those of Francisco Kelly, and that anyone could have placed those initials on that document. Profeco bought the argument even though we had furnished to Profeco photographs of Mr. Kelly, seated at his desk, in his office, pen in hand, affixing his initials to our letter! The outcome of this "hearing" was that RC La Jolla upped the ante to 35%, if I would not post any bad comments about them on the internet!
It is now September. I have not received the refund that I am entitled to. I also have heard nothing from SWAP Global Vacations, which was supposed to have bought one or more of my existing time shares, and was supposed to have closed in June!
Stay away from Residence Club La Jolla in Nuevo Mazatlan! My experience suggests that they are a pack of liars and a den of thieves. If you search you will find many other similar stories posted on this and other websites.
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