I am only going to add to the complaint submitted from Yvonne whom I know and thought she was just being revengeful, but now I know that that she wasn't and I too have been ripped off!
Yes, I am also an ex employee of 1 week (09/17/04).
Yes my boss Janice Crowder kept my last pay check to cover a 50% loss on my cancelled cruise. I just found out that she had booked her son in the cancelled cabin and payed for it with the so called money loss plus my payroll check.
I worked in the travel agency and I knew from day one that there was trouble in river city. I continued to work for 2 1/2 years and now I find myself unemployed. I was not fired, I quit. No two-week notice needed here.
The reason I quit was between myself and my past boss Janice Crowder and is not of importance to this report because I am handeling that in my own way.
I worked in a different department and did not know that much about the "Vacation Packages" or of what was charged to the consumers that purchased these packages.
My boss was the wife of the president of the company. We became good friends until last week when that was resolved due to her mistrust.
As I became a little more oriented to what was sold and how it was sold and what the charges were, I began to ask more questions and thats how I knew what was going on.
Over the past year and longer I have had to deal with customers on the phone that was looking for "discounted Travel"
There was no such animal. There was no discounted Air, Cars or Hotels from us. The clients could have gone to another travel agency and found the same exact price there. The only difference was that they paid a lot of money for this privilege to use this companys "discounted travel".
The Hotel package that offered discounts was sold through a different company. This was included in the packages sold to the client, but when the clients called us they expected this same discount. This was the way it was sold by our sales personal at the presentations, and that we had discounted hotels as well. To this day I don't believe that the sales personal even knew that we didn't have discounted travel.
The most irrate clients came from the ones that expected discounted airfare and there wasn't any at all. We could get consolidated international airfare and add on a $100.00 or more, but this wasn't toward the benefit of the clients.
I hadn't found a discounted car or hotel available since the day I started there.
Our biggest "discount" request came from clients that wanted cruises. We had net rates from one Cruise line but not from others. The net rates were offered but only after an extra amount was added. This was considered our commission.
Any travel agency could have done the same thing and could have saved the clients money, because they would not have had to purchase a packages for this privilege.
Now they sell privileges to thier web site with information of the hot line that was offered free to past clients. This may be ok, but now for $750.00, a client can pull the Hot line up with a password, to access the so called "specials" that were just copies of faxes, that I put together. This was for the purpose of extra travel vacations that earlier members might have been interested in. The agency down the street recieved the same fax. Need I say more!
I felt sorry for the customers that purchased that package, but I was not the boss.
I don't believe Joe Crowder the president of the company, knew a lot about all of this, but his wife did.
I did, and so did the other travel agents that worked there. We were not allowed to talk about it to any one else in the office, not even to her husband. She did't want anyone to know about the fact that we were like any other travel agency but yet we were selling discounted travel. I had mentioned this to her a few times that it was known as "deceptive practices" but she would justify it like everything else.
I have seen many times when she has kept a clients money for whatever reason she could come up with that sounded legal.
And now mine.
The reason I don't think her husband knew, was a comment he made one day. "Why are we offering discounted travel if we don't have it" His wife explained it as "you don't know anything about travel Joe" I think it is time for him to find out before it is to late.
Unfortunately, Janice is an uncaring manipulator and can manage to justify what she believes is right. She was my best friend for over 2 years and I would always over look that, but I was not always a best friend. There were others that have fallen to the Janice Crowder spell. I am sorry for her and the only way I can help is to continue is to do my best to let the public know.
They will just continue paying for Lawyers to get them out of these messes until someday there won't be anyone that can help them.
Call me revengeful, fine, but I will not let this happen
I will fight fire with fire if I have to. The clients that read this and hopefully will get thier money back, but it is so tied up in thier legal contracts that it would be hard. Just continue to call or write to the Attorney General's office of Florida. That is where I got my information from to pursue.
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