Timeshare scam
Complaint
Deborah
Country: United States
When we arrived at the airport in Cozumel a man approached us and said he was a "Tourist Advisory". He gave us some pointers about what to see while we are there, and then offered a good deal on a car rental. We agreed to rent a car from him and he gave us an invoice with signatures saying it was paid in full. The man also invited us to visit a newly built Mayan Palace and listen to a one-hour presentation on timeshares.
We didn't know if we would have time to do it and we said so.
When we were at the airport a week later getting ready to register for our flight home, the same man approached us and said we owe him a balance of $200 because we didn't listen to his presentation. He then showed us our invoice with fine print that said in order to get the car rental rate we received we would need to listen to the presentation. He then threatened us with police.
We paid the money with our credit card and now I have requested my bank to cancel that transaction.
Do not get caught in this scam! It's a well played game. Do not get caught in it.
We didn't know if we would have time to do it and we said so.
When we were at the airport a week later getting ready to register for our flight home, the same man approached us and said we owe him a balance of $200 because we didn't listen to his presentation. He then showed us our invoice with fine print that said in order to get the car rental rate we received we would need to listen to the presentation. He then threatened us with police.
We paid the money with our credit card and now I have requested my bank to cancel that transaction.
Do not get caught in this scam! It's a well played game. Do not get caught in it.
Comments
How could I be so dumb and fall for this. All it takes is a little research to find out that Amber Taylor is the name the cowards at Gonzalez and Gonzalez have been using to make posts online. I found the exact same post over 200 times on different blogs!!!
I called gonzalez and gonzalez. Initially they were so nice and attentive and wanted to hear my case. Then I fell for the trap and gave them my money, paying them a portion of whatever they would collect in advance. They could not get me my refund back and still these people refused to give me my payment back. THEY DIDNT EVEN CALL EL CID. I had to negotiate with the resort directly and actually got my money back. They said they were never even contacted by GONZALEZ AND GONZALEZ. In other cases, according to the gentleman at the resort, they had complaints from members saying they never got their money back, when in fact Gonzalez and Gonzalez had already recieved the refund money. THEY ARE STEALING PEOPLES REFUND MONEY!
As it turns out checking several other blogs, it turns out they invented this character Amber Taylor to give themselves publicity. I had my mexican lawyer inquire about them, it turns out they are NOT EVEN REAL lawyers. They are profiteers, and try to take advatange of anyone that comes in contact with them. Now they won't even take my phone calls. Every time I call to ask for my $2, 000 dollars they owe me, they just hang up the phone on me. They even called me, and I quote "stupid [***]! stop calling, you are not getting your money back!!!" Do NOT fall for them.
Here are just some of them, AGAIN there are hundreds of posts!! JUST CLICK ON AMBER TAYLOR AND SEE FOR YOURSELF!!! It seems as though this is the best way for them to make publicity from themselves...and have people fall in their trap! How could they make up a story like that:
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/moon-palace-c7018/page/1.html#c284366
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/vacation-network-inc-c184070/page/0.html#c284388
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/kvic-c171832/page/1.html#c284389
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/universal-vacation-club-villa-del-palmar-flamingos-c102139/page/1.html#c284392
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/lifestyle-holidays-vacation-club-c112736/page/1.html#c284393
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/lifestyle-holidays-vacation-club-c112739/page/1.html#c284394
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/sunset-group-c71198/page/1.html#c284396
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/universal-vacation-club-c81484/page/1.html#c284398
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/sunset-group-c43309/page/1.html#c284400
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/playa-del-sol-grand-c62254/page/1.html#c284401
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/velas-vallarta-timeshare-sales-c186651/page/0.html#c284402
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/sunset-group-fishermens-village-c2933/page/1.html#c284403
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/playa-del-sol-grand-c26861/page/1.html#c284404
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/villa-del-palmar-flamingos-timeshare-c106152/page/1.html#c284406
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/royal-holiday-park-royal-hotel-c7195/page/1.html#c281847
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/royal-holiday-club-c3251/page/2.html#c281849
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/royal-holiday-c3134/page/1.html#c281850
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/royal-holiday-c1631/page/1.html#c281852
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/royal-holiday-c1381/page/1.html#c281854
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/royal-holiday-c1347/page/1.html#c281856
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/royal-holiday-c416/page/2.html#c281857
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/el-cid-vacations-club-c4519/page/1.html#c281871
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/el-cid-c52238/page/1.html#c281873
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/el-cid-vacations-club-c91352/page/1.html#c281874
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/el-cid-vacation-club-c170463/page/0.html#c281879
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/el-cid-vacations-club-c126559/page/1.html#c281881
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/el-cid-vacations-club-c154391/page/1.html#c281885
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/el-cid-vacatios-clubtimeshares-c162453/page/0.html#c281887
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/el-cid-vacations-club-mazatlan-c164883/page/1.html#c281889
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/el-cid-resorts-mazatlan-amp-cozumel-mexico-c3803/page/1.html#c281891
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/el-cid-vacations-club-c4519/page/1.html#c281892
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/lied-about-everything-c119891.html#c281880
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/velas-vallarta-puerto-vallarta-property-c1616/page/1.html#c284345
I don't understand why you have literally hundred if not thousands of posts about being scammed here and there and everywhere. You must be a millionaire to have purchased so many time shares, and if you were defrauded once or twice or three times why did you keep buying them?. You are all over the internet. Are you a "for real" poster or a foil for Gonzalez and Gonzalez law firm. We were considering hiring them, but now YOU show up all over the internet and I am wondering if you are just a profiteer drumming up business for Gonzalez & Gonzalez.
But even Gonzalez & Gonzalez isn't this dumb to make 1,000 posts that are exactly the same. Or are they? Please let me know if you are a legit customer, really living in Tustin. I bet you have a 714 telephone prefix, don't you? Just like the professional and empathetic Cindy. Gonzalez and Gonzales, if thisis you, disguised as Amber Taylor, shame on you. shame shame shame on you. We'll see.
I was victimized by another Mexican Lawyer with a website offering help to Americans scammed by the Grand Mayan timeshares. Terrible. You mention you had success and you had another mexican lawyer, who I assume you feel is reputable. I am looking for a Mexican lawyer to represent me. Can you provide me with a name. Thank you.
My name is Jose Gonzalez and I represent the firm you are talking about. We are advocates to protect the rights of American and Canadian consumers defrauded in Mexico by a timeshare company.
We do not rest until we have a satisfactory resolution to a client.
on June 30th, Cristina Scott and Linda E. Posted over 100 complaints on www.complaintsboard.com; all of them have been erased since the editor of this page found out that these people were aliases of timeshare salespeople in Mexico who are losing their commissions because we are cancelling contracts.
They are trying to defame our reputation so ripped off costumers from timeshares in Mexico don't cancel their contracts and get their monies back. This way the Resorts get to keep people's money.
Please, do not fall victim again of this resorts. You have an opportunity to cancel and recover your monies in most cases.
I offer you a free consultation to review your case. If you are a victim of this fraud, please contact us now at 1 888 275 35 95.
The scam is this: Brett used to work at the Mayan Palace and after he got fired from there he was able to obtain a massive list of their owners from someone in their office. He has a list of over 6k Mayan owners. He knows their names what they bought and their phone numbers etc.
What Brett and Maricio do is they call these people and pretend that they are from mayan customer service and they ask the people if they would be interested in selling their timeshare. If the people say yes, then they calll them back a few days later and tell them they have found a buyer and they have the check ready for them which is usually slightly more then the clients originally paid. Then they tell these people that all they have to do now is pay a $1000 processing fee and the check is theirs. So the people pay the 1k but the check is never sent obviously. Then after a week or so goes by and the people call and wonder why they didn´t get the check yet then Brett and Maricio tell them that they couldn´t send the check to them yet because the 10% transfer fee hasn´t been paid yet. it is true if you look in the Mayan contract there is like a 10% transfer fee there to discourage people from reselling. Anyways, after these people have already committed 1k they then go ahead and pay an additional 10% of the original purchase price. So lets say they bought their timeshare for 20k well now they have to pay another 2k plus the original 1k from before so these guys are dinging them for 3k and the way the economy is these people are desperate to sell their timeshares. I can only imagine how much damage theses guys have done to people and their families as I know this stealing has gone on for over a year now.
I know for a fact that these 2 are stealing 150k plus usd from US and Canadian citizens every month. I also know that Maricio has a safe in his house with about 300k usd and Brett has around 100k. I know the exact address where they run their business in Versalles, but I don´t know what needs to be done to get them busted and perhaps get some of the people their money back. I know that there was a guy that got busted for running a pyramid scheme here before so i know that getting them aressted can be done.
If anyone knows who I need to talk to please post here and let me know or PM me. Also, if anyone that reads this forum knows Brian Iman the project director of Mayan Palace, please direct him to this post or give him my email. I´m sure he would love to know about theses 2 guys stealing from Mayan owners like that.
Please help me put a stop to this.
breakingbadPV@hotmail.com
This was my original post that Freeye quickly removed.
Basically these guys are stealing 100's of thousands of dollars from people and I want it to stop. I am so sick of stealing and robbing in this town and I want to do my part to put an end to this scam.
In early October 2009 I got scammed by bunch of cons in Vallas Vallarta resort (Puerto Vallarta, Mexico) giving me false promises and sketching it all on piece of paper. The documents I was signing in rush barely covered half of what was promised to me. One of the men introduced himself as Mr. Rogers and was feeding me with all the lies during almost 3h "session". Fortunately, I was leaving Mexico on the same day, so I could do intensive research and react within literally 24h. After discovering what is truly behind, I tried to contact Gonzalez & Gonzalez Law firm and I can tell you now that it was the best thing I could do at that time. It's hard to trust someone once you get ripped, but after sending them email with full description of what happened, I got contacted within 2 hours and since then they kept informing me about progress on my case. I have to mention that they didn't want any money forward before my money got actually physically deposited back to my VISA card and my case closed. It took almost three weeks to get my money back, but they did a really good job and I got all my money returned.
I'm not easily to deceive person, but well it happened and it cost me some money I had to pay G&G Law firm. It's a bit expensive lesson and experience to me, but hopefully can save me a lot of trouble and money in future.
Whoever here is trying to give bad reputation to Gonzalez & Gonzalez Law firm is most probably someone working for one of these timeshare resorts cons. I have no other explanation why would you try to harm Gonzalez & Gonzalez.
We are hopeful that you found a resolution. I am a lawyer in Vancouver and also was scammed. We are now trying to find a way to get our deposit back. Can you recommend a course of action? The Guadalaha lawyer wants to charge 25% contingency fee, when we have tried (within the 5 days) to rescind. It seems fairly simple, but I don't want to pay $2500 when I have complied with the terms. Suggestions?
Christine