You already know that if something looks too good to be true, it probably is. But clever scammers also know that you have an “override” button. Like invoking a well-known travel brand. Or using the name of a trusted media outlet.
Margie Swenson says she fell for such a ploy perpetrated by an Orlando-based company called Travelcomm Industries, which operates under the name Patriot Travel, Cheap Tickets Cancun, Cancun Adventures and, until recently, Priceline Cancun.
Here’s what happened:
Last August, we decided to plan a Cancun vacation for April. I had received a copy of a clipped article from USA Today dated August 7, 2007. It came from the “Money” section. Someone had handwritten two notes on it and drew arrows to the area of the article the note applied to. The two notes read: “I know you are going on a trip this year, thought you’d be interested.” and “Call … and ask about Cancun 6 day all-inclusive for $300/person.”
Swenson phoned the company and was told the rate included food, drinks, room service, and even wind surfing. A representative assured her that she could choose from 16 hotels which were listed on a Web site called Pricelinecancun. Swenson and five other friends booked their flights to Mexico and paid for their hotels but were not given confirmations.
In October, I called the company to choose our hotel. An agent informed me we would be in Cancun during peak season and that it would cost us an additional $200 per room. I agreed to pay. Then I was told that there were only two hotels to choose from. Both of them were three-star hotels — the Maya Caribe and the other the Dos Playas.
I selected the Maya Caribe after one of the agents convinced me it was really nice.
But when she checked into the Maya Caribe, she says she realized she’d been duped.
The lobby looked like an old gas station from the 60’s that was emptied out and a few chairs put in there. I knew we were in trouble at that point.
Our rooms were not ready for occupation yet, so we headed over to take advantage of our “all-inclusive” meals. I spent 20 years in the army and never ate in a mess hall that bad.
We looked at the Dos Playas hotel and it looked like old barracks. We knew the Maya Caribe had to be better. No it wasn’t! We walked for quite a distance to get to our rooms. They didn’t qualify for rent-by-the-hour rooms. There are no hotels in the U.S. that I can compare this place to.
After one night in these substandard accommodations, Swenson and her friends found another hotel that was up to their standards. When she returned to the States, she contacted Travelcomm to ask for a refund. “I was flat-out told I wouldn’t get a refund,” she told me. “I asked for a name and address of whom I would contact and was given something but was told I’d be wasting my time.”
So what’s going on here? I asked Priceline about this apparent scam. Here’s what a representative told me:
In the late summer/fall of last year, after learning about them, we filed complaints with the Florida Attorney General and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. You won’t see that URL anymore, since we also successfully stopped their further use of it.
A USA Today source says the newspaper is aware of the scam, too, and that its attorneys have been “trying to shut it down.” Periodically, the newspaper is contacted by travelers who have fallen for the Cancun fax offer. Obviously, the article that’s being faxed around is a fake. “It annoys me that they’re using USA Today as the bait,” I was told.
Can Travelcomm be stopped? A lot of folks have tried, from former employees to the federal government.
It’s likelier that people will just stop falling for the scam, forcing Travelcomm to go legit — or go out of business.
In the meantime, here are a few tips worth repeating. If it looks too good to be true, it really is. I mean, come on. Six days of an all-inclusive resort for $300? You’ve gotta be kidding me.
A faxed offer? What is this, the 80s?
As for invoking the names of a well-known travel brand or a trusted media outlet, I think maybe the X-Files rule applies to this situation. Trust no one.
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Oh come on Chris. Don’t you have a fax? You’d be surprised how much fax SPAM there is. I used to find a deal for a Family midweek in Disney World, all expenses, tickets and flights included, all for $99 twice a week in my fax in Ohio. I mean Seriously, $99 doesn’t ever get 4 people in Disney World for one day. And then they try to convince me that they’ll give me a hotel and a flight for that too?
I agree that faxed offers are often outrageously too good to be true, but I’m wondering about the specific hotel she booked. Which “Maya Caribe” was it? Where was it located? Who owned it? I’ve stayed at a Barcelo Maya Caribe about an hour south of Cancun, and it was very nice. Maybe we are not getting the whole details of this particular story. Then again, it’s entirely possible there’s more than one hotel with that name.
Getting slightly offtopic here, but on the subject of fax spam, there is a very powerful federal law on your side: 47 USC 227. Basically it says that if you receive a junk fax from someone that you do not have a pre-existing business relationship with, you can sue them in Small Claims Court for $500 per fax, with triple damages for “intentional” junk faxes. (i.e., after being told to stop), as well as get an injunction against future violations
More info on junkfaxes and how to stop them can be found at http://www.junkfaxes.org/
Good luck!
Once again, an honest person cannot get scammed.
Why did they signup? They THOUGHT they were getting a great unpublished deal that was double secret and were paying much much less than general retail for a room.
Lets look at all the warnings here that were ignored:
1) 6 day all-inclusive for $600 for two – food and lodging – $100 a day. Right. You could do that in China. Not at a destination that Americans go to because we are rch and people overcharge us because we can pay,
2) It was HIGH SEASON – every American wants to escape winter. Yet YOU get it for $100 a day including meals.
3) A fax from someone you do not know? Do you also buy genital enlargement pills because those offers come by fax as well? How about ‘health insurance’ for only $100 a month –
4) You pay with no confirmation. You do not check the place out before you send money. You actually send someone money you do not know, to stay at a place you’ve never been, because of an unsolicited fax you received.
Stupid is as stupid does. It might be a scam, but if the OP engaged a brain and actually wondered how in the world anyone can lodge you and feed you for $100 a day PER ROOM in a resort city . . . they got what they deserved. And got what they paid for – a $100 a night room and food experience in Mexico.
Douglas – Practically speaking, the junk fax act only applies to junk faxes sent IN the US. 99% of the travel faxes are sent from the Bahamas or Mexico – where they are legal.
nice try though. You need to find a US Defendant to sue under the Act. Good luck. I have made a few dollars in the small claims courts suing local contractors, and travel agents and others – but they are not the problem.
There’s a joke in the travel industry: It’s a first-class hotel with ocean view.
I kept getting a cruise scam fax and finally called the company, pretended to be a dumb consumer. But they figured out I was a bit suspicious and hung up on me.
I get the USA Today one all the time at work. Theres another one I get that keeps reminding me of the upcoming Company trip to Cancun. Unfortunatley my company doesnt sponsor company trips. Rarely is an offer received by fax legit.
To the original writer:
Yes, it is unfortunate you got scammed. You have probably learned a valuable lesson on being more careful in the future.
To try and get your money back:
If you paid by credit card, report the charge as fraudulent. Even if you are beyond the dispute period it may work nonetheless. If your bank refuses to process the dispute, request the address of the merchant that charged your card. The bank will have this on file and should provide it upon request.
Next, report them to the AG in the state they operate in (likely Florida). If they operate out of Canada, I believe the RCMP has jurisdiction, but you are going to have to check on that yourself.
If the jurisdiction they are located in is nearby, Small Claims Court has a decent likelihood of success.
Also, file a report with the BBB. They absolutely will not be able to get your money back as there is no chance these clowns give a flying fig about the BBB, but it may help to warn others that receive the same scam.
Lastly, reporting them to the FTC wouldn’t hurt. If they get enough complaints they may take real action against them.
SirWIred
Its even more funny when you get the ‘Company Trip’ to Cancun and you ARE the company, therefore, there is no way it can be legit.
Sir Wired – the company gave them what it promised – a room in Cancun with meals – its just that neither the room nor the food were fit for American consumption – there are probably 4 billion people who would have been perfectly happy staying and eating there.
How was it fraud? The OP paid for an room and meals and got a room and meals. There is no evidence here that they were promised 4-star accommodations or gourmet meals – and those terms are not defined formally anyway. I’m just saying that a scam like this is darn hard to fight once you see and use the deal.
Joe,
If you look at the original post, it said there were 16 Hotels to choose from. There weren’t. It said they were charged an extra $200 per person because they were staying in “peak season”. However, this should have been charged at time of initial booking. They pretended to be affiliated with PriceLine. They weren’t. They advertised via a copy of an “article” in USA Today that did not, in fact, exist. The fax itself was illegal. Their website talks of their vacations taking place at “4 or 5 star” resorts. While those terms are indeed not formally defined, a reasonable consumer purchasing travel from in the United States would not, in their wildest imagination, think of the described hotel that way. The attitude of a hypothetical consumer on the other side of the globe is not really relevant.
All these things do add up to a reasonable case for fraud.
Interestingly, many of the reviews of the mentioned resort mention that while the accommodations are not plush, for the price paid, they are about what you would expect, which is not much. I suspect those that made these comments where those that booked at under $80-something/night/room (a rate easily avail. via any number of online engines.) Those that paid $1000 for the week ($300/pp + $200 “peak season” fee/pp) probably would not feel too great about it.
SirWired
I stayed at the Dos Playas many moons ago for spring break. I agree that it’s not first class or deluxe but neither was it army barracks or hostel. The grounds were absolutely beautiful and had some very decent food and drink. Maybe it’s changed drastically, I don’t know but $500 for a week there doesn’t sound awful in peak season.
I am not claiming the company didn’t commit fraud in its advertising but it just doesn’t sound like a total scam to me.
What is it about people who believe this garbage!!!
Where did these people come from??? Outer Space.
There was a scam for a Hawaii package. 7 days w/air for $900.
Hello!!! Do you have a Brain!!
Ya know, there are alot of ways this could have been avoided, as J. Farrell indicates so well. Another tool available is looking up user reviews of the hotels available before selecting one. If 16 were available at time of initial booking, why did she wait so long to call back and actually pick one, then have no idea what she was getting? She could and should have looked up on websites like Trip Advisor. She would have seen alot of reviews and pictures of the hotels. I just checked and a recent guest at Maya Caribe put the title of his/her review as “It isn’t hell but should only be used as last resort!”. Another said “hell hole in Cancun”. While some reviews were not so bad, you get a good picture here. I think this whole thing is a huge lesson learned–no matter what the offer or how you hear of it, check everything out first. This is not the dark ages. There are alot of resources out there. Don’t read just one either. When the terms change, question them. And for goodness sake, get a confirmation number!
Is anyone else aware that October is definitely NOT peak season in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico (which includes Cancun)? In fact it falls within hurricane season.
ChicagoScott, the letterwriter chose her hotel in October. She wasn’t going to Cancun in October.
They now claim to be out of Mexico, but are still in Florida. They send misleading faxes from “Human Resources Dept.” Once you pay, they will never give you a refund and record you agreeing to pay using a “3rd Party” verification service. They now go under the name Choose Cancun. Avoid like the plague!
http://www.choosecancun.com/shop/login.php
it can be good and both bad. For $399pp you get to stay in a 4 or 5 star hotel with everything included. What they will ask is for vacation ownership. No harm done, if you’re not interested then the next one will be. Its not a bad deal for the price and for what you get while at the hotel. There are no charged upgrades and or hidden fees. If you want to save some money then go for it.
I am going through a similar situation right now with a company called Cancunvacancy. They also use the name of True Vacancy and they are based out of Orlando. I have started a blog about it at Cancunvacancy Scam and I am hoping to also get the word out to unsuspecting consumers.
I also got scammed 800 dollars! I fell for the fax and am now trying to get my money back with the credit card comp! I feel so foulish now in retrospect!
how come there is stoll a web page up for cancunvacy.com why has’ne it been shut down,
I called while driving for work and didn’t have time to do research. Fell for the “there’s only 2 spots left” trick and paid 873 or something like that. Have been fighing with them for over a year. We need to do something about it. Putting my email out there for people who have also been scammed to email me. I would like to do something about it. Bunnie_Page@Hotmail.com
I paid $878 @ 08-06-08, with my credit card, then I paid another $198 with my personal check, a total of $1,067 then I learned that it was scam, I put my e-mail address, and I am interesed to be in contact with people who got scamed with this crook basturds.Thanks
Sam
I fell for this and when I got off the phone I had the worst feeling and then called my credit card company and told them to cancel the card because something was going to be charged that was fraudulent. This guy calls me tonight from the “processing dept.” named, “Justin”. Justin told me he was going to send me into collections since my card was canceled. I can’t believe people can do this. I was dumb enough to do this but glad I thought to cancel the card in time. I don’t see how they can send me to collections…I’m assuming that’s a scare tactic?