Lifestyle Holidays Vacation Club Scam: Vacationers beware

Picture it... you are on family vacation in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.....So here is my story:

We get to ocean world (one of the major tourist locations), we were approached by this woman (wearing a "tell it only to your best friend t-shirt) who said she could help us get acquainted with the park and also said we had a free tour after we finished seeing the park. We told her thanks for the help but we did not want to see a tour. She left, so an hour later she came back and asked if we are ready for our tour, we told her no, we already had a membership with another vacation club, and we weren’t interested in their property. She then sent another person to speak with us, at that point we were trying to leave, but we couldn't because our bus would not return for another 5 hours and our hotel was about 30 minutes away. So we were irritated and told the guy we are not interested in a tour we were just trying to get back to our hotel. He then told us that they would provide us with a taxi to our hotel if we just went on this tour and saw their presentation, no strings attached. We agreed, (big mistake) we got through the tour and the sales pitch began. The sales people offered us a better deal than the vacation club we purchased  at our current hotel less than 5 days prior. We told the lead sales guy Evan, that we already had a vacation club, he said no problem they would buy our current vacation club and that they would deal with the other company; we had nothing to do with it. We asked questions which they had all the answers to. We even asked questions about the points that were unclear on the contract and they explained them to us so we happily signed up. In order to have paid for the membership Evan presented us with a Bank of America credit card financing option. My mother has the best credit so naturally she applied and was approved for the full amount.

     We get back to the states and follow up with our first vacation club and they informed us that they never heard of any buyout or vacation club transfer...how is that? As I began to email these people back and forth I found out that we now had two vacation clubs and owed close to $20,000.00 for both!!! We requested to cancel since the contract did not have any cancellation policy, we got the run around. We also incurred foreign transaction fees from Bank of America, which was never made clear to us when we signed up. We filed a dispute with Bank of America/ MasterCard, at first they refunded us the full amount including the transaction fees and guaranteed that the situation had been resolved. Less than 30 days later we got a telephone call which informed us that Bank of America was revoking the refund and would re-bill the full amount because the merchant had countered our dispute even after we were given a refund. As I spoke to the woman on the phone it was clear to me that they really had no intention to fully refund us the money, since she said our refund was conditional and they hoped the merchant would not have responded within the 45 days time frame. She went on to tell me "I was unlucky". One of the managers told me they deal with this company regularly and people continously complain about their practices. Bank of America and MasterCard don't seem to mind, as long as they get their cut from the foreign transaction fees they just turn a blind eye. I'm trying to expose this "vacation club" company which is really just a timeshare because they lie and prey on tourist and make millions a year. I also want to expose Bank of America and MasterCard as they continue to do business with these companies even when they are aware how the companies operate, scamming and lying to folks to make a profit. No one seems to care and if something is not done soon thousands of people will fall victim to these "vacation clubs".

Lessons to take away:

1. Run away from anyone who has a “tell it only to you best friend” T-shirt on
   
2. Never ever fall for these “vacation club” scams, they are basically timeshares run by crooks
   
3. Sales people in Dominican Republic are ruthless, they have no souls
   
4. Lifestyle Holidays Vacation Club makes millions lying, stealing and cheating hard working tourists
   
5. Don’t sign anything ever, if they offer one day deals then it’s a scam...leave immediately!
   
6. Bank of America is the devil- they receive dirty money in foreign transaction fees even when they know this “vacation club” is crooked
   
7. What is discussed and agreed upon at the sales table is never actually in your written agreement
   
8. There is no cancellation policy so these thieves will never let you out your contract
   
9. Even when they tell you things are free they are NOT
   
10. Ask for everything in writing; if something looks convoluted and unclear…do not assume…it’s meant to mislead you...walk away!