# Vidanta Deals To good To Be True



## Smiff (May 4, 2017)

I have received two offers for my Vidanta timeshares which seem to good to be true. I assume they are scams. Does anyone know more than I do?

The first was an offer of $39,600 for my Mayan Palace studio unit with the right to use expiring in 2019. The company is Strategies and Marketing, LLC, of 100 Park Ave., Oklahoma City, OK 73102. The agent was Elizabeth Franco. The first contact was by phone. Asked for an e mail, and received a written offer.

The second is an offer to rent my two weeks for $3950 per week from broker Mike Lopez of One to One Broker Dealer, 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207. Again, the original contact came by phone, and I requested an email follow up which came promptly.


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## pittle (May 4, 2017)

My guess is that it is a scam - we received offers from someone about our GL several months ago and they offered a huge amount of money.  Before you know it, they will want a deposit and tell you that there are special taxes you need to pay.  Do not do this.  When it sounds too good to be true - it is!

Last month, I got this email from Vidanta:

Vida Vacations Members: be wary of unsolicited communications about your payments.












Scams targeting timeshare and vacation club members are

on the rise. In order to keep your account safe, please be  on the lookout for scammers trying to entice you under false pretenses into buying, renting, or selling your membership or that of a third party.

The following are some of the most common emails being
used by fraudulent parties:

customerservice@grupovidantamx.com
socios@vidantabonusprogram.com
customerservice@mayan-palace.com.mx
reservacionesinternacionales@grupovidantaintl.com
info@vidantabonusweekprogram.com


At Vida Vacations, the privacy and security of our members

is of the utmost importance. We do not share your confidential information with third parties, ever. If you receive an  unsolicited communication offering to buy, sell, or rent your membership, or asking for payment—especially from any of the above emails or similar variations—*call our Customer Care Center immediately.*

If you so wish, calls reporting suspect activity can remain anonymous. We will
investigate all reports to the fullest.





















_Copyright © 2017 Vida Vacations, All rights reserved._
You are receiving this email because you are a member


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## Smiff (May 4, 2017)

I forwarded the written offer of purchase to Vidanta, but they didn't respond. These offers have all the earmarks of a scam. I amused that the companies are on Park Ave., and State St.


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## travs2 (May 5, 2017)

How do these "companies" get your email address and Vidanta information?  Does Vidanta sell this info to them?  Just wondering.....


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## pittle (May 5, 2017)

I do not know.  So many folks at Vidanta, SFX, RCI, II, etc get info that it could come from many sources.  The one they sent to us was for 3 GL weeks and we have 2.  They tried really hard to get us to add that 3rd week in 2015.


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## x3 skier (May 5, 2017)

It's a scam, pure and simple. When I get those, I tell them," hold on, I'll go to eBay and get five more so you can send me a check for $100000 and I'll send you the deeds".

For some reason, they hang up.

Cheers


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## T-Dot-Traveller (May 5, 2017)

travs2 said:


> How do these "companies" get your email address and Vidanta information?  Does Vidanta sell this info to them?  Just wondering.....



When your the biggest & best TS in Mexico you (may)get targeted by hackers . I would also assume some information (can) leave Vidanta when employees depart for
new opportunities .

I was contacted 3 times last year by 3 different scammers. Two of the calls were to my cell phone and they had (some) details from our Vidanta contract .
One was to our landline and the name asked for was a guest of ours in  October 2013 when we used a 2 suites for 1 MF offer .

I contacted Vidanta Member Services all 3 times so that they could use information detail to help prevent other owners from falling for this type of scam


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## LannyPC (May 6, 2017)

T-Dot-Traveller said:


> I contacted Vidanta Member Services all 3 times so that they could use information detail to help prevent other owners from falling for this type of scam



The thing is, Vidanta knows this scam is proliferating.  Just look at Pittle's post above.  What Vidanta (and other resorts) need to do is send out warnings in each of their yearly/semi-yearly/quarterly letters explaining very clearly how these scams work rather than just telling owners what's happening at a nearby beach or how they can get a 10% discount at the restaurant.

Looking at the letter in Pittle's post above from Vidanta, it misses one very vital piece of information to help warn owners.  The scammers will claim they can sell or rent out your TS for way more than market value.  Of course, the resorts do not want to admit that.  They want to keep all the owners (at least the ones who bought retail) in the dark about the true resale/rental value of their respective TSs.  Otherwise the resorts would essentially have to admit that they deliberately sold the owners an item that went waaaay down in value the minute the rescission period expired.


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## raygo123 (May 6, 2017)

LannyPC said:


> The thing is, Vidanta knows this scam is proliferating.  Just look at Pittle's post above.  What Vidanta (and other resorts) need to do is send out warnings in each of their yearly/semi-yearly/quarterly letters explaining very clearly how these scams work rather than just telling owners what's happening at a nearby beach or how they can get a 10% discount at the restaurant.
> 
> Looking at the letter in Pittle's post above from Vidanta, it misses one very vital piece of information to help warn owners.  The scammers will claim they can sell or rent out your TS for way more than market value.  Of course, the resorts do not want to admit that.  They want to keep all the owners (at least the ones who bought retail) in the dark about the true resale/rental value of their respective TSs.  Otherwise the resorts would essentially have to admit that they deliberately sold the owners an item that went waaaay down in value the minute the rescission period expired.


All you say is true.  But, one must respect the fact that first they do it.  Wyndham brags about cracking down, but doesn't relay any details of the scam, Vida have.  
Second they do it on a regular basis.  It's the reputation, and the inability to secure valuable reservations, and of course sales and marketing.

Sent from my RCT6873W42 using Tapatalk


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## AZjewel (May 6, 2017)

THANKS SO MUCH for posting this email.  We are members but did NOT get an email like this. Our membership is a pay per use MF (nice) so we may not have received the email you rec'd, since we hadn't been in a few years. The offer I received thru email was to purchase our remaining BONUS weeks expiring in June (True!). All we were asked to do was pay them the usage fee (MF) and then they would purchase the weeks from us at $2200 per week (almost 3x our MF!) because they had a 350 member convention coming in 4 mos and needed rooms! Yeah, right! Anyway, your email helped us further identify it as a scam because the top email-customerservice@grupovidantamx.com- was the one used.

What bothers me the most is how they get all our information (phone numbers, email addresses, Bonus week expiration date)




pittle said:


> My guess is that it is a scam - we received offers from someone about our GL several months ago and they offered a huge amount of money.  Before you know it, they will want a deposit and tell you that there are special taxes you need to pay.  Do not do this.  When it sounds too good to be true - it is!
> 
> Last month, I got this email from Vidanta:
> 
> ...


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## LannyPC (May 6, 2017)

AZjewel said:


> What bothers me the most is how they get all our information (phone numbers, email addresses, Bonus week expiration date)



This has been discussed numerous times here on TUG.  There are at least two plausible explanations.  The first is that some dishonest or disgruntled employee at the resort is taking the information of the owners and selling it on the side.

The other possibility is that a similar employee at the exchange companies (such as RCI, II, etc.) is doing the same thing.

Even though we no longer get phone calls regarding our TS (which we sold many years ago), we are still getting phone calls from these low-tier travel companies.  They start out by saying that they are calling us because we dealt with them before by stay at either one of "their" RCI or II resorts.  The funny thing is, I get this similar line from different alleged travel companies. So I'm thinking that someone from the exchange companies is leaking owners' information.


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## T-Dot-Traveller (May 10, 2017)

Here is another one - called me May 9 - to my cell number 

Capital Real Estate Solutions - Manhattan New York --( right !! )
Marc Brown  - 800 993 4890 ext 327 ( probably a phony name and a virtual number)

wanted me to give him details on what we owned at Vidanta / so their appraisal office could give a quote

SCAM


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## Paul E Morgan (Sep 26, 2017)

travs2 said:


> How do these "companies" get your email address and Vidanta information?  Does Vidanta sell this info to them?  Just wondering.....


Vidanta says they DO NOT sell the registry of members.  Perhaps PROFECO requires regular reports from Vida Vacations of memberships sold, and maybe this document is a "public document", and available for purchase.


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## pianoetudes (Sep 26, 2017)

Smiff said:


> The first was an offer of $39,600 for my Mayan Palace studio unit with the right to use expiring in 2019



I think if you buy the TS from the developer (Vidanta), the price is less than $39k for Mayan Palace Studio.


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## RJones (Oct 31, 2017)

Yea. the dog is right. studios there are less that $39k


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## June Oliver (Jun 11, 2018)

T-Dot-Traveller said:


> Here is another one - called me May 9 - to my cell number
> 
> Capital Real Estate Solutions - Manhattan New York --( right !! )
> Marc Brown  - 800 993 4890 ext 327 ( probably a phony name and a virtual number)
> ...


Scams still happening - we played the “interested” game with Marketing & Management Solutions LLC until they asked for an RFC registration fee today.   Nope - not that stupid.


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## Eric B (Jun 11, 2018)

Got one call today from 615-610-7280 asking if I wanted to sell my Vidanta timeshare.  Said no thanks, but maybe I should have asked what they were offering for it....


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## taylorb8788 (Feb 26, 2019)

Has anyone actually been successful in a resale of a Vida Vacations - Grand Luxx property


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## pittle (Feb 26, 2019)

taylorb8788 said:


> Has anyone actually been successful in a resale of a Vida Vacations - Grand Luxx property



Well, if we were to sell our weeks to someone, it would cost the Buyer about $40,000 just for the transfer fees, and we would get absolutely $0.  We have invested more than $40,000 for our Mayan World properties over the past 20 years.It would make more sense to us to just not renew when the renewal comes up.


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## taylorb8788 (Feb 26, 2019)

how often do you have to renew your membership?


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## pianoetudes (Feb 28, 2019)

travs2 said:


> How do these "companies" get your email address and Vidanta information?  Does Vidanta sell this info to them?  Just wondering.....


I'm wondering too. Some scammers even know the type of contract we have!

How do they know? Either the TS company shares the information or their system was hacked by outsider to gain access.

Sent from my Nokia 6.1 using Tapatalk


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## tschwa2 (Feb 28, 2019)

pianoetudes said:


> I'm wondering too. Some scammers even know the type of contract we have!
> 
> How do they know? Either the TS company shares the information or their system was hacked by outsider to gain access.
> 
> Sent from my Nokia 6.1 using Tapatalk


I have heard that ex employees, on their way out the door or when they know they will be leaving, make copies of the lists and take them with them and sell the list to the resale scammers.


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## pittle (Mar 1, 2019)

taylorb8788 said:


> how often do you have to renew your membership?


Every 10 years - it is basically the cost of a MF.  They tell you it is 1/2 MF, but you pay 1/2 for your extra weeks too.  It will cost us about $5000 when it is time for renewal. As long time owners, we have what is called Senior Certificates and those will be in effect when the renewal is due.  Therefore, we will probably pay the Renewal fee and go for free for as long as we can.  The Senior Certificates are not transferable to our kids or anyone who we would give/sell our weeks to.


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## MoPops (Mar 2, 2019)

pittle said:


> As long time owners, we have what is called Senior Certificates and those will be in effect when the renewal is due.  Therefore, we will probably pay the Renewal fee and go for free for as long as we can.  The Senior Certificates are not transferable to our kids or anyone who we would give/sell our weeks to.



Phyllis, 
I seriously doubt I have any Senior Certificates in our agreement.  If we did, they were probably cut out when we switched from MP to GL.  But just in case, how are yours presented in your agreement?  I don’t have all 56 pages of our agreement committed to memory yet.   
Thanks,
Jeff


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## pittle (Mar 2, 2019)

MoPops said:


> Phyllis,
> I seriously doubt I have any Senior Certificates in our agreement.  If we did, they were probably cut out when we switched from MP to GL.  But just in case, how are yours presented in your agreement?  I don’t have all 56 pages of our agreement committed to memory yet.
> Thanks,
> Jeff



To get the Senior Certificates, you had to be an owner before November 30, 2006 and request it in person at one of the resorts within a specific time frame - I think it was 18 months (so May 31st 2008). If you did, you would get the Sr. Cert.  They did carry ours over when we upgraded and I know of some others that they did this for, so I think it was standard if you had one.

I did scan all of those 56 pages into 3 PDF documents and they are on all of my computers and DropBox.  I have the Signed Papers, the 1st 10 years, and 10-100 as Titles.    Therefore, I can pull the contract up on my phone, iPad, or any computer that we have. Having been an owner for 20 years, I do know about where to look.  I do have the Sr. Cert and our addendum pages pretty much memorized - those are the important ones.


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## MoPops (Mar 2, 2019)

Ok. Thanks. I’m 99% sure I would have noticed that addendum if it was there.  I think our first contract was 2008, and I don’t remember there any mention of them in that agreement.  Oh well.. 
We just got home, beating a snow storm that’s coming in, and then falling temps into single digits for the week.  Meanwhile my sunburn already is itching.   We had a great week in RM.  
Jeff


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## sdrees (Mar 7, 2019)

FRAUD, FRAUD, FRAUD


Has anyone received an offer from Paradise Vacation Luxury Properties, Atlanta Georgia, to sell you Vidanta Timeshare?  The person who called said her name was Leah Kirkwood, a licensed real estate agent.  She told us that she had a buyer for our timeshare from a large software company in California.  They were looking for a tax write off.  The offer was for about 3 times what we paid for the unit.  A so called trust account was set up with a Palmetto Finance and Trust in Charleston, West Virginia.  I was supposed to pay off the balance due on the unit and wire funds to an account in Mexico.  Upon checking with Vidanta's paperwork we received at the time of purchase, the recipients name and bank didn't match.  So no deal.  This whole thing ended up taking over a month.


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## T-Dot-Traveller (Mar 7, 2019)

sdrees said:


> FRAUD, FRAUD, FRAUD
> 
> 
> Has anyone received an offer from Paradise Vacation Luxury Properties, Atlanta Georgia, to sell you Vidanta Timeshare?  The person who called said her name was Leah Kirkwood, a licensed real estate agent.  She told us that she had a buyer for our timeshare from a large software company in California.  They were looking for a tax write off.   .......[
> ...


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## zdwoods129 (Jul 15, 2019)

Have anyone credit been ruined from the fraudulent practices of Vida Vacations Vidanta?


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## CPNY (Jul 15, 2019)

Sounds scammish


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## T-Dot-Traveller (Jul 16, 2019)

zdwoods129 said:


> Have anyone credit been ruined from the fraudulent practices of Vida Vacations Vidanta? **


.
This thread is about 3rd party scammers making offers to folks who have owned and used their Vidanta Membership. Those scammers goal is to have you make a payment to them for a tax or fee and steal your money .
—————-

** If you recently bought and are past the 5 day rescission period - you need to discuss your concerns with Vidanta Member Services .

There are examples in this forum of folks who came to a resolution using this process . Some continued their ownership / some may have walked away from a $$ deposit and been released from further obligation by VMS.

If you put payment on a credit card - contact the card company as well and explain your issue.


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