Is sfx.lifestylecollection.com a scam?

[DannyTS]

I received a phone call from this sfx.lifestylecollection.com, they say they are connected to SFX. Their offer was 2 weeks at any Vidanta property in a one bedroom for $799, no resort fees, no blackout dates.

Probably stupid on my part, I gave them the credit card for the $99 down-payment but during the same phone conversation I got cold feet and asked them to cancel. They tried to convince me not to cancel, then they told me I cannot cancel, then that it is cancelled but they cannot send me an email to confirm the cancellation. They told me I have to wait 7 days to see the money back in my credit card account. This would be fine, I just do not trust I have not been scammed. I checked my credit card and the pending transaction is indeed for $99 and the vendor is OUR VACATION CENTER not SFX, another redflag.

Have I been scammed, has anyone heard of this company? Should I just call the credit card company?

By the way, I tried a search in TUG but SFX does not come up because the word is too short.

 

[T-Dot-Traveller]

..a phone call from this sfx.lifestylecollection.com, they say ... to SFX. Their offer was 2 weeks at any Vidanta property in a one bedroom for $799, no resort fees, no blackout dates......the vendor is OUR VACATION CENTER not SFX, another red flag.

Have I been scammed, has anyone heard of this company? ......
.

It could be legit -

SFX & ICE (International Cruise & Excursion) both work with Vidanta .
ICE runs RCI’s Cruise Biz. as a “partner” and it is possible they do the same for SFX .ICE also runs Vida Dollars for Vidanta.

Both SFX & ICE do “privilege” weeks for Vidanta .
ICE uses a bunch of names - to work with various partners and I believe OUR VACATION CENTER may be one of them .

I know these "connections" are valid & that a telephone call center person will sometimes give the quick version to get your attention .

What brand level of Vidanta was the $ 799 offer ?

added - PS- My guess is that it is legit
- and you will find out that while there are “no blackout weeks “ - the availability
is going to be more mid April to mid Dec. in Riviera Maya (Mayan Palace) or Acapulco (golf MP not Playa MP)
Vidanta has lots of Mayan Palace buildings at both locations that are probably not
full most of the time .
That said - 2 weeks for $ 799 is a good deal AND the reason it would be offered is to keep the hopper full of new red meat for the Vida Sales Machine .

 

[DannyTS]

I was told any, including Grand Luxxe, and they had availability for Christmas and New Years 2020.

 

[T-Dot-Traveller]

I was told any, including Grand Luxxe, and they had availability for Christmas and New Years 2020.

Of course
(see my - “added above “)

I am sure there are some Grand Luxe weeks available ( but not Feb or other peak times ) and I am sure they have some Mayan Palace RM (20 or so buildings ) for Christmas & New Years .
( Acapulco is busy at Christmas / New Years as it is the closest drive to beach location to Mexico City)

If you are flexible I am sure you can get 2 weeks for $799 / I just think Grand Luxxe for Christmas is a stretch - Vidanta can sell it to Mexican Nationals for a lot more than $799 and the 4 Mexican Holiday weeks are excluded from most Vidanta contracts at all brand levels ; unless an owner specifically paid more $$$ for the access to those weeks.

For $99 - perhaps it is worth finding out what weeks you can get and which Vidanta locations.

 

[LannyPC]

I received a phone call from.....I gave them the credit card for.

I would be hesitant to give anyone who cold calls me my credit card number and info over the phone, especially one who you say claims to be connected with SFX.

 

[presley]

It sounds legit to me. You can call them directly and find out. Here's their website: https://www.sfxresorts.com/
That's their normal exchange company website. They have several offshoots for other travel stuff.

 

[hurnik]

I received a phone call from this sfx.lifestylecollection.com, they say they are connected to SFX. Their offer was 2 weeks at any Vidanta property in a one bedroom for $799, no resort fees, no blackout dates.

Probably stupid on my part, I gave them the credit card for the $99 down-payment but during the same phone conversation I got cold feet and asked them to cancel. They tried to convince me not to cancel, then they told me I cannot cancel, then that it is cancelled but they cannot send me an email to confirm the cancellation. They told me I have to wait 7 days to see the money back in my credit card account. This would be fine, I just do not trust I have not been scammed. I checked my credit card and the pending transaction is indeed for $99 and the vendor is OUR VACATION CENTER not SFX, another redflag.

Have I been scammed, has anyone heard of this company? Should I just call the credit card company?

By the way, I tried a search in TUG but SFX does not come up because the word is too short.

The company is legit, not a scam, although whether it was a good use of money (I'll elaborate later).

The "lifestyle collection" is really ICE (international cruise and excursion?) DBA as sfx travel store.
It also goes by many other names, as Vida uses them for your "vida dollars" (similar to the SFX "travel store" savings credits) and I'm fairly certain that El Cid uses them as well (the UI is 100% the same).
OVS = our vacation store which many other companies use for the cruise and resorts as well.
OVS used to be the Hilton "perk" partner for Cruises until they switched a few years ago to CruisesOnly.

Anyway:
Their only affiliation with SFX, that I'm aware of is that they're "loosely" related. When you get an SFX Resort (NOT the same as the Travel Store/lifestyle collections) membership, and you make a deposit, you'll typically get some savings rewards (credits) to use on the Travel Store (and you can still access the travel store without the credits). However, a deposit with SFX Resorts is *not* the same as deposit with the Travel Store/lifestyle collections.

Travel Store/Lifestyle likes to sell vacation packages/memberships (not really SFX Resorts memberships). IMO, their memberships (not SFX Resorts memberships) aren't that great. They'll try to sell you "points/dollars" but there used to be (and supposedly still is) a bunch of stipulations. Like you can have $10,000 in rewards credits that's "dollar for dollar", but they'll then limit you to like $500 max redemption or something (depends on the thing). Same with the points. I had upwards of like 60,000 points (I didn't buy them per se, it came "included" with my SFX Diamond Lifetime membership eons ago), but I could only ever redeem like 7,500 at a time (good for like $250 off a cruise, depending on the cabin type).

However, sometimes their package deals aren't bad. I had one where they gave me 2 certificates (either 2 cruises, 2 resorts, or one of each), a free resort week, and 4 free SFX exchanges for like $2100. The 4 exchanges (at my rate of $150 each) was like $600 worth. So I figured the cruise/resort certs came out (for 3 things) to $700 each. Depending on the cruise/resort you saved like $50-100 or thereabouts.

But that was a few years ago.

So back to what you purchased.
$800 for a 1 BR Vidanta for 2 weeks is a pretty decent deal, IMO. I'd expect something like that to be in a studio.
Assuming of course, it's also only going to incur the $75 SFX resort fee and not the $360 or whatever RCI/II resort fee that Vidanta charges.

$700 is my SFX bonus week cost for a single week in a 1 BR at Vidanta, so again, pretty good deal, IMO.

 

[DannyTS]

I have to add a bit of information why I actually agreed to give them my CC. This was actually the second call from them. In the first call they actually gave me an id and a pass to access their info at sfx.lifestylecollection.com. It seemed legit and when the second call came few days later I thought that everything checked up to that point.

My fear was at 2 levels
1) a pure scam, I pay money to a firm that does not exist. Less likely

2) a soft scam if I can call it this way were I am promised something that is not delivered and I have to accept something of a lesser value.
Again what I was told, that I would get Grand Luxxe for Christmas and New Years (14 nights) 2020 (PV or RM) in a 1 bdr and pay just $799 for both weeks with no extra resort fees.
I have little confidence that I was going to get that despite their repeated assurances that they had availability and that they were going to book for me right away.


Overall I am happy to hear it is not a pure scam, I am also happy I backed out because the way they behaved made me realize I did not have enough confidence in them and want to deal with the company in the future.