Hi all,
Starting December 1st my wife and I stayed a few nights at the Grand Fiesta Americana Coral Beach Cancun. It was our first time staying at a resort like this and our first time in Mexico. Foolishly, we agreed to see the sales presentation for the Fiesta Americana Vacation Club (FAVC), due to the promise of some free massages in exchange.
I won't go into detail about the "presentation" because I think everyone here knows how it goes, but suffice to say that it was a slick, high-pressure, one chance only offer to save a lot of money on wonderful all-inclusive holidays are resorts around the world...After almost 4 hours my wife was enthusiastic, I was keen to get to the beach, and the offer sounded like good value, so when they put the papers to sign in front of our faces, we signed.
I generally like to think that I'm pretty smart (now doubting) and skeptical of sales tactics and I'm absolutely stunned that it didn't occur to me to look up reviews of the vacation club as I was sitting there. One google search for "fiesta americana vacation club review" would have sent me running.
In the end we accepted the deal because of the salesman's ironclad assurances that with our 2400 yearly points, we would be able to stay for at least a week during peak season at hotels around the world. He explicitly clarified multiple times that the points required to book a resort or hotel were uniform and did not change according to the hotel. He also explicitly confirmed that this plan would allow us to return to the Grand Fiesta Americana Coral Beach Cancun and stay in the exact same room for at least 7 nights.
We have since looked on the website and found that the same room for just 4 nights on the exact same dates next year costs more than 7000 points. We have also found that the only hotels that can be booked with the points are the Fiesta Americana properties in Mexico. So what we were told in the sales presentation appears to be a bald-faced lie.
We were also told explicitly at the beginning of the presentation that this offer was NOT A TIMESHARE, and then find in the contract that it is called "contrato de compraventa de derechos de uso y goce temporal bajo el esquema de tiempo compartido", which translates quite literally to "contract for timeshare".
One of the main reasons that we agreed to sign the agreement was because the salesman told us that we could cancel at any time and still use the sign-up bonus points for a holiday. So in effect our deposit of around $6000 would be used for a great holiday and we wouldn't really be any worse off. Now that I've sat down and looked for the information about cancelling the membership in the documents we received, I have not been able to find a single mention of how a membership can be cancelled, let alone our right to a refund due to fraudulent misrepresentation of the contract being offered.
Given all this, I have been researching our options for getting out of this scam and it doesn't look pretty. Obviously I would love to cancel the membership and get a refund of our initial payment, however at this stage with everything I've read it seems like just getting the membership cancelled and losing the initial payment would almost be a win. These are the options that I'm aware of to reach this outcome (keeping in mind that we're past the legal 5 day period since signing the contract):
In the worst case, if they refuse to cancel our membership or just ignore us, it seems that we would have no choice but to either continue paying forever or cancel the credit card and let the charges fail, in which case I would like to know what could be the negative consequences of doing that in my particular case? I am an Australian citizen and my wife is Colombian. We are residents of Colombia. The credit card is from a Colombian bank.
This question feels particularly important because it seems to be the most likely outcome. I have seen conflicting advice regarding this here on the forum. Some people seem to suggest that it's not a big deal and others say to never do it and it's better to go to whatever lengths necessary to pay off the debts. I hate the idea of acquiescing to my own robbery so I would be extremely reluctant to do this unless it was clear that the consequences were truly dire.
Any advice regarding my situation would be greatly appreciated.
Note: This is the linked page of the salesman who sold me this scam https://www.linkedin.com/in/julioivanlemushuerta/
Starting December 1st my wife and I stayed a few nights at the Grand Fiesta Americana Coral Beach Cancun. It was our first time staying at a resort like this and our first time in Mexico. Foolishly, we agreed to see the sales presentation for the Fiesta Americana Vacation Club (FAVC), due to the promise of some free massages in exchange.
I won't go into detail about the "presentation" because I think everyone here knows how it goes, but suffice to say that it was a slick, high-pressure, one chance only offer to save a lot of money on wonderful all-inclusive holidays are resorts around the world...After almost 4 hours my wife was enthusiastic, I was keen to get to the beach, and the offer sounded like good value, so when they put the papers to sign in front of our faces, we signed.
I generally like to think that I'm pretty smart (now doubting) and skeptical of sales tactics and I'm absolutely stunned that it didn't occur to me to look up reviews of the vacation club as I was sitting there. One google search for "fiesta americana vacation club review" would have sent me running.
In the end we accepted the deal because of the salesman's ironclad assurances that with our 2400 yearly points, we would be able to stay for at least a week during peak season at hotels around the world. He explicitly clarified multiple times that the points required to book a resort or hotel were uniform and did not change according to the hotel. He also explicitly confirmed that this plan would allow us to return to the Grand Fiesta Americana Coral Beach Cancun and stay in the exact same room for at least 7 nights.
We have since looked on the website and found that the same room for just 4 nights on the exact same dates next year costs more than 7000 points. We have also found that the only hotels that can be booked with the points are the Fiesta Americana properties in Mexico. So what we were told in the sales presentation appears to be a bald-faced lie.
We were also told explicitly at the beginning of the presentation that this offer was NOT A TIMESHARE, and then find in the contract that it is called "contrato de compraventa de derechos de uso y goce temporal bajo el esquema de tiempo compartido", which translates quite literally to "contract for timeshare".
One of the main reasons that we agreed to sign the agreement was because the salesman told us that we could cancel at any time and still use the sign-up bonus points for a holiday. So in effect our deposit of around $6000 would be used for a great holiday and we wouldn't really be any worse off. Now that I've sat down and looked for the information about cancelling the membership in the documents we received, I have not been able to find a single mention of how a membership can be cancelled, let alone our right to a refund due to fraudulent misrepresentation of the contract being offered.
Given all this, I have been researching our options for getting out of this scam and it doesn't look pretty. Obviously I would love to cancel the membership and get a refund of our initial payment, however at this stage with everything I've read it seems like just getting the membership cancelled and losing the initial payment would almost be a win. These are the options that I'm aware of to reach this outcome (keeping in mind that we're past the legal 5 day period since signing the contract):
- Request cancellation and refund via the official FAVC email address (infofavclub@favc.com) - I have done this and have extremely low hopes
- Contact the salesman directly and ask for assistance in cancelling and refunding the membership - We have done this and he has for two days in a row promised to call and then not done so. I have extremely low hopes of this going anywhere.
- Email other senior company leaders explaining the fraudulence of this particular salesmen and threaten to leave negative reviews everywhere we can think of. This has apparently helped in some cases, for example, in this one. This would be quite a lot of work for also a very low likelihood of success.
- Send a complaint to the PROFECO Conciliation from Abroad arbitration process. Seems worth doing but it's not clear to me exactly what they will do and apparently they don't really have any power to enforce anything. I'm not sure it will make much difference.
In the worst case, if they refuse to cancel our membership or just ignore us, it seems that we would have no choice but to either continue paying forever or cancel the credit card and let the charges fail, in which case I would like to know what could be the negative consequences of doing that in my particular case? I am an Australian citizen and my wife is Colombian. We are residents of Colombia. The credit card is from a Colombian bank.
This question feels particularly important because it seems to be the most likely outcome. I have seen conflicting advice regarding this here on the forum. Some people seem to suggest that it's not a big deal and others say to never do it and it's better to go to whatever lengths necessary to pay off the debts. I hate the idea of acquiescing to my own robbery so I would be extremely reluctant to do this unless it was clear that the consequences were truly dire.
Any advice regarding my situation would be greatly appreciated.
Note: This is the linked page of the salesman who sold me this scam https://www.linkedin.com/in/julioivanlemushuerta/