Luxury Travel Consultants: Scam?

[LP1972]

Hello All, does anyone have experience with Luxury Travel Consultants out of Houston, TX? They are offering to rent my Vidanta timeshare for a 5% commission and are not requesting money from me. Scam?

 

[DeniseM]

This is a VERY common scam. You should immediately block them from your phone and email. Any continued contact with them with identify you as an easy mark and you will get lots more offers from scammers.

 

[dioxide45]

5% commission is very low. There will be an upfront fee somewhere along the way. Did they call you? If so, it is a scam.

 

[T-Dot-Traveller]

Hello All, does anyone have experience with Luxury Travel Consultants out of Houston, TX? They are offering to rent my Vidanta timeshare for a 5% commission and are not requesting money from me. Scam?

if you are looking to rent - put an ad on TUG Marketplace & save 5%
-( and being scammed.)

 

[LannyPC]

They are offering to rent my Vidanta timeshare for a 5% commission and are not requesting money from me. Scam?

As said above, 5% commission is very low. Most legitimate third-party rentals charge about 20% commission. As well, again as said above, did these people contact you out of the blue such as telemarketing? That's another sign of a scam.

How much did they say they could fetch for a rental? If it's an unrealistically high amount, then that's another sign of a scam. As for not requesting any money from you at this time, that is usually a lead up to telling you that they have found a renter (or buyer) when they actually haven't. They tell you that the renter/buyer is ready to pay huge bucks for this rental but then you have to pay some sort of fee or tax (which is bogus).

 

[RX8]

@LP1972 I was surprised to find a corporation in Texas that matches this company. It was established in 2021. Their website actually predates the corporation as it was created in 2019. However, that doesn’t automatically make this company legit.

One BIG lie is that they state on their website that they have been in business since 1995. Also, I have never seen another website, even confirmed scammer sites, that had so much gobbledygook wording. Still don’t know exactly what they do after reading through their website. Doing a search of their phone number reveals that they cold call which is job #1 for any scammer. Finally, their address in Houston is a virtual office. It is my opinion that this is a scammer who went the extra mile by creating a corporation to make them appear legit. However, their poorly written website and lies help uncover their true business model which is to steal money.

Edited to add: I see from your prior post that you were contacted by another scammer by a different name. Your information is likely being passed around to multiple scammers. Possibly because you answered and spoke to the previous scammer. Doing so makes your info even more valuable because you are at least willing to talk to them. One trait that both of these companies have in common is that both websites were registered in Reykjavik Iceland. Likely related.

 

[TheTimeTraveler]

Hello All, does anyone have experience with Luxury Travel Consultants out of Houston, TX? They are offering to rent my Vidanta timeshare for a 5% commission and are not requesting money from me. Scam?

Run away as fast as you can! Don't even consider doing business with them.




.

 

[simpsontruckdriver]

I would not be surprised if they say 5%, then down the road, they need more $$$ for this or that. Meanwhile, your unit sits empty because no one saw it was for rent.

TS

 

[LP1972]

Thanks All. I have my running shoes on and blocking them on email/phone.

 

[hg0403]

Hello All, does anyone have experience with Luxury Travel Consultants out of Houston, TX? They are offering to rent my Vidanta timeshare for a 5% commission and are not requesting money from me. Scam?

Same here, they just called me last week.
Their story was that there is a golf tournament coming up at one of the resort locations in Mexico and they need my Vidanta week to rent to their clients. They sent me a contract offering $3k+ and some TBD notes on the fees section.
I called Vidanta and they confirmed this company has been reported in the past as scam. They will eventually request payment upfront to supposedly cover taxes before they send any money. And then once the victim wires them the money you can guess what happens next. Not good, definitely red flags.
I stopped communications with them.
It is interesting thought how they put together the contract, the website, they made sure the event matches the dates, etc... pretty well organized on their side. I just came back from one of the resort shortly before they contacted me, so that also makes me wonder if they got my contact details from one of the employees at the resort.
I was glad to find this post as this helped me to confirm this is a scam. Hopefully this helps other people as well.

 

[Ty1on]

Same here, they just called me last week.
Their story was that there is a golf tournament coming up at one of the resort locations in Mexico and they need my Vidanta week to rent to their clients. They sent me a contract offering $3k+ and some TBD notes on the fees section.

LOL

 

[PatriciaG]

They have been calling me since last week to rent a week at Grand Mayan Rivera Maya for the Mayakoba Golf Tournament from Oct 30-Nov 6/2022. They just emailed me a very legit-looking contract offer which is 4 times the money that I have to pay to Grand Mayan, Vidanta for my maintenance fee for that week. Where can we report these people? Does anyone know? Can any law enforcement agency do anything for us to go after these scammers who want to steal from us like this? I am tired of these thieves.

 

[RX8]

They have been calling me since last week to rent a week at Grand Mayan Rivera Maya for the Mayakoba Golf Tournament from Oct 30-Nov 6/2022. They just emailed me a very legit-looking contract offer which is 4 times the money that I have to pay to Grand Mayan, Vidanta for my maintenance fee for that week. Where can we report these people? Does anyone know? Can any law enforcement agency do anything for us to go after these scammers who want to steal from us like this? I am tired of these thieves.

Unless you have been scammed personally I don’t think you can report them. My recommendation is to file a BBB complaint (BBB will build a profile). Your complaint is a cold call (especially if you are on the DNC), offer to good to be true, and lies on their website.

Congrats for not falling for their scam!

 

[PatriciaG]

Unless you have been scammed personally I don’t think you can report them. My recommendation is to file a BBB complaint (BBB will build a profile). Your complaint is a cold call (especially if you are on the DNC), offer to good to be true, and lies on their website.

Congrats for not falling for their scam!

Thanks. This site helped for sure. More people need to know

 

[RX8]

Thanks. This site helped for sure. More people need to know

One of the best things we can do to protect others is to post here on TUG. People contacted by this scammer who search out the company name should pull up this thread, which I assume is how you found it.

Why is this a scam? For a company supposedly out to connect renters with timeshare owners their website has zero listings for anyone to look at. Their “search” function is almost an after thought as it is tiny and at the very end of the website. If that isn’t enough, if one wants to search a destination to see what is available the only way to do that is if you have a password. Their website has no way to get a user ID/password. In other words, NO ONE who might be interested has any way to search what might be available. It certainly appears that this “company” is simply taking big upfront fees and doing nothing for it.