WARNING! IF YOU ARE TRAVELING TO MEXICO OR KNOW SOMEONE WHO IS PLEASE READ! Read up about Cabo Viejo - Registry Select product or those similar before selling them your timeshares and joining their vacation club. We signed up at Cabo Viejo for Registry Select and then decided to cancel after reading many concerning threads online. We took Cabo Viejo a cancellation notice within our legal 5 business days allowed for cancellation. They signed and accepted our cancellation and told us that our money would be refunded with 15 days. We also have a phone call and email stating that the refund is in process.
Now 15 days have passed and we have not seen our refund and they are now not answering our emails. Cabo Viejo appear to have questionable, unethical practices based on the many threads of complaints we have read about the vacation clubs being sold at their facility which seem to continually change names and by the way these type of vacation clubs are also being sold at other locations. I would like to note that the Registry Select "corporate office" which our sales person said he visited in our home town of Denver (and we were lead to believe it was a brick and mortar building with people) is in fact a rent an office with no staff. It's just an address. The phone number to the Denver office forwards back to Mexico.
Here is what we know about these scams:
It appears that there is a growing group of fraudulent companies in costal tourist areas of Mexico. These organizations often present themselves as timeshares or travel clubs and as usual offer you free gifts to come to their presentations. Since they are a scam with little overhead they are able to offer you gifts that seem super attractive for 90 minutes of your time. They specifically look for people who already own timeshares. They have you sign a sheet with what you own and what you paid prior to the presentation. This is brilliant because they know exactly the $$ numbers to offer to make a deal attractive to you. They offer to buy your timeshares back at near what you paid for them or more, and they offer you a membership of a travel club website that allows you to come back to those resorts or any resorts world-wide at a fraction of the maintenance cost. Based on the 100’s of posts, you never receive the money for your timeshares and the website prices end up higher than booking on Travelocity and with little availability. Note: These companies change names and locations frequently. Their sales reps are everywhere so you need to be aware of what the scam is.
Here are the list of names that these scammers have used that we know of based on the posts we have found to date. All of these websites seem to reside on the same server.
1. Gold Crowne resorts
2. Signature Residence Club
3. Luxxury Leisure Collection
4. Global Travel Services
5. Signature Integrated Travel Systems
6. Diamond Leisure Collection
7. Registry Select International
Here is what you should know:
No matter what your contract says, by Mexican law you have five days to cancel. If you are able to act within those 5 days and get a signed cancellation you have a good chance of your credit card company being able to reverse the charges to your credit card. After the five days however your contract is considered in effect and you will be responsible for the charges - Visit
http://www.profeco.gob.mx/english.htm. This is why this scam works so great! Most people don’t know they’ve been scammed until it’s too late. Note: All of the cases we have seen that Profeco addresses have not resulted in the refund of monies as these organizations have found it easier to not show up on the court dates and just pay the fines.
DO NOT GIVE BACK YOUR CONTRACT ORIGINALS UNTIL YOU HAVE A FULL REFUND. THEY WILL ASK FOR THEM BUT THAT IS SO YOU ARE UNABLE TO TAKE THEM TO COURT. COPIES MEAN NOTHING IN MEXICO! But even if you do sue it’s likely the company will dissolve before anything happens and you will get nothing anyway. NEVER WIRE MONEY! It’s harder to get back and you can pretty much kiss it goodbye.
Hire a Lawyer and Notary if the business is unethical to ensure you have proper documentation. Here is the really sad part and the rest of our story. So after several days of vacation I was still not feeling comfortable with our “Too good to be true” purchase. Since the hurricane, wireless in Cabo is a bit sketchy so it took several days to get online and when I did I felt sick. As you can read by many of the posts/blogs about these scams the organizations often will refuse to sign a contract cancellation when you return or refund your money. They have threatened people and locked them out of the resort. Knowing that this happens we hired a lawyer and a notary. We had one chance at getting in and getting our cancellation signed. We didn’t want to blow it.
Long story short the manager signed our cancellation in the presence of the Notary and our lawyer. We have full documentation and they stated they would refund our money within 15 days. (Our lawyer says he has not seen a refund yet and most people only get their money back by disputing it with their credit card and the credit card refunding it). We also have a phone call and email confirming our refund is "in process" and "almost complete" but have never recieved it. Now they are not responding to emails. Sadly this only confirms that this organization is using unethical business practices.
Google their name or any of the above travel names with the word scam and you will find threads of hundreds of people who have lost $1,000s of dollars.