Complaint Review: CTrip Ablon Law Offices Talking Travels SA DE CV memberservices@pueblobonitoresortsandspa.com Guillermo Estrada Metropolitan Bank and Trust Pueblo Bonito Santander SAT SAT Hold SEGOB Abogado Juan Carlos Ocampo Jamarillo Capital Gains Tax Mexico

In August, I received a call from a marketing company stating they were part of Ctrip. They offered us an amount of money to purchase our membership at Pueblo Bonito Sunset Beach in Cabo San Lucas. When I told them I would be interested in selling our membership, they told me that a US based law firm would be reaching out to me to help with the transaction. Ablon Law Offices contacted me with a contract that contained our personal information, plus instructions for receiving a wire of the purchase amount. I was then contacted by Guillermo Estrada who had my contract information from Pueblo Bonito. He said he was from Member Services and would work with me to provide the payoff amount and fees for the transfer. This was described as a discounted amount from our Payoff since we still owed a small balance. 

I researched the law office, and found the matching information for the attorney, William Neal Ablon including his Barcard information. There is an attorney with that name using that barcard practicing in Dallas, Texas. 

I did not have the funds to be able to pay off the purchase and transfer fees right away, so I had to wait until I had those funds. Once I did, I wired $3799 to the account for Talking Travels in Mexico City that were part of the instructions from Guillermo Estrada. Once completed, I was contacted by Guillermo and Ablon Law Office saying that the funds had been received and I would then be getting our purchase of $20,350 from Ctrip. I then was contacted by Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company (Metropolitan International Bank Facility) that my wire was ready and I only needed to confirm the last four digits of my bank account. I then received an official looking letter from SAT SEGOB contacto@segob.com with the subject line Tax Evasion, stating we were to immediately wire them $4035 to pay for Capital Gains and the funds would be on hold for 72 hours. If we did not pay, the funds would be siezed for a period of 9 months while an investigation took place. 

I contacted Ctrip, and was told they had wired me an additional amount of $4035 to cover the SAT, but that was also on Hold, and I just needed to pay it first out of my pocket to release the funds. At this point I was fully suspicious and began a second round of validation attempts and research. I was suspicious of the Final Beneficiary name for the SAT SEGOB branch as Denni E. Y Logistica SA de CV, so searched that term and was lead here to the Ripoff Report site. I did not send any additional money.

I contacted Pueblo Bonito multiple times and finally found someone in Member Services who verified that no money was received by them from my wire transfer, and I had likely lost my initial $3799. I contacted Guillermo again, and he immediately became defensive and threatening before hanging up on me.

Please note, my research has lead me to conclude that there is no travel company who is legitimately and proactively contacting time share owners who can legally purchase your timeshare from you. CTrip is not legitimately doing this. It is a scam marketing company who will dangle the payoff through yet another unannounced fee.