Debbie & Dicky Sanford Ripoff TRAVEL SCAMS, BEWARE OF BAIT & SWITCH RIPOFF! Alpharetta Georgia
My wife & I booked a condo in Panama City Beach, Florida, at the CELADON BEACH RESORT, UNIT #904. We booked this OCEANFRONT condo approximately two months in advance. However, after driving all night long, when we arrived in the morning, the SANFORD'S (Dicky & Debbie) had no condo available for us!
NO RETURN PHONE CALLS----we were stranded in Florida with NO ACCOMMODATIONS!
DICKY & DEBBIE SANFORD advertise on www.vrbo.com, and on www.greatrentals.com. After complaining to the Condo Association, we were informed that the SANFORD'S have a reputation for overbooking, or BAIT & SWITCH (book an oceanfront condo, and they place you in a unit across the street).
After spending another $688.00, we finally got to sleep. Thanks Dickie & Debbie Sanford! A lot of out of pocket money, and almost a day wasted due to the SANFORD'S.
RENTERS BEWARE!!!! THEY ADVERTISE ON www.vrbo.com/41207
Scott
Evansville, Indiana
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Debbie
Alpharetta,Georgia,
U.S.A.
No "Scam"
#2REBUTTAL Owner of company
Tue, June 27, 2006
This individual is correct that we were unavailable to speak with him. It was a weekday and my husband was speaking at a conference out of town. We have a property manager in Panama City who did speak with him and attempt to make other arrangements. I spoke to our property manager at the time and was told that the individual was extremely abusive and threatening on the phone and the property manager recommended we not offer him any of our other properties.
We do have a property 'across the street', we also have one further down the beach. I contacted another owner at Celadon for an opening in his unit and he had a unit available in Celadon at the same price. I was called again by the person staying in our unit at the time and she was extremely frightened as the individual had been 'pounding' on her door and would not stop harassing her to leave the unit.
At this point I told our property manager to send our regrets and his deposit would be refunded. I received the first call at around 10:30am and I made the last call around noon.
There have been 2 overbookings other than this that I am aware of in the 8 years we have owned properties on the beach. The first was when our condos were being rented through multiple realty agencies that did vacation bookings, in that case the party was placed in another property managed by the realty company and not owned by us. The second happened on the property 'across the street' and the party was placed in Celadon.
There is no 'bait and switch' and I can find no representative of the Condo Association aware that we owned multiple properties let alone the 'bad reputation' mentioned.