Complaint Review: Econ Travel Planners LLC

Econ Travel claims they are a hotel wholesaler working with groups to book blocks of hotel rooms at high demand destinations for affordable rates. We bought into their story and decided to go with them (over the preferred wholesaler sponsored by the convention) because they claimed they could get our group at a hotel closer to the convention center.
We booked our company for 7 rooms in Philadelphia (Marriott Courtyard Downtown) and Econ took a 50% deposit for the booking totaling over $3,000. As the date of the reservation drew closer, I asked them to send over the hotel reservation numbers (which could be verified with the hotel) so I could distribute them to my employees. They returned my calls several times (leaving voicemails) claiming that the hotel was finalizing the room block and that reservation numbers would be sent any day.

Finally, after over 2 weeks of not receiving the hotel reservation numbers, I called the hotel directly. They checked both their local reservation team and corporate group sales and found only one record of a call from Rena Fran at Econ Travel just 1 week prior (they had my request in for over 2 months prior). Why you might ask did it take them so long to even contact the hotel after they had guaranteed my rooms over 2 months earlier?

One can only surmise that they are nothing more than a scam, praying on groups who are desperately trying to find reasonable lodging for their trade show teams. The scam seems to work as companies are used to working with wholesalers in this way. Now the group at Econ Travel Planners will not even return my phone calls.
Doing a little research, I noticed that 2 other folks had recently written similar reviews on Facebook about this group:
facebook.com/pg/econtravels/reviews/?ref=page_internal

For now, I have disputed the credit card charge with my bank and am writing this so all others can avoid being taken by this unscrupulous group.
Beware.