I feel incredibly stupid about falling for this trick but also incredibly angry. I was contacted by these representatives when visiting over the Christmas holidays who said I had won a vacation package to stay in Florida and visit all the Disney theme parks. I asked my mother if she had entered me in something like that and she said yes. They then described all the benefits I would get as part of the deal including passes to all the theme parks and hotel lodgings although I would have to book my own flight tickets. I believed that was the catch, that promoting airline travel and tourism was the reason this became possible.
While caught up in this excitement, they told me that as this was an American contest it was subject to certain fees: $400 which seemed reasonable for the discount in terms of all the things I would get. After I did this, my mother interjected and said that was NOT true. So I told them I was no longer interested and to not access my account. They said they would send me a package and I had 14 days to accept it. After getting off the phone, I immediately called my credit card company and asked them to block the withdrawals by this company. The customer representative said that the charge ended up being $500 which was over my limit and thus was automatically blocked.
ince I had decided not to take the package and was leaving my parent's house anyways, I then forgot all about it until two months later when I find a charge from the company on my card with added interest for going over my limit. Calling the credit card company, they said they could only block the initial charge because they didn't know they would try again in the future even though I'd asked the company's charges to be blocked. Contacting the Etourandtravel, I was told that I had had 14 days to REJECT the package not to ACCEPT it. To make matters worse, when I finally got my hands on the package, I discovered it was completely different from what was presented to me on the phone.
The tickets were for Universal Studios not to the Disney Parks and that the real catch was that I had to attend 3 hour time share presentations in order to be eligible for them and had to travel with a spouse, which I don't have. Furthermore, all online research points to the accommodations provided to end up being run down, under construction, or with terrible service. I am a university student who was looking forward to using my little savings to vacation after graduating and am now looking at a major financial loss for nothing. While you can't get something for nothing, there's a huge difference between that and outright lying about the product and its use!