Complaint Review: International Living Magazine

If you are nearing or at retirement age, you will start getting emails from this company. Beware!  This is a huge ripoff that most retirees can not afford.  

They will sell you a 2 day "seminar" in several countries, Panama, Belize, Costa Rica, Ecuador, etc.  You must pay the minimum amount, $1,340.00 immediately.  Read the fine print, because if you are able to get through to one of their nasty phone agents, you must give them your credit card info, THEN, they send you the fine print.  

The date to cancel your "seminar" is usually BEFORE you book it.  Mine was.  

You are told to stay in the hotel where the seminar is being held & they got "a good deal" for you on rooms for the conference.  In fact, you could get it cheaper on booking.com or expedia or hotels.com, but you MUST make the hotel reservation through the hotel only, which does not have an 800#, so be prepared to email your credit card info or spend $6.97 per minute to speak to the only person that is handling the bookings for the seminar.  The catch with the hotel, in this case, the Swissotel in Quito, Ecuador, also does not refund your money no matter how much time you give them notice.  

So, you develop a medical emergency a week before your trip, you are told by the Dr. you can NOT fly or sit for more than a few minutes at a time. The hotel says "too bad", no refund.  Then they rent the room out to someone else & get paid twice!  

You call & call & email the International Living "Event" manager, who tells you, 'that is a sad story, but we hear sad stories everyday & if we refunded everyone's money who can't come, I would not have a job".  Her job is to travel for free all over the world to these "retirement" countries.  IF you get an email reply, you will be told that they do not refund any money for seminars or even magazine subscriptions, FOR ANY REASON, because they are not willing to go through the hassle"!  That is their idea of customer care.  

So now, you are out at least $1,400.00 for their non refundable seminar, $175.60 a night for the hotel, $1,500.00 worth of airfare & any tours, etc. yo may have signed up for.  this entire thing is to deplete the money from American retirees, telling you how cheap you can live overseas.  Except by the time you spend all your money on them, you have no money to move to another country.

They call these conferences, "Fast Track to Panama" or Fast Track to Costa Rica, or Fast Track to Ecuador, etc.  Remember, their "customer care" is only there by email to be as rude as possible & to remind you there are NO REFUNDS FOR ANY REASON.  Too bad, so sad......