Complaint Review: Minori Luxury Residences

Minori Luxury Residences (MLR) operates out of a restaurant in the mountains above Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. We attended a presentation at the restaurant with MLR, arranged by David Montana (working out of Hacienda Encantada), to try to sell our timeshare membership in Mexico on 3 March 2020. MLR rep, Evelyn Aguirre, stated that they had a third-party buyer interested in purchasing our timeshare membership.

Evelyn asked us to provide a 100-percent refundable "good faith deposit" into an American escrow account at Fidelity National Title Services (FNTS). The agreement that we signed had a 60-day right of rescission. We placed five charges onto two credit cards, which Evelyn said was to avoid Mexican taxes. The credit card acknowledgments that we received stated a HOLD was to be placed on our credit cards by FNTS until we received our money from the sale. 

Two days later, we found out that we had five charges made by CONCTPP*BOOZE CRUISE, not FNTS. Because we immediately suspected fraud, we contacted our credit card banks to report the fraud and initiate disputes. When we returned home, we attempted to access FNTS's website, to not avail. We received a phone call from Robert Brown, an alleged escrow officer with FNTS, who provide his contact information (phone and address, no suite number). We discovered that the provided address for FNTS in New York City was a coffee shop on the first floor of a multi-story building. We also discovered that the alleged buyer was SFX Preferred Resorts, which we know does not buy luxury resort memberships.

We immediately contacted Evelyn via email to notify MLR of our desire to immediately cancel the agreement within five business days. That evening, we received a phone call from Oscar Garza, representing himself as an attorney for MLR. Mr. Garza attempted to persuade us to continue with the sales transaction. We again refused.

After many phone calls and emails from MLR and FNTS, Evelyn, in her last call to us, said that MLR wanted to refund all of our money; however, she insisted that we cancel the disputes first. Again we refused because we recognized a classic string-along operation. We stopped all correspondence with MLR and FNTS at the end of March, as advised by representatives of both credit card banks involved.

We provided all documentation that we had to our credit card banks and the New York State Attorney General in Brooklyn. We await a positive outcome from our credit card banks. Please note that FNTS is NOT affiliated with Fidelity National Title, a reputable American escrow company, and MLR does not exist in Mexico.

In conclusion, we implore you to not have any business dealings with David Montana, Evelyn Aguirre, Robert Brown, Oscar Garza, nor any other people associated with the non-existent companies MLR or FNTS.