Complaint Review: Vida Vacations/Mayan Palace Vacation Club

On 3 July 2014, my wife and I were on vacation and attended a timeshare presentation sponsored by Vida Vacations at the Mayan Palace Resort in Rivera Maya (Cancun), Mexico. These people are slick. They employ sales associates to match the ethnicity of the perspective clients. In our case, we had an American named Josh who made us very uncomfortable. We were with another couple who already had a time share and they were very focused on getting them to give up their "equity" to buy into the Vida plan which was supposed to be a much better deal. A few times a person in our group would ask questions and Josh would tell them "don't worry about it" and quickly moved on. I had to put him in check because of his poor customer service skills.

My wife and I politely declined the offer but they refused to back down. After the third guy came to our table to offer a new deal, they sent in the big guns "Oscar". He made us new offer at a low and affordable price. We started to reconsider. However, we wanted to research the company and the contract and informed Oscar that we would not be making a decision on that day. They offered to take a good faith deposit in order to draw up blank contracts for us to review until our next appointment on 6 July, 2014. We were informed that a $300.00 hold would be placed on our credit card in order to review the contract and the money was fully refundable if we did not agree to the terms of the contract and declined the offer. However, if we agreed to proceed forward with the purchase, the $300.00 dollars would be applied torward the down payment. Considering the $300.00 dollars was fully refundable if we declined, we agreed.

Later that evening, I researched ARDA and the Vida Vacations website to review the corporate structure. The website tells you absolutely nothing. I then found a ton of RipOff Reports on the very same company. One of the RipOff Reports on this very site detailed everything we were told on the day we attended. It appeared as if nothing changed since the other vacationers who previously attended Vida Vacations presentations were ripped off.  

I made up my mind that night that I would not have anything further to do with Vida Vacations.

The next day I returned with my buddy to inform the Vida representatives that I wanted a receipt that my card woudl not be charged the $300.00 fee if I declined. I spoke with a representative named Luca Ciccone who stated he was in management and he assured me that my card would not be charged. He specifically stated "you did not sign anything so we cannot charge your card". It was true, I did not sign contracts or a credit card receipt authorizing the charge so I walked away thinking I can report the fraud to Visa in the event the charges appeared on my card. Luca refused to provide me with anything in writing.

When my wife and I arrived home we checked our account and Vida sent an authorization code on 7 July, 2014 to charge my credit card in the amount of $300.00. We currently have a dispute pending with Visa.

I can't tell you how happy we are that we did not purchase into Vida Vacation Club. they are the crooks that everyone has stated they are.

Please, stay far away from these people.