Complaint Review: Vida Vacations

The merchant invited us to a free breakfast with compliments of a gift tequila bottle at the resort of “The Grand Mayan” in Puerto Vallarta, where we would be driven to by a taxi compliments of the resort, for the purpose of seeing a vacation timeshare.

We were picked up at 9 am for what was supposed to be 30 min away from where we stayed (Garza Blanc in Puerto Vallarta) by a car. That included myself, my partner and our 3.5 years old

Lie #1: The ride lasted over 1 hour, while we were told it’s just a “backrode” the driver is using, and only after that day we realized that the resort was not in Puerto Vallarta as presented by the company but rather Nuevo Vallarta.

Lie #2: when we arrived, the resort called “Mayan Resort” was shown to us, and we even used the pool (attached a paper demonstrating that). We were later told, after trying to cancel the transaction, that the contract we made has nothing to do with Mayan resort. Although the merchant presented themselves, the rooms, services and operation as part of Mayan Resort.

Lie #3: the tour was supposed to be 90 min. we signed a paper that said it would be 90 min after breakfast. We were held in many illegitimate ways there from 10 am (our arrival after a drive of 1 hour) till 4:30 pm when we signed their papers and begged to leave with a crying and hungry toddler.

Lie #4: the team that tried to sell us a timeshare was extremely aggressive, would not let us review the contract unless we pay 50% in advance, and pushed us to charge $72,000 which turned into $42,000 instantly, without reviewing the paperwork. We, of course, would not do it. We were then told we have to spend some time at the pool with a sales rep. We did so to allow our toddler some time off the hassle.

Lie #5: After hours of hard sell we pushed to leave the place and the team sent us to another team, selling more. They would not let us leave until we filled a “survey” which really was just intended to sell us more. The guy asking for the survey yelled at me when I refused and eventually I gave in to the survey as my tollder was really frightened.

Lie #6: were then were taken by a guy called “Sergio Caballero” who presented himself as an accountant and not sales person. We later found he is a sales rep. Lie Lie #7: Sergio claimed that everyone who’s been selling us used high prices and he can sell the same deal exactly for $8000 which turned into $4900 and then to $2700. That is because he does not need to cover for high sales costs.

Lie #8: We were told that the contract is for GUARATNEED timeshare of a 2 bedroom apartment that we were given a tour in, and that we would have 3 weeks in that apartment every year, without any blackout dates, all year long, and that we would not pay more than $99 for each visit. That part of the agreement was separate because the merchant claimed that it’s “beyond” the generic agreement. Both sides signed it and after the merchant charged us, they refused to give us a copy of that part.

Lie #9: We were told that we could exchange any week with a week in one of 350 alternative resorts/hotels in the world. We later found out that this company has only 4 locations, all in Mexico, and that in fact what we got is not a timeshare but only an “opportunity” to book rooms, but those are never available and cannot really be booked.

Lie #10: When the merchant would not give us the copy of the full contract, we asked to cancel the deal, and he said he would do so, but also immediately walked us out of the premises with aggressive tone and escort of a team. He would not give us a copy of the supposedly cancellation receipt. We called Mastercard the same night and asked to verify that the transaction was cancelled, to find out it was not the case.

Lie #11: We called the next day from the resort where we stayed (Garza Blanca) and were told that the merchant is in fact called Vida Vacation, it has nothing to do with the Grand Mayan.  We asked to talk to Vida Vacations and were led over and over to numbers that do not exist.

Lie #12: We did not provide a pin for this charge. We asked to charge it as credit, not debit, to have the protection from Mastercard. This should not have been a debut charge.