Complaint Review: All Dreams Vacations - Miami Florida

On February 21st, 2011 my husband and I were on our way back from MA. Somewhere in the Connecticut / New York City area we heard a contest announcement over the radio on a Spanish radio station. The announcer said that the first 20 people that called in and answered the question correctly would win a free vacation with all expenses paid.  I called in, answered the question, they said I was a winner and that they would return the call in 15 minutes.

A lady (I don’t recall her name) called back and identified the company as 5 Star Vacations and asked a few questions such as what my age was and if I single or married. Then she proceeded to explain the vacation package to me, it included 3 trips to three different destinations: a 4 day/ 3 night trip to Orlando with all expenses paid for four people and tickets to some attractions, a 3 night/ 2 day trip to Las Vegas for two people with all expenses paid plus $50 to spend and finally a 4 day/ 3 night open location trip to either the Dominican Republic, Cancun or Daytona Beach with all expenses paid as well.  She said that I had two years to take advantage of said offer.

Then she said that there was a $200+ charge to cover for taxes that I should pay immediately to secure the prize.  Regretfully I fall for it and gave out my credit card number and the lady processed the payment. She then said to stay on hold to receive a confirmation number and the telephone number to call to make the reservations. The call was forwarded to a man named Alex Sanchez whose first words were that the conversation was to be recorded, my prior conversation with the lady wasn’t. He proceeded to discuss the offers in a very speedy way, so fast that I found myself not understanding what he was saying.

After each statement he sought concurrence on my part which I gave out of confusion thinking that I was agreeing to what I was originally offered.  Mr.Sanchez then provided his phone number and extension: 800-587-7016, ext. 1023 and gave a confirmation number and the phone number to claim my prize / make reservations.   (We found out later that Mr.Sanchez extension did not exist). Immediately after hanging up, my husband said to call the given number to verify the legitimacy of the offer.

I called in and the recording said that this was All Dreams Vacations and not 5 Star Vacations which I had previously dealt with. I asked if my confirmation number existed which they verified and then proceeded to ask if everything was included and the response was affirmative. After I hung up my husband asked me to call once again to make sure that the airplane tickets were included, to which the customer service representative also gave an affirmative response, he also provided a website to verify the vacation packages. 

Please note that neither one of these calls were recorded. We finally made it to our home in Maryland, and when reviewing the invoice received from All Dreams Vacations over e-mail I noticed that I was charged $379.89 instead of the amount that we had originally discussed. My husband looked up the company’s website: www.tratocorp.com and the insufficiency of information drove him to Google the company’s name and manage to find a number of internet sites that provided warnings and complaints about this company’s tactics.

Here are some of them:

(((links redacted)))

Our Credit Card Company advised to call All Dreams Vacations to ask for a refund before filing a charge dispute. This time it was my husband who called the company and the first thing he did was to inquire for detailed information about the vacation package. He didn’t allow the person to speed up and was very thorough with his questions. He found out that the company just covers the lodging expense, breakfast buffets and tickets to some attractions, not all inclusive deals with airfare included as they had originally led me to believe and to top it off they require a 90 minute briefing for a timeshare program while on vacation.

My husband then proceeds to tell them that this was not what we had in mind and that we wanted to turn down the offer. They said that the money was not refundable and that I had agreed to it when the call had been previously recorded.  My husband was transferred to the manager called Jorge Pacholo and he played the recording of my conversation with Mr. Sanchez. My husband then proceeded to ask them to play the recording for all the calls I made in which it was confirmed to me that everything was included but they said that they had no record of those. 

My husband started to argue with them and after informing them that he was a lawyer Mr. Pacholo then offered to refund half of the amount and to extend the two year period to three years but that we had to submit an offer acceptance to them through fax. My husband said that he would discuss with me and get back to him. This call was not recorded either. We decided to turn down the offer and seek a refund in full. We called the Credit Card Company again to tell them what had happened, and they went ahead and cancelled my card for security purposes. 

We faxed a letter on February 22nd to Mr.Pacholo’s attention in which we express our discontent with their dishonest practices and requested a full refund. We said that we would file a report with the FTC, the BBB, file a dispute with the credit card company and take any other necessary measures if we didn’t hear back from them in three days.  To date we have not received a response from All Dreams Vacations nor have we received our money back.

In summary:

·         I participated of a contest and was told that I won a completely free vacation to three different destinations. I ended up paying and the all inclusive deal I was offered does not airfare or meals and there are other hidden costs involved. This contest was promoted by a Spanish radio station in the North East, making the contest sound like a legal, legitimate and serious offer when the prizes offered do not exist. This is false advertisement.

·         They use the recording to argue that I accepted the payment and the conditions of the prize, which I did under confusing circumstances as I thought I was agreeing to what I had been initially offered. Conveniently the calls where I was offered the free – all inclusive deal and further calls in which I was told that airfare and all expenses were to be paid for were not recorded. This company manipulates the information at their convenience deceiving people on their good faith.

·         I was offered a full all inclusive free package before my payment and once the transaction was processed they changed the conditions and exclude 90% of the offered vacation package. What I was left with I not even have a control over as they select the hotels where I get to stay. I exchanged my money for nothing.

·         I am requesting a full refund from All Dreams Vacations, because through deceiful tactics I was induced to agree to what turned out to be a complete fraud.

It's interesting to note that today I called All Dreams Vacations(800-587-7016) from my work phone (I am a federal government employee) and I couldn't get through to costumer service and it would continue to prompt me to leave a message, I didn't get that when I called from my cell phone.  When I tried again in the afternoon from my work phone I got a message that the company had acquired a new phone number and that the number above was no longer valid, the new number was:  (385)647-2470, which I called just to find out that the number doesn't exist. However, I called the 800-587-7016 number from my cell phone right after that and I was able to get through 800-587-7016 without a problem. Weird, uh?

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