Complaint Review: El Cid VAcation Club - Cozumel, Q. Roo Mexico

In January 2008, my wife and I took a vacation to Marina El Cid Hotel and Yacht Club, Mazatlan, Mexico. While there, we where approached by their sales staff to come to an informational meeting regarding our timeshare ownership. This meeting included a lunch, which was actually a timeshare presentation. We met with Monica Elizabeth Sotomayor Lopez. Since we where current timeshare owners, they inquired about our experiences. We stated that we were unhappy because we were not able to make reservations at El Cid Cancun Riviera Maya. At this time, she sated that if we were to upgrade to the platinum membership, we would be able to reserve anywhere and at any time. However, we stated that the price was too expensive.

Monica then turned us over to Vladimir Jimenez, who handed us his business card stating that he was their chief financial officer. Mr. Jimenez, told us since we were current owners we had certain perks, which he could give us. He stated that he could take our current El Cid contract valued at $12,801.00 and use that towards our upgrade. We told them that, it was still too high of a price. He inquired if we had any other timeshares, in which we replied yes. He asked about the location of our timeshares. We told him about our Belize timeshare. He clearly stated that it was worth a huge some of money, and if we were interested in selling it order to upgrade our El Cid timeshare. We inquired about it, at which he stated (El Cid) could sell our timeshare for profit. We inquired about that process, and he stated that they are able to sell timeshares because it's a tax write off for their company, and they do that sort of thing all the time. Mr. Jimenez stated he would sell the Belize timeshare, which they would use to offset the cost of the upgrade. Mr. Jimenez stated the process would take about 6 months, and to be patient. We agreed that if they were able to do this we would upgrade. Before we signed the contract, we again asked for clarification about this upgrade. Mr. Jimenez stated that it was contingent upon them selling the Belize timeshare, which meant that we would not have to pay anything, zero! He assured ALL COSTS would be covered by the sale of our timeshare. My wife and I repeated this to him and Mr. Jimenez stated, yes that is correct, if we can not sell your timeshare, just stop making payments on all accounts and the contract will be null and void, with no penalties. We would just get our old contract reinstated.

The total cost of our upgrade was our existing contract valued at $12,801.00, plus the loan from Bank of America that turned out to be a credit card for $9,327.50, plus the temporary payments for the balance of $17,322.50, and the closing costs of $450.00. The costs of the loan(Bank of America) and the $17,322.50 would be covered in full by the sale of our timeshare in Belize. Once again before we signed, we asked about the clarification regarding the sale of our Belize timeshare. Mr. Jimenez stated that it would negate all the costs of the upgrade, meaning we would not have to pay anything and our monies would be refunded. My wife replied that it was to good to be true, in which he replied why would I lie to you? You can sue me, and we don't want that.

Upon returning home, we were asked to mail our only contract back to them, and to fax our Belize timeshare to them, which we in did on February 18, 2008. In the meantime we started to receive bills from Bank Of America and El Cid Vacations Club. After several attempts to contact Mr. Jimenez, he finally returned our calls. He asked us to be patient and to make payments, that they were working on selling the timeshare. Again after a few months, we made contact with El Cid via email (please see attached emails). They now deny any of the events that took place and me and my wife are now in debt for $26,649.00 USC.

Eagchitown

Chicago, Illinois

U.S.A.