Complaint Review: International-luxury events - Hollywood California

HUGE SCAM! Thank God for Google or we may have fallen for it. We received an unsolicited call from "Gregory White" saying they had a buyer for our timeshare with Unlimited Vacation Club. All we had to do was sign and send back a form that we were interested in the sale of it. Before we could even sign it, they sent a proposal over for $21,849 which was almost double what we paid. I questioned the offer since it seem to good to be true, and they explained that compaines buy them at the highest rate and send clients there and write it off. Ok....

        Then a day later I got a call that they had secured a buyer and the money was already in an escrow account! Wow, that was fast! Well, we were then informed that because the company purchasing our timeshare was based in Mexico (Banamex), the Mexican government requires you to pay the tax before they will release the money to you, and they wanted $3,500. I became enraged that I was not informed of this beforehand, and they said they are just following the laws and polices "by the book". I was then offered other payment options if I didn't own other properties in Mexico to use as collateral.

1. We could go to Mexico this Monday for the closing and bring the money to pay the tax and get our money immeditatley.

2. Hire an international attorney to represent us in Mexico.

3. Or do a 4 month (max) payment plan and recieve the money after the 4 months.

         When I said that I didn't want to go through with this because something just didn't seem right, he told me I was going to have to pay a 12% cancellation fee! If I didn't pay the fee, a collection agency would just come and get it. 

         I was provided with all kinds of "legal documents" making everything look legit. He told me to have my lawyer look over them if it would make me more comfortable. Because I kept questioning everything, he said he only had to do this one time before, but he would ask the President of the company, "Brian Wright" to send me a notarized letter stating that he would personally pay me the money out of his pocket if anything went wrong. I was also offered to speak to former "satisfied" clients.

         Here are some of the things that didn't make sense.... They called a few weeks back and my husband felt this was a scam right off the bat, read him the riot act, and then they contacted just recently like nothing had happened! In conversation, I asked him where he was from and he almost got offened and said "born and raised in California", but every person I spoke with had a slight accent that sounded exactly like an old co-worker from Mexico City. The company only emails you from one email ([email protected]) and has only two phone numbers (323) 786-6668 and (323) 786-1958, which a big "international company" should have several of each. "Greg White" said he attended college with the Pres. "Brian Wright" but looking at the website, they clearly aren't even close in age. When my husband spoke to them again tdoay, they put the Vice President, "Eric Morgan", on almost immediately (couldn't believe he was readily available!) They just put my husband on hold and the VP picked up seconds later. When you google them, you actually have to search for their website, and thats all that comes up unless you add "scam" into the search!

    Im hoping after the conversation my husband had with them today, we won't be hearing from them again...but you never know. They try and get you by hoping you know nothing about International Business...which most of us do not. PLEASE DON'T FALL FOR IT!!