Complaint Review: Royal Holiday - Select State/Province

Royal Holiday is attempting to impart terms to their contracts to protect themselves when they are called out on a violation of their contract – the conditions of their response are nowhere to be found in any of the documents we signed. On December 27, 2013, I signed their contract, paid the down payment, and opened my account with Royal Holiday. According to the Sales Agreement that I signed, Royal Holiday agreed to send a monthly statement by the 8^th day of the month - those are the only terms in the contract. However, now that I have expressed concerns that I have no way to view the balance of the account with them, they are attempting to replace other restrictions on their terms that cannot be found anywhere in the contract or Operating Rules. The fact that my first payment on my account is not due until next month does not alter the fact that I have a contract with them that has been in force since December and that I still hold an account with them. I do not accept their excuses, and challenge them to provide a response based on either the Operating Rules or Sales Agreement, as these are the terms that govern the contract.

Further, the Sales Agreement states that I can view the balance of my account on their website without penalty – yet it is not available online. Why should I pay money to a company who cannot or will not provide any evidence of the balance that payment is going towards? As this is contained in the Sales Agreement, it represents another breach of contract by Royal Holiday. Under the same terms of the Sales Agreement, I have the right to cancel the contract for these breaches.

In further violation of their Operating Rules, Concord Servicing Company, who represents Royal Holiday in their assessment of Annual Fees, is attempting to collect an Annual Fee in the amount of $455. The Operating Rules state that a statement of the Annual Fee will be mailed at least 30 days prior to the due date, meaning their actions form a breach of contract, as the Sales Agreement includes the Operating Rules as part of the contract. Additionally, I have a written and signed agreement from Royal Holiday stating that they already have the $455 fee, as it was covered by the entity we joined with.

In addition to these breaches of contract on the part of Royal Holiday, the following Dominican Republic laws were broken in the sales process:

1)      The Dominican Republic Constitution of 2010, Article 53 guarantees the consumer’s right to timely and accurate information about a product they are purchasing. This is further reinforced by Law 358-05, Article 33. In trying to sell the Royal Holiday membership, sales representatives made several false claims (from reading these and other complaints it appears they train their representatives to tell whatever lies are necessary to ensure a sale). These include: insisting that Royal Holiday owns and operates the Royal Caribbean Cruise lines, though this appears to be false; that Royal Holiday owns a travel agent to make arrangements, while in reality they have third-party agreements and cannot guarantee the prices we were quoted during the sale; that points can be accelerated by any member at any time, which is actually only allowed for members over the age of 50; that there was no minimum stay (it is actually 3 nights); that we could use our points towards excursions, the All-Inclusive Plan, and transportation; that their agents would always be waiting at the airport to pick us up and drive us to the resort; and that their members always received lodging in the Platinum section of the applicable resorts (a myth that was debunked by another member we spoke with).  This information is in clear violation of our right to accurate information about their product, and much of it could not be verified by us until we activated our online account, at which point we could not cancel the contract, violating the timeliness factor.

2)      Law 358-05, Article 48 places the responsibility for accurate advertising on the seller. The false claims listed in point 1 above clearly violate the conditions for accurate advertising and were intended to lead us to believe that we were purchasing a product that worked differently and was more expansive than what the membership actually is. Article 88 of the same law continues this requirement with the conditions that advertising cannot induce misconception about a product or be misleading.

3)      Dominican Republic Law 358-05, Article 60 and its surrounding articles address the use of gifts in advertising (something Royal Holiday is apt to do). They restrict the use of these gifts if they are going to lead the consumer to an error about the quality or value of the product. The entire sales pitch and savings offered to us by Royal Holiday were calculated based on the terms of the Priveleged Member Certificate, which we later found out does not span the lifetime of the membership. This represents the direct use of a gift to increase the perceived value of a the product offered by Royal Holiday and is in direct violation of this law.

4)      Dominican Republic Law 358-05, Article 83 states that contracts cannot include blanks that are left after signing. However, there were several blanks in various sections of the Sales Agreement and accompanying documents that included and still include blanks.