Complaint Review: Travel Advantage Network Inc. - InternetMillersville Maryland

First off you receive a phone call telling you that you have been GIVEN a FREE cruise BUT you have to come to a short seminar and listen to their pitch before you can get your free voucher for a cruise.  They make it clear that you have not won anything.  That they are GIVING you a cruise as an incentive to come to their representatives office which was called Sundance Vacations.

Then they tell you to bring anything with your name and an account number on it i.e. check book, credit /debit cards, drivers license etc..  And if the last 4 digits on your cards match the 4 numbers on the table you win $1000 instantly with no catch...

The catch is that after you sit through an hour of promising wonderful vacation destinations at a locked in cost as long as you buy you vacation weeks in bulk.  They assign you a real fast talking personal salesman that sits you down and gives you the 4 numbers to see if they are a match and if you've won your $1000 which you never will.  those numbers are based on location and date of birth and so on. So they can guarantee themselves that knowing the formula for how the numbers are assigned to cards and checkbooks  they will know which numbers you will not have on your cards.

The idea for you to bring all your credit cards and checkbooks is so that when they give you "the offer of a lifetime" which requires a very large down payment you have access to every line o fcredit and cash available so you can afford the  large down payment .

They start as high as 30 weeks for somewhere around $25,000 with 5,000 down and then 80 month payment plan with an obscene interest rate.  After most people realize that that is something they cant afford ( if you could afford that much why would you be looking for a free cruise).

So if you are not wealthy enough to purchase that plan that they claim is the only option you have they begin to lower the amount of weeks, down payments and interest rates to something they think you will go for.  If you say no again they say they give up and you are losing out and they will go get you your free cruise voucher.

Instead your salesman will return not with your voucher but with his higher up that will sit down click his pen and pretend to give you his employee discount with no interest and start writing down all kinds of numbers to try to confuse you into thinking that you are getting more for less.

Now as you look around the room since now everyone in the seminar is now separated with their own salesman .  You begin to see some people already signing their life away to this company.  If you are like me you are curious as to which deal these people are signing up to. 

I must have declined literally 10 or more modifications to their agreement before they finally gave up and saw me as someone that they could not sign so they treated me like I was stupid for passing up this opportunity that by the way if I didn't sign today this offer could never be available to me.

So just when I thought I was going to get out with all my money and a free cruise.  They sit you in a waiting room where you are waiting for someone to give you this cruise voucher that they are GIVING you .  you did not win anything they make clear.

So a very nice older woman takes me into her office and is apparently going to give me my cruise voucher finally. Right ?  No.  She now wants to offer me a special corporate only program that she was offering especially to me. I now see the high pressure sales have not stopped.

She must have given me another 5 reductions to the plan until I finally gave in because from where the first salesman started I thought I was getting a deal.  So I agreed to a $1600 deal with $400 down and $100 a month for 12 months.  And she explains that there is a $99 annual fee to have access to the excess inventory page which is where you can take their extra inventory and use their services without using any of your travel weeks.

This lady told me that if I didn't pay the annual $99 I would not have access to the excess inventory.  That was it.   Now I get my renewal for the $99 and come to find out that if I don't pay the $99 a year my already paid for travel weeks will be voided permanently.  

The $99 is an annual program service fee.  so if you purchase the 30 weeks they said was your only option at first you must pay $99 a year until you use your 30 vacations.

They do not let you cancel there is a non rescission clause in the contract so once you sign they have your money and you are bound or you lose everything you have put into it . 

Even if you make the first 12 payments and then realize you are forced to pay this annual fee if you don't want to be a part of the program all your money is gone.  I am talking thousands in some cases.

I have yet to use any of my weeks and will be cutting my losses.

And if you look at the property they to travel to are all very old out dated condos with very poor amenities from the reviews i have read.

Bottom line this is a high pressure sales gimmick that only benefits the company.  you can find the same property at the same prices if you look for vacations on Craigslist.  All your airfare is purchased separately so by the time you book airfare and all expenses paid you save no money at all.  this company is as misleading as they come. 

As for the FREE cruise it is another scam that asks for 175 to cover the taxes for the cruise and the dates you choose will never be available and they will just delay their responses and make it as difficult as they can so you eventually ask for your deposit back and you get no cruise but you already gave Travel Advantage Network your down payment and any other monthly payments with interest.

I wish I had a hidden camera with me when I went in to this seminar because I believe it would make headline news about how they mislead you and belittle you into thinking that if you don't sign you lose.  When in turn if you sign you definitely lose. There is no gain from any of this except a life lesson.

All these companies do is promise dreams and put people that are already not wealthy into more debt by convincing them that this is the way to save if you want to travel.  If you have the money to travel you don't need this.  If you don't have the money to travel this will only add to your bills and expenses and limit your ability to travel the way you would like.