Ameri-lawsuit

July 26th, 2005, by Rich.

A big thanks to both Bobby and Peter D for pointing this story by Orlando Sentinel staff writer Richard Burnett. It looks like holiday scam outfit AmeriVacation will have their day in court! Congratulations to everyone who complained - hopefully this will help expedite your refunds.

From the article:

Florida officials have accused a Longwood-based vacation marketing company and its associates of deceptive trade practices and other consumer-law violations that could trigger millions of dollars in fines.

Regulators found the organizers of Discount Holidays (aka AmeriVacation, YourVipHolidays, etc) violated almost two dozen consumer laws, officials said. They could be fined $10,000 for each violation and for each alleged incident of deceptive sales activity.

A lawyer for Discount Holidays disputed the state’s allegations, saying regulators have distorted the problems.

Read the rest of the article here and it’s cached here.

Intrestingly the article also states that:

Discount Holidays has ceased telemarking operations, but is processing complaints and refunds, Short said. The state in March refused to renew its seller-of-travel business license, pending the outcome of the litigation.

however, comments [1] [2] on this website suggest that “Florida Holiday USA” are still making calls to Europe.

The FloridaHolidayUSA website is (of course) registered to:

Administrative Contact:
      Jessani, Alamin
      amerivacaton
      7818 Fernleaf Dr.
      Orlando, Florida 32836
      United States
      (407) 363-0561

So it may not be over yet…

James Ford Says:
August 22nd, 2005 at 9:47 pm

Just found your site can anybody confirm yourvipholidays is a scam as we are due to arrive in Florida on Sunday!

Having booked all our accommodation/cruise through this Co. after a telphone call last year and still they are taking money from my credit card for additional items.

We are based in the UK.

Joanne S. Says:
September 9th, 2005 at 7:58 pm

So is SunkissedTravel another name for these forever morphing scam companies? I am from Europe and my son has clicked on a link that took him to “Congratulations! You’ve just won a wonderful vacation!” and he keeps asking me to follow through. I told him that what looks like too good to be real probably isn’t. Are these people even giving what they promise? I mean, I’m reading about people who want their money back, but what if you want the vacation? Can you actually get it?

Rich Says:
September 10th, 2005 at 11:45 am

Hi Joanne - the holiday you could purchase for your son is certainly real, and you can “get it”. Travel-Vouchers are an important part of the Florida tourist industry.

You may notice for example that the above news article quotes DOACS spokesman Terry McElroy who comments that the travel-voucher businesses accounts for less than 10 percent of travel-sales firms (so we can assume it’s more then 5%).

The voucher business is (sadly) plagued by companies who sail very close to what normal consumers would consider dishonest trading. and McElroy adds that such firms cause (by far) the majority of complaints that the DOACS receives.

The bottom line is that the economy of scale offered by the bulk purchases that these companies can make -should- provide the potential for a very good deal for the consumer.

You ask specifically about SunkissedTravel and whether they are a “morphing” company; I don’t think so. I’ve seen nothing that conclusively links SunkissedTravel with any of the other companies mentioned, although there is a spooky similarity on the guarantee page of Sunkissed and the guarantee page of several other travel voucher companies (for example) FloridaTouristBureau.com - naturally one could expect some similarity because they’re talking about similar things; but these sentences are identically worded. You are probably also aware that SunKissed have been mentioned on many “consumer” websites, where authors have described aggressive sales tactics and verbal bullying when customers have attempted to cancel a booking within the 30 day cooling-off period.

So basically if you ask enough of the right questions (and don’t just let a telesales-person transmit a script at you) then you should be able to decide whether it is an appropriate deal for your son.

Bent Says:
October 5th, 2005 at 11:57 am

I’v just got off from a phonecall with sunkissedtravel.com (then calling in from Norway) - after getting this “Congratulations!! You’r visitor number 1 million” message.

The offer of 1804 Euro dicount is probably real, but after talking to 4 people, each trying to convice me to transfer the 704 Euro up front I stopped the discussion. I said something like: “The package is great, and your information so far have really convinced me that I will considder travelling to Florida - I will very likely considder your company as well”. When he reallized that I was strict on not paying the 704 Euro up-front, he was open to offering me a similar offer at a later time for around 1000 Euro - which is fair enough.

In any case; Don’t give in on a offer like this even though it sounds great - and probably will be. Take the information as is, then call them back if you really want to go there. They will probably give the same offer if you call them at a later time.. If not, they are bad salesmen.

Joe Ahn Says:
November 22nd, 2005 at 10:30 pm

Thank you for the website. If you have a dispute with the vacation that you purchased, you can contact the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs (DOACS) and file a claim to received a refund.

Rich Says:
November 22nd, 2005 at 11:02 pm

Thanks Joe, corroboration is always useful and the DOACS features in this how-to-cancel document.

Bob Says:
December 11th, 2005 at 9:39 am

Well done on providing some very useful information regarding this timeshare scam. I live in Australia and today received an automated call from “Celebration World Resort” informing me that I had been randomly selected (that much I believe) to win their free Florida/Bahamas vacation. After pressing 9 as prompted I was connected to a human operator (loosely speaking) who asked for my phone number for some nebulous verification procedure. I supplied a false number with too few digits but the rep was happy to press on regardless. When I was able to interrupt his rambling script regurgitation I said it sounded like a scam and asked for some kind of proof of legitimacy. He sympathised and agreed that consumers must be wary of scams and as such he would provide me with a website and 800 number to refer to. The website was http://www.urprize.com/celebration and when I asked for the 800 number he said that he would give it out when he was finished going through his script. Around this point I think he decided I was a lost cause and hung up on me, but I was not actually disconnected. Instead there was a period of silence and then somehow I was able to listen to another rep making a call, apparently without them being able to hear me (I tested this by making several provoking comments which likely would not have been ignored). I listened to two or three calls in succession out of curiosity. Luckily they didn’t manage to sucker anybody while I was listening, but their tactics were quite shameful. After researching the perpetrators of this scam, I’m amazed that they’re still able to operate.

janice cody Says:
January 23rd, 2006 at 12:55 pm

My disabled Father, 79 years old and recently widowed, was cold called a year back informing him that he had won a promotional holiday to Florida. A lengthy conversation of about an hour followed in which he was ’sweet talked’. He was then asked how he made his payments. Various questions then followed about his card including the color, and then the no. was eked out of him. At no time was the word ‘payment’ or ‘charge’ used. 2 months later a ‘confirmation of purchase’ came through the post, asking for a signature to authorise a payment of USD1098. My father lives in the UK and then realized that GBP599.26 had immediately been deducted from his account.
Shame on them !!

Jeena Dawlish Says:
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:20 pm

I work for ASTAR vacations in Toronto, ON, CANADA, and we call up people all day in the USA and Canada and tell them how the lucky draw for a vacation entry that they have filled out has been selected, then proceed to hard-sell them on our Florida/Bahamas vacation certificate scam. I’ve only been here a week, but am planning to leave tomorrow, my conscious can not deal with scamming people this way. People get so excited that they’ve been selected, and then we scam them into paying $798 USD for the vacation coupons, then another $398 usd for the “cruise” port “tax” / processing fee. Then they have to pay approx $30 usd per night for tax on their hotel rooms, and a huge list of other charges, so this “free” vacation will end up costing them more money then if they had arranged it themselves. This is in addition to the hard-sell timeshare sales pitch they will have to endure once they get to Florida on their own dime. I guess they figure if you were sucker enough to buy the vacation coupon scam in the first place, it won’t be too hard to scam you further once you’re down there. STAY AWAY people, and don’t fill out any “free vacation” contest drawings at tradeshows, as you will only be instantly marketed to, convinced you’re so lucky…when in fact they CALL EVERY SINGLE PERSON that is stupid enough to fill out one of their “contest entries” in the first place. By the way, for helping to perpetrate this scam, I am getting minimum wage.