tags: Scams
Ameri-scam.
May 23rd, 2005, by Rich.
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Two months ago I wrote a short article about a telemarketing call that I received from AmeriVacation. It has very quickly become one of the most viewed pages on this site, and also the most commented upon, by many people who are worried that they have been conned.
With just a little digging I’ve started to unearth some more information on AmeriVacation, and some “companies” that appear to be related.
It appears that AmeriVacation is only the latest front. They set up a website, to appear legitimate and then cold call people, anyone whose number they can get using an automated calling mechanism (which is very simple to do with a computer). They then sell a package that is not what it appears to be and then make it very difficult to obtain a refund.
Sadly the people that get scammed are often the most vulnerable people who can least afford to lose such a large amount of money.
Through my digging I discovered a little about the history of the scams, and a little about how they’re all related. What follows is a brief review of the links so that others may pick up the trail more easily.
The currently active websites (which can be linked through identical wording, identical phone numbers, IP addresses that resolve to the same physical machines, etc) are:
- www.amerivacation.com
- www.expertholidays.com
- www.yourvipholiday.com (bad press) (more)
- www.flbahamastravelhome.com
- www.mydiscountholiday.com (bad press)
- www.doublevacations.com
- www.affiliatedtravelnetwork.com
- www.brilliantholiday.com (bad popup press)
- www.destinationcenter.net
- www.myffc.com (bad press)
- www.mydiscountholiday.com
- www.floridaholidayusa.com - discovered July 2005
- www.holidayfloridausa.com - discovered July 2005
- www.sunrisetravels.us - discovered August 2005
- www.imperialvacation.com - discovered August 2005
- www.5starholidays.net - discovered August 2005
- www.floridatouristbureau.com - discovered August 2005
Now, anybody that sells a holiday from Florida, or sells a holiday to Florida must be registered. The last entry in the above list , “mydiscountholiday.com” claims a Florida Seller Of Travel License Number of ST35170. In fact, this next list of sites all claim to have that same license number.
- www.mydiscountholiday.com (bad press)
- www.usafamilygetaway.com (bad press)
- www.sandyvacationsllc.com (bad press)
- www.floridabureauoftourism.com
- http://www.destinationsforyou.com
- http://www.celebrationpromotions.com
Another useful thing for linking companies is the address, several of these companies have used “600 North Highway 1792, Suite 120, Longwood Fl 32750″ including:
- www.yourvipholiday.com
- www.usafamilygetaway.com addres link also mentioned here
That link is important because without it these appear to be two separate groups of companies, when in fact, it’s one big cloud.
The next link in the chain is the phone number, all the sites below are connected because they use the same UK freephone number 0800-917-7462. What’s especially nice is that three of them have also decided to share testimonials too!
- www.windsorvacations.com
- www.myvacationschoice.com
- www.vacations-paradise.com (bad press)
- www.sohovacations.com -bullshit testimonial (bad press)
- www.centuryvacations.com - bullshit testimonial
- www.firstclicktravel.net - bullshit testimonial
- www.usafamilygetaway.com
The other address in use is “7632 Southland Blvd, Orlando, FL 32809″ and this is used by:
- www.myffc.com
- www.mydiscountholiday.com
- www.brilliantholiday.com (bad press)
- www.destinationcenter.com
Currently www.destinationcenter.com looks like a bit of a sales force advertisement. However, by looking at the caches on google and web.archive.org, it’s apparent that it was also used as travel sales site (hence I got the address match above), selling these same packages - i.e. not just a coincidence, this was the same outfit.
So, who’s behind it? Well, according to this story, it all comes back to to a Altef Hemani (aka Alex Hemani), who has a history of such scams.
His name is as good as mud on the internet, so he’s tried to combat this by buying a few websites and and writing eulogies about himself.
Each of those sites, incidentally, is owned by the same company: Travel Express Investments 385 Center Point Cir, Altamont Springs, FL 32701.
What’s especially interesting is that the administrative contact for the domains is Arif Rajan who may be the same business man whos only newsworthy moment until now was that in 2002 he was was questioned and released without charge regarding money laundering for terrorist organisations.
Sources
Naturally the information I’ve been able to gather and present here is all freely available to the public. Please feel free to check, corroborate, dispute, disprove or otherwise extended it through your own investigation.
I have found the following resources most useful:
- http://whois.net/ which provides information about the owners of domain names.
- http://sunbiz.org/ which provides information from the Florida Department of State regarding companies, and the persons legally responsible for those companies.
- http://www.doacs.state.fl.us/ the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which regulates travel in Florida.
July 29th, 2005 at 3:25 pm
My English is not so best, so I will do it in Dutch.
Ik wil graag reageren op Michel!!!
Ik hoop dat je ook reageert op ons. Wij zijn dus ook benadeeld door floridaholidays. Er is bij ons ook al geld afgeschreven! Volgens Visa moeten we het ook eerst annuleren via contact met hen, maar onze hoop dat dat gaat lukken is erg klein. Hebben jullie nog tips of zo, dat we ons geld kunnen terug krijgen. Graag horen we wat van jullie of andere Nederlanders met deze klote organisatie te maken hebben gekregen. Je kan ons mailen op mali_bu@hotmail.com
July 30th, 2005 at 6:57 pm
i got a call from royalty holidays earlier today (30/07/05) saying i’d won a holiday in orlando, dayton and stlauderdale plus a 3 day cruise to the bahamas, and to press zero to get back to them. i stupidly gave them my credit card details, after viewing this site i rang up my credit card company and they’d already taken the deposit of £140 that they said wouldnt come out until i’d recieved the information and agreed to the holiday, i thought it was actually a scam to begin with were you end up paying £! a minute for the call but when the holiday wasn’t completely free and that id have to listen to a time share talk i actually thought they were genuine. £790 for 8 people, + flights and bahama tax of between £79 and £99 seemed like a good deal for 18 days. i’ve got to ring my credit card company back when i get my statement and they will purse it and ive cancelled that card to make sure they cant get anymore of my money
August 1st, 2005 at 7:07 am
I ask again, has ANYBODY so far received money back from Amerivacation when they try to cancel their ‘order’ ??
August 1st, 2005 at 12:49 pm
I just got a phone call from Sunkissed Travel, stupidly enough I gave her all the information they wanted, name, address, phone number, email, credit card number and all… but at the same time I was searching “Sunkissed travel” on Google and found out it is a scam, I hung up right on them! Then I called MasterCard and got my credit card blocked, I think it’s the simplest thing to do if you already given them all your details.
Plus, “winning” a vacation that would have cost me 898 € + the price of getting to Florida is not exactly what I would call “winning”…!
Thanks to who started the posts, you saved me from a lot of trouble!!!
August 1st, 2005 at 12:50 pm
Further to a comment that I made a couple of weeks ago I have had so much hassle from the fact that I gave celebration promotions my bank details. I later logged on to this website and realised I’d been conned. I withdrew all the money in my account before they could take the £48 deposit. They then took more money and I went overdrawn and got bank charges. I have now closed the account and have had to open another account which is downgraded because of credit problems I’ve had in the past and it’s all because of them. I have also reported it to the police now and they are following it up as fraud.
August 2nd, 2005 at 9:36 am
Thanks to this website I have managed to cancel a transaction from yesterday (01-08-05) wtha company called Amerisuit Vacation. Their websites were given as http://www.cwrflorida.com.
I was fortunate that the Mastercard transaction was ‘pending’ and could be cancelled by their fraud department. Naturally I cancellled/ the card.
I will now be joining ‘Mugsanonymous’
Dare I mention ”have a nice day”!
August 2nd, 2005 at 12:20 pm
Being Afrikaans speaking, I should be able to give you guys a fair translation of MANDY AND DENNIS’ message:
“I would also like to respond to Michel!!! I hope that you also respond to us. We were also detrimentally affected by floridaholidays. We have written off our money. According to Visa we have to cancel with the people we had contact with, but our hope that we will be lucky in this regard, is rather small. Have you have any more tips on how we may get our money back? We would love to hear from any of you from the Netherlands who also had dealings with this organisation. You can mail us on maili_bu@hotmail.com”
I’m sure an English speaking Dutchman would give a gramatically more correct translation but that’s basically what they are saying!
TO “I-GOT-TRICKED-AGAIN” : I certainly have not gotten my money back from Sunkissed Travel and doubt I will. It is now up to the authorities in Florida to decide whether I am to be refunded, or not. *sigh*
August 2nd, 2005 at 7:06 pm
Hello,
Im the CEO for Royalty Enterprises also doing business as DBA Royalty Service & Travel and the proud founders of the Tired Angels Network. We are a network of Travel, Entertainment and shopping services and cater primarily to our nations heroes categorized as law enforcement, firefighters medical and military.
It seems that these scamers have started using our name as well, calling themselves Royalty Cruises, I just received an e-mail from a consumer who fell for the same scam luckily she e-mailed me I than contacted our Law Enforcement contacts and verified this information. Please be aware of these scams, they are very common, if you have not entered any contest dont believe any claim that you have won something. By law any contest involving travel can never be promoted via telemarketing it has to be done via regular mail and it must contain all disclosures, meaning all the partners, suppliers that are sponsoring the contest with their individual contact information and individual liability. It must contain valid toll free numbers where people can call to verify the information, it must contain a legal contract (allowing 72 hours minimum to cancel) it must contain how you were entered into the contest and the selection process.
If you receive any offers in the mail just verify all the information provided, only then can you assume that the promotion/contest is legit. Never enter any contest/sweeps or promotion from pop ups etc, never give out any financial information even when they call you with this script (You have won a 3 day cruise to the Bahamas and a 3 nigght stay in Orlando Florida, we have all your information on file and just need to confirm your credit card information to secure the reservation you wont be charged, please verify your full credit card ending in - they usually have your last 4 digits of your credit card - obtained from the internet).
Please be careful and stay safe for additional information on Travel Scams just e-mail us using our secure contact forms on any of our sites. It’s a shame but it happens so just remember the Golden Rule if it sounds too good to be true it is!!!!
August 3rd, 2005 at 8:12 am
A big thanks to MandyCEO for her valuable posting. I hope we’ll all be a bit more street smart next time. I certainly will!
PAUL GUTZKE from Sunkissed Travel is yet to respond to my e-mail. I am doubtful that any Sunkissed employee will go to the effort of responding to very legitimate questions/concerns that I and other disgruntled “winners” have raised with them. Tragic.
Stick to ASTA affiliated tour operators, Joe Public!
August 3rd, 2005 at 5:21 pm
Hi again,
Just received my “holiday package” via DHL. Although the “booking” was made via HolidayFloridaUsa, I received the package from Sunshine Travel Escapes. All address details can be found on their website: http://www.sunshinetravelescapes.com
The package is not really something special, only a letter (I can type out if somebody is interested), a lot of flyers and 4 coupons, I guess these are what we initially won.
Still haven’t got our money back but Mastercard informed us that there was a reasonable chance that we indeed would get our money back, as long as we saved all the evidence that we immediately wanted to cancel our trip (well, how many copies of emails do they want?? I have already a couple of hundreds). Also sent a registered letter which did not come back yet. The package is about to be returned to sender as well, after I made some copies first.
But I have also some really good news: I have written an email to a dutch television show immediately after I was scammed. They contacted us this afternoon informing us they will dedicate an item in one of their upcoming shows. More details will follow shortly. Hopefully this will prevent more people from being scammed.
By the way, Mandy and Dennis (from the message somewhere above), ik ben bezig met een mail naar jullie.