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.
June 14th, 2005 at 1:55 pm
I live in Norway, and I was tricked by these guys a couple of days ago, they charged (reserved) about $1000 immediately to my card. Feel very stupid now, as I don’t usually think of myself as naive.. I suspect they have been targeting Norway as we are not so used to agressive telemarketing scams. I have not yet received anything like a confirmation (email or post), not sure where to send my ‘cancellation’.. has anybody actually succeeded getting their money back this way, or is it just a nice theory??
June 14th, 2005 at 2:42 pm
I just received a ‘press 9 to get your holiday’ call. So I did. I wound the sales guy up a bit, and he hung up on me. Now comes the interesting bit… Instead of hanging up I held on the line. I found that I was still connected to their system, and could listen in as it dialled other people!! Has anybody else managed to make this happen??
June 16th, 2005 at 3:23 pm
They tried to scam me too. At first, I tried sounding very interested, and asked if they could call me back up…Recorded our conversation.
You can download it here
ftp://213.167.119.250/Upload/Amerivecation.mp3
June 16th, 2005 at 7:43 pm
Their email address is customersupport@amerivacation.com . They probably won’t reply your request to cancel the whole deal but it is important that you send them an email and keep a copy of it in order to have proof that you did want to cancel the trip right away. Also write a cancellation letter and send it to:
AmeriVacation
7800 Southland Blvd. Suite #120
Orlando, Florida 32809
It is important that you keep a copy of that cancellation letter too. That copy should be send to your credit card company. It is very important that you send a cancellation email right away since your credit card is only reserved, not yet charged. For more information on ‘how to cancel’ do visit
http://boakes.org/amerivacation-cancel on this very useful website.
Peter
June 17th, 2005 at 6:36 pm
Hi,
I live in the UK. Was called by a company calling themselves “Corporate Reward Center” - actually they are Amerivacations. I had to press “9″ but of course did not do so. Have been called twice today alone. I have sent them a complaint email and also complained to OFCOM and the TPS (who don’t seem to do all that much about complaints).
June 21st, 2005 at 7:05 pm
21st June - Received a message on my answerphone from so-called Corporate Reward Centre leaving a free-fone number (at least I hope it was free-fone) to call back and claim reward. I called back and was immediately greeted by a very excited sales person apparently from AmeriVacation, congratulating me on my win and telling me I was the biggest winner of the day. He then proceeded to go through all the details of the holiday - which I must say sounded great. As I had recently just returned home from Florida, I really did think I had somehow won something. Then came the crunch - “now if you will just give me your credit card details, I’ll just process your vacation - the amount payable is 698 pounds”! HOLD ON, HOLD ON - I refused to part with my details and asked if I could have an address, telephone number etc. in order that I could call them back to verify that they were genuine. I was then transferred to someone else who waffled on at quite a rate and then insisted on me giving him my cc details. Again, I refused until I could verify. I was told that if I hung up and called back I would be entitled to nothing. I didn’t give in and the now becoming quite irate salesperson, hung up on me! BE WARNED - THIS SEEMS TO BE A TOTAL SCAM!
June 21st, 2005 at 8:40 pm
Thank God your site came up when we typed in the address amerivacations.com on the ntl web search!! We had a 20 minute phone call with a co-ordinator named Charles and were just aboiut to coughup the £699 when my wife said she would rather check things out and not base the whole thing on a phone call. The thing is, they sound so convincing and the offer for us sounded like a dream of a lifetime, something we’d talked about, but never had the cash to achieve. Never mind, and thanks for making people aware of this scam. Luckily we just put the phone down and checked out the details here. Thanks again and keep up the good work!
June 22nd, 2005 at 2:20 pm
I have also just recieved a notice when switching on my pc informing me that i have “won” a holiday to Florida and a cruise [with Expert Holidays]. I telephoned the number and listened to an american man called Bob telling me all about it. He then proceeded to inform me that as the value of my “prize” was only worth £1100 and the total cost of the holiday came to £1700 i would need to pay the difference by credit or debit card. I asked when that would need to be paid by and was told at least half had to be paid today! I told him I was reluctant to do this without written confirmation as I didn’t feel happy about giving my card details away on such a whim. Bob advised me that they are a reputable company and suggested that I look at the website and then call him back later with my deposit. It was only when I tried to log on to their website that I found all the info from others who have found themselves in my position and have actually lost money. This confirmed my suspicions that the whole thing is a total scam and I strongly advise anyone who “wins” one of these supposed holidays to think very carefully before giving card details away. How can it be classed as a free holiday when they expect you to pay a good few hundred pounds towards it! Keep hold of your money and use it to book a legitimate holiday.
June 22nd, 2005 at 3:33 pm
i’m from Switzerland….guess now they reached this corner of Europe too……
well the same happend to me a few minutes ago….but…they were gettin’ confused somehow…..they told me that i won this Orlando trip…asked for my
Adress details…..later on the guy called Bob transfered me over to some kind of Office Manager to get the Details cleared……
Unfortunately……the Office mananger was drunken or something….cause the only thing that i heard was a strong breathin’ of a probably overweighted man….who couldn’t talk…….upon my question whether this call is really
free of charge he answered with a grummy voice like Joe Cocker in
his wildest years….yaaah for u but not for meeee…….followed by
strong breathin’ for another 20 Seconds…..so i hang up
June 22nd, 2005 at 5:56 pm
I live in Wales,UK and was contacted by these bandits with a message left on my answer-phone. As I am on the Telephone Preference Service I too was intrigued and decided to phone to get the name fo the company. After the third attempt having had the phone put down on me twice (once because I wouldn’t give my credit card number and 2nd because I had an attitude - at least my name’s not Todd!!) the rep gave me the name of the company Ameri Vacation. Having looked at this site it all appears clear. But I will still follow up with TPS.