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.
September 29th, 2005 at 7:47 am
It seems that I have been ripped by the same kind of people.
when i started google a popup appeared,saying that i won a nice price and to contact them direct. What I did, stuppid enough.
The name of the compagny starr-getaway.com.
I am from Holland can anywone tell how to get my money back
thank you for helping me
emanuel mol
September 29th, 2005 at 8:09 am
Hi Emanuel, there is a fairly detailed action plan that you can follow; hopefully that is enough to get you started.
September 29th, 2005 at 8:54 am
Hey John W, us lame people work damn hard and it peeves us off when people like you try and screw us. There is a big list of companies on the first page of this site, i am pretty sure one of them will give you a job, you probably know most of the people concerned with them anyway.
September 29th, 2005 at 9:37 am
To a girl from Germany,
What is our own fault? Is it that we let us being fooled by swindlers? I wonder if you would have the same opinion if you hadn’t got your money back?
To John W (former Travel Agent),
I’m sorry you lost your job but I don’t think you can blame all dissatisfied customers. If Sunkissed Travel had acted like a legitimate company in the first place they had probably not ended up on this website and you would still be working as a Travel Agent.
September 29th, 2005 at 12:15 pm
It sounds as though John W was rather attempting to take on an investigative role with a travel company than as that of a permanent employee. In stating as much, I got the impression that John W was on the consumers’ side and was hoping to uncover something interesting…
Alas. It turns out that this was not the case. Why pose as a martyr on this site and then bust our balls because you lost your job, John?
I doubt that Sunkissed Travel would be happy to know that you intended accepting a job with them, only to see if you could uncover some juicy irregularities in their business practices.
I too have been rentreched, so I know the feeling. Maybe you should start by only accepting positions with ASTA members. Just a thought… use it, don’t use it.
September 29th, 2005 at 2:11 pm
I got a popup from probably ww.carols.org.uk, it told me i had won a free cruise with Florida Sunny Holiday. When I clicked on the link it led me to a page that said “Calculating your winnings” and came to a total of £1101.00. I called and spoke to a gentleman Dan Morris a very nicely spoken man, but he seemed to keep answering questions that I hadn’t asked him!
He told me that becuse of high volumes they could only process my claim number one time, so I had to decide before the end of the phone call, but in the meantime he would tell me all about it. He did, at length. After 10 minutes I felt a little uneasy about the deal (because I hadn’t really won anything) so I asked if they were ABTA bonded (or maybe something similar). Dan didn’t know so I spoke next to Bill Stevens.
Bill began by congratulating me again, thre were lots of congratulations on the call.
Bill told me there is a thing called the Florida Sellers of Travel Bureau that his company (Celebration World Resort) belong to.
Bill then started to “process” my details. He asked for my Credit card, but (no!) I’d left my wallet in the car. Bill was kind enough to put me back through to Dan, who WAITED on the line for TEN MINUTES while I fetched my wallet!
While I was away I thought about the travel license thing and when I returned I asked Bill for their membership number and he said he didn’t know it. I was uneasy about that, so pushed a little more. He said “somebody in legal will probably know it”. So I asked to speak to them. Bill said he’d put me through to legal once he had a few of my particulars, including my American Express number.
I told him I wasn’t parting with my number until I was sure that his company was registered and licensed with this bureau he’d just told me about, but Bill refused and said I should look at the website of the company “cos they’re not going anywhere” and that the “Florida Sellers of Travel doesn’t protect you, it’s your credit card that protects you”.
Bill asked me “to give him 5% of my trust now”. That 5%, surprise surprise, is the 5% that protects my credit card number, so I repeated my request to speak with someone who might know about their license number.
Bill said nobody was available! He’d just put a transatlantic call on hold for 10 minutes, but refused to find out a license number for me. I told him that unless he could prove his company was licensed, I would not be taking my “prize”.
Bill politely ended the call.
My web browser saved the web addresses and they are:
http://media.fastclick.net/w/pc.cgi?mid=45368&sid=14326 and
http://216.130.184.136/adv106/Winner.htm and
http://www.urprize.com/FCV/Insurance.htm
I don’t feel so bad now for telling him there is a spelling mistake in the headline of that last page! Does anybody know if this company has a license?
September 29th, 2005 at 2:29 pm
i am a scared and worried young girl,some time back i came across this website”travasaurus.com” i was led to believe that i had won a cruise for two. the problem is that i give them my personal information: my real name,phone nr,country and email adress. i even called their number.
is it possible for them to use my my personal info in an iligal way? and will they do so?
my parents are going to kill me!!
September 29th, 2005 at 7:19 pm
To Dan,
I am talking about those people that cancel their package before they even get it, they See a pop-up ad, buy the package, and then cancel without even getting the package yet. People are being led to believe that the company is a scam by what people are posting on here, so they cancel right away. Sunkissed travel is a legitimate company. I experienced the cancellations due to this site. I sold many a holiday to find out later that they had cancelled. I called them back to find out why, and the main reason was that they saw negative info on this site.
JohnW
September 29th, 2005 at 7:36 pm
Just been called up this evening by some American/Canadian sounding woman who said she was calling from a company who call themselves “Holiday Rewards”, the first thing I asked was if I was being charged for the call as that is another scam, especially with SMS text calls. She told me that they were paying for the call, that I had also won a holiday and was really excited for me, I was struggling to find the equal amount of excitement as I was sure that this was a scam, after all, you never get something for nothing. I gave her my name and number, she gave me her name as “Millie” before the line went dead… She must have realised by this time that I wasn’t up for falling for the scam. I’m glad she didn’t realise I was a Brummie as she might have kept me on the line all night :o)
September 29th, 2005 at 7:47 pm
I had a phone call about 15 minutes ago tonight (29.09.05) from holiday rewards, Margaret telling me I’ve won a holiday. Yes, and you’ve woken my baby up! I am so mad as my 8 month old son is full of cold (as am I) and the phone woke him. Obviously if it had been a friends/family call fair enough, but to have the hassle of soothing him back to sleep with a stuffy nose & a cough because of these scamsters is extremely annoying. If I had an address for them they’d be getting a very strongly worded letter from me!