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.
April 4th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
Hi all,
I received a call on my mobile (in the UK) from this number 08444 823333. I didn’t get to the phone quickly enough so missed the call, I think it was the fact that I had a dialtune on my phone that put them off as it only rang twice!
I had no idea who it was until I had a look on the internet to see who the number belonged to and as it turned out I had looked at a couple of their sites when looking for holiday inspiration earlier this year. It sounds to me like I had a lucky escape!
Having already been duped a couple of years ago in another scam in the UK I would warn everyone that if they are asked for money upfront, offered a holiday as a prize, but need to sign a contract there and then in order to qualify for it, or if you feel pressured into making a decision then it probably is a scam so run to the hills as fast as your feet will carry you and don’t look back!
April 4th, 2006 at 5:35 pm
hi, just been called by a lady, who promised free tickets for 4 persons all over the world for 8 or 9 days and only had to pay 1 ticket, now hotelcosts, because we could stay in a resort, well that looks nice to me. The reason was that we had saved points by our visacard. ( I did not knew that I could save some points ???) but then….
she finally had to know my visacardnumber and valid date which I did not give her telling My husband had the card,so she left me 2 telephonenumbers: 0800 811 9088 and 0800 023 4716. So curious as I am , looked for the number on the internet and found this page. I’m glad I’ve found it….so never give your cardnumber. Hopefully it helps more people.
April 4th, 2006 at 11:55 pm
I am based in Ireland. My wife fell for the bestusavacations scam recently, with 878euro charged to our credit card before we knew what was happening. What can we do? The credit company are not being very helpful. Has anyone actually been on one of their vacations? Is it a complete scam? What is the ‘catch’?
Mark
April 5th, 2006 at 6:30 pm
Hi,
We also fell hook line and sinker for the Royalty Holidays scam and like so many others we had a tough time recovering our payment from them. Luckily we did everything by the book in terms of cancelling within 30 days etc.
We found the hotels they offered to be run down, real holiday from Hell places according to many reviews I found on the net.
The way I got our refund was as follows:
I contacted the Carrollton police dept and asked how to go about recovering my money, they put me on the the State General Attorney’s Office in Texas and I lodged a complaint with them just to make them aware of the dodgy methods being used this lowlife company.
I then also located via the internet, the names of several attorneys based in Carrollton and I contacted them via their websites, giving them as much info as I was able.
I then waited for replies to see who could help. In the meantime, I also e-mailed Royalty Holidays and informed them that I was in the process of appointing a US based attorney and that I was awaiting feedback from several attorneys. I named them and hey presto, shortly afterwards I started to make headway on the telephone in recovering my money.
They credited our credit card but it cost us in telephone charges, we must have made 25 at least to the states.
Basically, take the Bulldog approach and don’t stop until you get a result.
I was seriously considering going over there to sort it out in person, being the stubborn mule that I am, I also told them that too!
Good luck those who are still battling with them, it is not a pleasant feeling knowing that some unscrupulous company is ripping you off.
Hope my posting helps.
Paul.
April 6th, 2006 at 4:57 am
i just purchased a bestusavacations for 349 after i did so i found this website i am scared for my investment i want answers and i want them now i have called my credit card and since i have the no hassle card they assured me if im not satisfied with what i receive i wouldnt pay ,all the notes are on my account before they even charged my account hopefully im satisfied or they wont get payed if it is a scam i am covered. the credit card company has even called them already but no answer they had been trying since 3pm but no answer ,,,no answering machine,,,,,and there flyer says open till 8pm
April 6th, 2006 at 7:16 am
A reader just pointed out to me that FloridaHolidayUSA.com - one of the domains owned by Al Jessan that was registered on July 16th last year - just became available.
Who knows… lets see what happens with the other domains.
April 6th, 2006 at 2:57 pm
Hi there
my thanks to Paul (05/04/06) for giving so much good information on how to get a refund, I will be trying the same method and will let you know our success. We have been dealing with A Resort Week since January, pestering them with phone calls to try and get our money back. They tried the whole “you only have 14 days to refuse” trick, which was different to the thirty days they offered in the first phone call, and a little difficult to enforce as they did not send the dvd package out to us until 14 days had already elapsed . . .
Will let you all know if we have any success, and to all those other victims of this scam out there, keep trying, even though it seems like a hopeless task. I think I’ll deserve a holiday after it all gets sorted out. . .
cheers
April 6th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
I sent a fairly pointed email to bestusavacations 2 days ago (see above), and to date no response. Could you trust them after that? As my wife says, we could not go there with two small children only to arrive and find the service unacceptable.
April 7th, 2006 at 11:56 am
i was phoned in september asking for 500 pounds for 2 people for 6 days five nights in florida and 3 days 2 nights cruisin the bahamas! now my money is paid i cant reach anyone to book my trip! i’m now getting my bank to investgate celebration world resorts.
April 7th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
Dear fellow victims,
I was rung up last night by Best USA Vacations.com. I was very sceptical and asked for a lot of details before I gave them any of my details. Unfortunately I too gave in. I once won a trip to Japan, but that was because I took part in a competition. After speaking to two men (a Michael Douglas anda Matt Downey) I was put through to a seperate verifier called ‘The fulfillment centre’. Suddenly the man I’m talking to tells me he is working on behalf of Resort Holidays.net!! Thats when the alarm bell went off in my head. He read back to me my credit card details and asked me to confirm. I hung up and rang my bank. They had got athourisation via Visa while I had been on the phone and charged med $970 (Euro: 898)without my permission. I closed my card immediately and called the police. This morning I went to the Police and submitted a report and all the details I had written down during the phone call. I have also been to my bank and they can see that the money has not left my account yet. I may still have been fast enough to beat these thieves, but it normally takes 24 hours to register Visa transactions made internationally. The bank cannot prevent this!!
Finding this site today has calmed me and given me hope, so thank you to you who has made this site. I have done exactly as the bank and police have instructed me to do. I have written an e-mail to this company to cancel all transactions and free holidays that they wanted to offer me. I have asked them to refund any amount of money they attempt to debit from me. I now have to refuse receiept of any material they may send me by mail.
The Danish Police is collecting all reports they get from people who have been conned. They will at some point try to get the American authorities to react. When that is, no one knows. What I can say is that they hit certain countries in waves. Apparently I was just one of thousands of people in Denmark who rang the police last night!
I will let you all know if I manage to keep my money and also if I have any other information that might be of use.
Good luck to all those who are now trying to get their money back.
Hans
Copenhagen, Denmark