tags: Scams
Florida Vacations - How to cancel.
June 16th, 2005, by Rich.
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Several people have emailed me, or left messages asking for help in getting a refund from Florida based holiday companies (such as AmeriVacation, YourVIPTravel, etc), either because they have bought in haste, or feel they have been misguided by the sales person. In this article I hope to condense all the comments from other stories into a simple action plan.
Your Rights
According to Florida State Law “You have a right to cancel your purchase and receive a refund within 30 days of the date of purchase” after which, “the seller has 30 days from the time of receipt of your notice of cancellation to send you a full refund”. [source] [corroborating source]
The law exists to regulate Sellers of Travel to and from Florida, as well as Sellers of Travel whose place of business is in Florida - it helps to maintain the reputation of Florida as a welcoming vacation destination and protects the citizens of any country by forcing licensed sellers of travel to follow strict rules, including the ones about refunds; so the suggestions listed here are valid from any country.
Action 1 - Call
- Call the number you originally dialled.
- Politely and clearly state that you are calling because you wish to cancel a contract.
- Ask them to confirm the company name and address to which you should send a cancellation letter.
- If the person on the other end bluffs or prevaricates, remind them that Florida State Statute 559.933 is quite clear on your right to a full and prompt refund.
- If they verbally agree to send you a full refund, accept this happily, but you should not stop yet because if they were to forget to send it, or lose the note to say that you’d called, or had a computer crash, (etc. etc.) then you’d have no evidence that you called within the 30 day cancellation period.
Action 2 - Write
- Write a letter of cancellation.
- This is a generic letter template.
- This is an AmeriVacation template.
- Send the letter by an international recorded delivery service.
- From the UK you could use International Signed For.
- Sometimes the companies will state that “you have to return the package”, this is usually just an obstruction tactic, but if they insist, take photographs (and scan or photocopy) everything that you return (example).
Action 3 - Complain always
If you you’re unhappy about the experience and wish to air your grievance, then please do. Lodging a formal complaint will quickly raise the profile of your scammer so the DOACS can monitor them better:
- Complain to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (who regulate the selling of travel in Florida) using this form.
- Inform your “local” national press so that others do not go through the same experience.
- In the UK there is the BBC’s Watchdog Programme
- In the Netherlands, there is Opgelicht.
Action 4 - Write to your credit card company
- Write to your credit card company and tell them that you are seeking a refund from the vendor.
- Explain why you feel the company misrepresented itself.
- Include a copy of the letter you sent to the vendor.
- Use local legislation if necessary:
- If you’re in the UK and the vendor refuses (or is unable) to provide a refund, then the Consumer Credit Act 1974 section 75 is your fallback. It makes the credit card company equally responsible for any misrepresentation (which in the case of AmeriVacation there has been), so should attempt to claim the refund from your credit card company.
Action 5 - Help Others
If you succeed in getting a refund, using this or an alternative method, let others know by describing your success below, I’ll modify the above steps as appropriate.
June 24th, 2006 at 1:12 am
Hi everyone. This is my final post as I did get my refund of ~$872 CND from the ~$906 CND they charged me. The loss was due to currency conversion of $798 USD from my credit card company. It was a ride to hell in a hand-basket but I had faith that if I did everything dilgently, it’d be OK and things worked out. I hope other people have found my comments about the entire experience useful.
Richard, I’m donating to your cause and buying that cuppa tea (I’m an engineer too and I only drink tea but I can have a cup of coffee here and there.) If it wasn’t for your website, I would have been lost since I couldn’t find anything else on the internet that was so clear as your site as what I could do to obtain a refund.
June 25th, 2006 at 7:14 am
Hi from Calgary, Canada. My wife purchased a 8 day 7 night Florida Bahamas dream vacation package @70% (accommodations + theme park tickets and a bonus vacation of 4 days 3 nights in Las Vegas) after receiving a fax to her bank (CIBC) with a header stating “To: All Employees. From: The Corporate Travel Center, etc…” She paid $798 US throught credit card. I am wondering if anyone has heard/experienced with The Corporate Travel Center. Since it sounds too good to be true, I suspect it is a travel scam. Thanks.
June 26th, 2006 at 3:21 am
Okay, so I just purchased a package over the phone from Sunstar travel and tours for 500.00. It’s the Orlando/Beach/Cruise one with a stay in Cancun and Vegas too. I am sooooo kick’n myself over this one!! I usually never buy spontaneously like this. It wasn’t until I got home that i did some research and red flags started going up. I called sunstar and requested a refund, and they said as they stated it’s NON-REFUNDABLE…she recorded the last part of the sale (the part where they cover their butts, all the while misleading me) I only found out after the fact from the manager at Sunstar (if there’s such a place) that a huge part of the hotel stays/tickets/perks etc are only if I go on tours with salesmen trying to sell me a time share. JUST GREAT. And the 3 days at The Beach…it’s not even on the beach, it’s 20min’s FROM one!!! Then the wonderful cruise my husband and I get to go on…well they failed to mention it’s on an inside cabin with 2 bunkbeds!!! LOVELY..let the romance fly..NOT. Oh and they had disclosed that we would have to pay 175.00 in port fee’s for the boat, yet when i called (of course after the fact) the cruise line to pretend i wanted to book for 2 days..it was the same cost..port fee’s and all. Also “all inclusive” cruise doesn’t include booze??? OH GOD HELP ME…I’m putting in a dispute through my credit card..hope it pans out. Still kick’n myselt…THOSE ASSES take advantage of sooooooo many people…talk about FAILURE to DISCLOSE!!!!
ps. The manager also checks sites like these all the time so he can rebuttle the comments listed (he actually told me that)
BRUTAL…good luck all!!
June 26th, 2006 at 3:27 am
Hi, I forgot to mention that the package included a 3 day 2 night round trip Bahamas cruise from Ft Lauderdale to Nassau Bahamas. Two children can stay in the same room for free. No blackout dates in the nest 12 months.
June 27th, 2006 at 12:28 am
k..so i just got a call from GVD after dropping a ballot in their box yesterday. I went through all the details with an agent on the phone..and did the website check and stuff…i calculated the costs of the trip, and it sounded half decent as long as i brought another 2 people along that paid 139 each..so the trip would be split between 4 people. I still knew though, that i needed more time to decide, so i gave her my a card number that i knew would probably decline. because initially, she told me that if i couldnt make full payment on my card now, i had 4 days to make the financial arrangements, and she’d call me back to get another card number. now i calculated all the costs and including flight (approx $400 each) IF its booked offpeak..the trip would come out to about $3200 cdn..which is stupid because you can get a 3.5-4 star all inclusive (flight included) trip in the caribbean/mexico for about 8-900 cdn. but my question: by giving them a card number initially..do i owe them $798?? did i confirm? I dont think it means i did..but i just want to clarify..i dont think ill be answering any phone numbers i dont recognize this week….:D
June 27th, 2006 at 4:53 am
I fell for GVD today. I filled out this vacation contest form last week at this place. Apparently I guess they saw my form and called me. The customer representative sounded like I won the vacation! I was tricked. I was naive to give my credit card number.
June 27th, 2006 at 7:30 pm
Neil, when GVD called me and asked for my credit card including the three digits on the back. When I called CIBC VISA about this to try to say that they charged me without my consent, they said that by giving someone the information on your credit card, you are verbally authorizing a transaction. However, there are still ways to dispute the charges. But since, you said you gave them a card number that would decline, I suggest you check with your credit card company and see if the transaction did go through. If you have overdraft that is enough to cover the $798USD on the credit card, the transaction could go through and on top of that you would be charged by your bank for the overdraft. If you don’t have overdraft and the $798USD from GVD exceeds the funds available for your card, then the transaction would be bounced but your bank will charge you a service charge (approximately $50) for exceeding your credit limit. Anyway, by giving GVD your credit card number for that one card, you only authorize them to charge you on that card. So if they call back and said the transaction did not go through and ask for another number, you do not have to give them that information. Just say you changed your mind about the vacation and you are no longer in good standing with your credit card company (since one of GVD’s requirements of getting this “deal” is to have good credit). I really would call my credit card company. Good luck!
June 28th, 2006 at 12:34 am
I signed up to win a “free” trip about 3-4 weeks ago. It was exactly a week ago when I got caught up in the whole GVD thing. Probably the same scenario as most of you. Excited that you won, and although everything told you not to give out your credit card number, you did it anyway as though you were a man possessed. Well, I found out that one of my friends buddies also “won” the trip. That made me realize that this probably wasn’t such a great once in a lifetime thing. I ended up calling the customer service center back the next day, asking that my trip be cancelled and for a refund. When asked my reasons, I told them I couldn’t afford 600 dollars right now. The rep left and came back with a counter off of 180 or so. I told her that I wanted the full amount back, and after that told me that they didn’t like to give refunds or do cancellations, but that they were going to go ahead with it. She did mock me a little bit for just giving out the money like that on a whim. (Maybe partially deserved.) I called my credit card company and had them put a stop payment on it, and lo and behold, a week later, there is a 598 dollar credit on my account. So for me all it took was a single phone call, which was quite relieving after reading some of your posts. I would like to say that GVD seems a bit more respectable than some of the other companies I read about, in the fact that at least my refund was given back without hassle. It does bother me that I was told I “won” this drawing, (I later found out that so did about 4 other friends). I wanted to let others know that I never recieved the package, in fact I accidently had it sent to the wrong address, so It doesn’t seem you need it to get your refund. Unless mine had not been mailed yet as I called them the next day. Hope everybody else gets through things as well as I did.
June 28th, 2006 at 3:09 am
Raymond, it sounds like the package that GVD sold me. Check out my exact pricing, it’s the same! Read my past comments about the package I received and it’s the exact same. Go to http://www.greatvacationdestinations.com and type in RVM028, which was my ‘package code’ and you’ll probably see the same package you got too. It’s a bad deal when you consider that you’ll get a much better package when you go through say an established company like http://www.travelocity.ca/ instead and try and get as much money as you can that they already have. When you call Great Vacation Destinations’ customer service line (1-800-818-6890) they never specifically say it’s “Great Vacation Destinations” anywhere in the greeting but a generic one that several company names may use.
June 29th, 2006 at 10:53 pm
Hi there, Sweden here…
Surfing around trying to download a free application suddenly a pop-up showed me that “You’re Today’s Winner!“… Same story as above… I called the number “13213971883” talked to a lady called “Brenda”…
She told me that I had won a travel worth 2100$.
She then gave me the website “www.summerbayholiday.com” and was after that handed over to a guy called “Scott Freyer” who gave me the customer number “402UK062″. With the 5 digits… “402UK” and my emailadress I could sign in on the webadress “http://www.summerbayresort.com“. Then I got all the information about all they claimed that I would get. On this site they presented a lot of information and their summary was:
11 Night Getaway + All Inclusive Cruise Vacation offers the following features:
Then he wanted me to pay… But luckily my wife said - “NO it seams strange!” Katrin I love You! I had to tell them that I had to wait before I could decide to pay the “small amount” of 898$. He then tried to “force me” wich made me hang up the phone.
Interesting journey BUT I don’t have this money now and I don’t want to travel now so - That’s it !