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.
July 6th, 2006 at 2:44 am
Thank you for your help, Rich! That’s really helpful.
In additional of calling the customer service departmant of GVD. I also called my credit card company to close my card.
I wrote a cancellation letter to GVD and will send it tomorrow. I will ust registered letter in order to keep a record. I just filed a complaint with the Florida Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services. I will also try to make another phone call to GVD (hope this time will be better).
Hope these will work!
Thank you again!
July 7th, 2006 at 2:40 am
I was able to get a refund from Great Vacation Destinations by sending my registered mail to: 7301 West Oakland Park Boulevard, Lauderhill, Florida 33319
I see that BlueGreen Vacation Club uses that address that was registered: 4960 Conference Way North, Suite 100, Boca Raton, Florida 33431
I did some research and found that in Bluegreen Corporation Filing on 3/29/2004 they do indeed own Great Vacation Destination and Take Me On Vacation. See below.
“On October 2, 2002, through our wholly-owned subsidiary, Great Vacation Destinations, Inc. (”GVD”), we also acquired substantially all of the assets and assumed certain liabilities of TakeMeOnVacation, LLC and certain of its affiliates (”TMOV”). Utilizing the assets acquired from TMOV, GVD generates “permission” marketing sales leads for Vacation Ownership Interest (”VOI”) sales utilizing various marketing strategies. Through the application of a proprietary, computer software system, these leads are then contacted and given the opportunity to purchase discount mini-vacation packages. These packages sometimes combine hotel stays, cruises and gift premiums. Buyers of these mini-vacation packages are then usually required to participate in a VOI sales presentation. GVD seeks to generate sales prospects for our VOI sales business and for sales prospects that will be sold to other VOI developers. We believe that GVD’s “permission” marketing lead generation programs and the potential benefits of tracking and controlling the subsequent marketing efforts are consistent with Bluegreen Resorts overall marketing strategy.”
So when you complain about them, you might as well black ball Bluegreen Corporation because it is their parent company because GVD is apparently all in line with with Bluegreen Corporation’s overall marketing strategy, which is dirty. The ‘”permission” marketing lead generation programs’ are your ballot entries. It makes me angry.
July 10th, 2006 at 2:09 am
I just got a call from GVD salesperson, she told my ballot entry was selected, and I win a free trip for two to florida & Bahama. After telling me so many nice things to do during the trip, a package will send to me, the trip will be taking within 18 months, then she told me that each traveller has to pay U$399 upfront,she asked me to give her my credit card numbers. I told her I don’t feel comfortable to give my card numbers, I don’t care if I lost the chance for so call free vacation as she told me that if I don’t make the decision with her.
July 10th, 2006 at 10:05 am
I haven’t gone through all the postings everyone has written so I don’t know if this has been mentionned before(there’s just too many to go through!). Anyone ever hear of the Better Business Bureau? It’s an organisation that attempts to maintain an acceptable level of ethics where business is concerned. Whenever you have a problem with a business of some kind, go to them and complain (http://www.bbb.org) and they’ll monitor the grievance until the matter is considered closed.
Myself I got suckered into the whole GVD thing. They are not members of the BBB but they do have reports. However, their parent company (Bluegreen Vacation Club) is a member. This week I’ll go through the protocol to get my money back and if all goes well, their record should stay fairly clean. They both have acceptable ratings, as far as customer service goes, so I don’t expect too many problems.
I just thought I’d bring it up in case noone knew about the BBB. Whenever you have a problem with a company, look them up at http://www.bbb.org. I’m not sure if they cover anything outside Canada and the US, but this could still help a bunch of you.
July 10th, 2006 at 10:32 am
Thanks for the suggestion Paul; you’ve inadvertently highlighted something there. With so many comments it can be a bit daunting to read them all, so it might help a few readers to note that the search box (top right) is very useful for times like this.
For example, a search for “Better Business Bureau” or bbb might have helped.
I’ll look into adding a copy of the search box next to the comment box, it should be more use to people if it’s more obvious when commenting!
July 11th, 2006 at 1:19 am
I bought into the Bluegreen timeshare. After doing some research online after returning home I had apparently made a big mistake. I followed the procedures to cancel the contract and was successful in obtaining a refund. It took them a good 3 weeks but I did get a full refund. So to those of you still waiting..just be patient. When you actually do get your refund it is a great feeling!
July 11th, 2006 at 3:35 am
I’ve just finished talking with the sales person of GVD. They have called me to let me know that I’m one of the few lucky ppl who win their travel package with a discount price and follows a whole bounch of sentence speaking with bullet speed @@… later on, they ask me to give them my credit card number “to confirm my information”.
I gaved them my credit card number and pertty soon, I have been told that they have put my card through a US$800.00 non-refundable commercial fee. I’m pissed when I hear them saying that. I asked them to cancel the whole thing, they just kept telling me that it is non refundable. Luckly, the sales person is probably new, she put me through the line to her shift supervisor, and I told her that was told the credit card number is just to “confirm” my information in stead of “fee processing” and I will to cancel the whole thing and get a full refund.
She gave me a toll free number tell me to call the number and give them the recepit number and they will be able to cancel it for me. Again, iI ask her is there any time limit that I need to cancel my package in order to get my refund. She said “no”, but I don’t really trust her, that’s why I’m here now; doing a little research about the company.
GVD toll free number 1-800-818-6890
their office hour is until 9pm only from Mon-Fri.
I’ll call this toll free number tomorrow seems when I hang up the phone with them is already after 9pm, hopefully, I will be able to get my full refund with out too much trouble.
July 11th, 2006 at 7:21 pm
I’ve also fell for the Great Vacation Destinations scam. They told me that they would put the package on hold for me, but they needed my credit card number. After giving them my credit card number, they said that they have charged US$798 on it, gave me a confirmation number, and hung up. I called them back, and was told that the reservation was already made and it was nonrefundable. I tried a couple of times to contact customer service to cancel. The customer service agents were extrememly rude. The first one called me an idiot and hung up on me. The second person told me that I didn’t have a good enough reason to cancel and hung up on me. The third person told me that I would have to wait until the package arrived before I could apply for refund. It has been two weeks now, and I’m still waiting for the package to arrive.
July 12th, 2006 at 5:18 am
I fell for GVD too! Like all of you, the customer service agents were really rude to me too! The first time I phoned to cancel, the lady said that “we don’t do things like that”. Then she said very degrading things to me like, “I don’t understand why would someone buy a vacation packaged for $798 just to cancel it!”
After reading posts from this site, I’ve sent a cancellation letter to them, which (by checking the tracking number) said it was recived by GVD. I phoned GVD and they said that they didn’t recive it, and that I’ll get a phone call when it has been recived. The 30 days is almost up, and I’m starting to get really worried.
I tried phoning them back, but I keep getting rude responses, and I can’t seem to get them to stay on the phone long enough for them to hear me out.
If anyone has any suggestions on what I should say on the phone to them, or if anyone has any names of an agent that I could talk to, that would be most wonderful!
Thanks! Good luck to you all!!
July 12th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
Hi May, I had the response from Cindy, the GVD customer service rep. “Why did you buy it if you didn’t want it?” My response was to casually said, “I thought I could afford it but the next day when I calculated the numbers, I couldn’t. The telemarketer told me that I had to make a decision now so she didn’t give me time to think about it.”
Just to make sure that it is correctly received by GVD, please make sure your (Canada Post) tracking info says:
2006/06/05 10:37 Item successfully delivered to Receiver’s address
2006/05/29 09:51 International shipment has arrived in the destination country
2006/05/27 10:13 International item has left Canada and is en route to destination
2006/05/25 19:42 Item accepted at the Post office
I had made the mistake thinking that “arrived in destination country” meant they received it by accident. You need the “successfully delivered to Receiver’s address” to be correct. I think the 30 days is when you need to make the request in, not when the refund has to be process. I don’t know about how the US does it, but Canada will take postmarked dates (2006/05/25 in my case) of when the letter was submitted to the post office as the date of the request even though it arrives at the destination after the deadline.
I’m surpised not hear that some people didn’t try bypassing customer service and heading straight for the manager. You can pull up a BBB report on the company that has the manager’s contact information and some other numbers the company owns. If they are rude, make sure you at least file a complaint with BBB Southeast Florida (their
Principal: Chad Jernberg, Manager
Local Phone Number: (561) 912-8000
Fax Number: (561) 912-7879