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.
January 3rd, 2007 at 12:13 am
Man am I glad I found these post. Like you all I received a 4 day vacation in Orlando and a 3 day cruise from Port Canaveral. I had registered for this two weeks ago and was contacted today. Really sounded nice until they wanted the old C.C. #. Well being a retired police officer I said I didn’t think so until I received the packeage and checked it out. The conversation ended pretty quickly after that.
Well about 30 mins ago I received another call from GVD informing me again I had won. I told them no thanks I needed to think about it. She said I had plenty of time. Well after reading all of the post it will be along time. Thanks.
January 10th, 2007 at 11:01 am
to whom it may concern, Amsterdam 9 January, 2007
i’m from Holland, Amsterdam and i won that same ‘prize’in june 2006 also, i think a guy called Craig/Gregg called me up, promising to send me a vacationpackage, it never arrived!!
so on 21-06-06 i paid also that amount of money, 898 USD, equal to 710,29 Euro
since i never received the promised package, i wonder if i can sue them for fraud??
thank you for your help
or can i claim a refund??
January 11th, 2007 at 2:36 am
Any organization that is part of RCI is a scam. Don’t ever give your credit card # out to anyone on the phone, you have not won anything…you lose
January 12th, 2007 at 1:39 am
HELP …. I bought the GVD package on Oct 10th and now want to
know if I have any chance of getting my money back … I paid
$798.00 US …. I rec’d a call the other day asking if I was
planning on booking soon .. since they are booking up to April
now .. I told them no …. so I thought that they were above board since they called me back to verify that I would be using the package and then I started my research and found this site ….
Have I been duped or is this a legitimate offer ?
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
January 12th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Hi Collen, all I can tell you is what’s already written. GVD have been mentioned on the forum too, so you might want to read that.
Have you been duped? Only you know how you were contacted and what you were told (you’re welcome to add detail), but what you’ve bought is most likely something like this”.
January 12th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
I too have been fooled by a con man, trip to Orlando etc. etc. etc.
I had a bad feeling about the whole thing asked if he had a web sight after a few seconds he said yes http://www.sunnies.com he said he would call back in a while I went on this sight it looked legit but didnt give a lot of info on it ???
when he called back I told him the sight wasnt much of a help , he to said that they were with the BBB and Florida laws would protect etc etc etc .
I finally gave in gave my card # like a fool . got off the phone called my mastercard company told them the story and asked if this kind off thing was common told no so I waited for my package to arrive, no package but a month later a $800 charge to my card from Discovery Tours Orlando Florida.
Called my card co. they say they will Investigate.
Called information to get a phone # for this Discovery Tours sorry no such company in Florida and no web sight.
Has any one else been stung by this theif? I think my only Discovery will be I was a complete fool to trust this smooth talking theif. I hope what goes around comes around to eat him up! I can afford this lesson, but there are some that are just getting by and thats what hurts the most Sorry we trust people !!
Still no package and likely never will be Thanks for letting me VENT.
Bryan
January 12th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Hi Bryan,
if you’ve been the vitim of a fraudulent cardholder-not-present transaction then you don’t need to “afford this lesson”, your credit provider is as liable as the fraudster, so you can and should receive a full refund.
January 15th, 2007 at 7:07 am
Hi there.
I am Nepalese and Canadain PR, graduate student and a father of three kids living in Vancouver. I just fooled by a “Fantasy Tour and Travel” on Jan 12, 2007,and the email I recieved it from . customercare@discountmyvacation.com>
The worst is that they drew from my two acounts each worth 717CAD$. The story is the same as every one above. What they told me that they got error while transacting my visa, and asked for another card. I was mentally incapacited by them already, so I had no capacity to think correctly at that time. I gave them all the Card information they needed. I was so hesitant to provide them my visa card, but then they changed their staff. Firs, with Tifanny, a soft spoken lady, and then Jacob, an agressive guy, and then a soft spoken lady Venise. I did not give my details until it was 40 minutes but then finally they were able to get every thing from me. I immediately contacted my visa office, and found that they had already drawn from my both accounts. That means, they lied saying that they could not draw from my fist Visa account. I immediately cancelled my one of the visa accounts and blocked the another. I am so schoked and terrified, and nervous. Today,I called local police and notified them of this. Tomorrow, I am planning to call the phone number that I have got in the email, and I will ask for full refund. I will also do follow up with my visa account and lets see whether I will be able to get refund of it or not. Being a graduate student and father of three kids, the money that they have drwan (1434CAD$) from my two visa account would cost a lot of mental stress and financial burden. This website is a wonderful site, and I thank the web-hoster for creating this webpage. Thank you for reading my posting.
January 15th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Thanks Rich for the ray off hope in such a hopeless feeling situation . Thanks for all the time you put into helping others, mayby there are good people in this scam world of ours after all thanks again Bryan
January 15th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
“www.SpecialTtravel.com” put an ‘pop-up’on a site for children which shows funny videos. My kids are crazy about those. The pop-up promissed they won a trip to Disneyland Orlando and a cruise to the bahamas. All they needed to do was call a number in the USA and everything was fixed.
I got curious when they wanted my creditcard and asked what for, they thought it was a big surprise for the family. Fortunately I was on had to put a stop to it and confronted “Dolores” & “Rebecca” with this reprehensable conduct.
The children are of course in tears and believe I have ruined a perfectly fine offer. This is worse then a scam, it undermines the beauty and functionality of the internet. These people should not just be stopped but jailed for this stuff !!