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.
April 6th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
hey everyone, I lost in the one-on-one phone call to great vacation destinations and now I’m definatly going to (TRY) to get out of it after reading all of your comments. does anyone have any other tips??
April 8th, 2006 at 5:46 am
hi jemma here again still having nightmares with summer bay resort it has
has only taken me three weeks to speak to someone one and not an
answering machine.have just found out that my credit card is
overdrawn $430.00 thought my card was blocked but because id
given them the ezpiry date they were able to get the funds.
totally abused the girl with the fake accent and told her what she
could do with her holiday and i was told that i wouldnt have to
pay the full amount of $598.00 because i was a special winner.told
her that their company is a scam and told her to look on the
internet on the scam sights and all the excuses came flying at me.to long
long a story to go in to so I wont bore u with that.My credit card
company is investigating the matter and hopefully my money will be
refunded.I am at my wits end with this company sick of getting the
run around.Something has to be done to stop these low lifes praying
on innocent people.I know have all my pop ups blocked 53 in four weeks
so far.so next time u get a pop up pop it off for good.
April 11th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
hi my sister in England bought this package from Your VIP Holidays as well in May, 2005 she wanted to send our parents on vacation. now almost a year later they decided to take the trip and have been getting pushed arround which got me to googling and landed me on your site. thanks! though i realise that the 30 day time is long gone at least my parents will save on the air fare to florida…we live in Guyana South America.
April 14th, 2006 at 6:37 am
Hi,
I have only one piece of advice: never, ever EVER give out your credit card information over the telephone!
I was offered the same kind of “dream vacation package”, and was told that I won some sort of contest…but because I’m naturally skeptical of pretty much everything, I just turned them down flat when I was told I would have to pay for a chunk of the package. The way that I see it is: if I “won” something, why should I have to PAY for any part of it? Isn’t that the whole point of *WINNING* something?!?
There are tons and TONS of scams out there these days, so you definitely have to be more careful with giving out your information out.
Just think of it this way: A legitimate and reputable company would never ask for your credit card information over the telephone.
Good luck to all of you who are struggling with these slime balls! Don’t forget, you can always file a formal complaint with the Better Business Bureau!
April 15th, 2006 at 5:54 am
I am from Western Australia and have also been stung by these gutless cowards. When I tried to cancel within the next few days, they refused and laughed at me when I became extremely angry. I have never owned a credit card and never wanted to, but my 14 year old daughter and 10 year old son and I had just lost my brother to cancer, and the kids father has left and they are devestated, so I wanted to cheer them up thru all this and decided to do a stupid thing and bought the holiday package, and told them all this, and they didnt care.
I thought it was only $8oo au, but it was Euro, so they took out $1300 and then, that weekend I couldnt buy any food or pay rent etc. I tried ringing for days and was given the run around. If thats not bad enough I have also found out that I have to pay for the tickets to get
from Perth to Florida, around $2000 per person! So I have these so called tickets, but can’t use them, and no-one else will buy them, and I have no job.
I got in touch with consumer affairs in Florida and they wrote to starr travel, and they told them they gave me 1 week to cancel (which I did but they deny) so consumer affairs say that I cant claim a refund because I didnt cancel within a week.
I’d like to see how smart they are if someone met them face to face… [edit: really angry bit removed] …they might have a bit of a spine to help the people they have scammed, as they have certainly put my children thru more hell.
April 20th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
Royalty Holidays in the USA took almost £500 from my parents without permission, and have so far failed to refund any of it months later. They never agreed to be sold a holiday, just said for them to send a brochure so they could look in more detail. We have phoned and written and they promise a refund, but 2.5 months later and still no sign of it.
Caveat emptor.
April 26th, 2006 at 5:25 am
I just gave out my credit card # to Great Vacation Destinations and paid the 798US…they told me I can take up to 4 people under that rate…I personally think it’s a great deal…but in reading everyone’s comments of course I am apprehensive because everyone is saying it’s a scam, but what I wanna know is what is the actual scam??If I can get a good trip out of this, plus 4 bonus trips for a good price, why not?? Someone please tell me what the actual ’scam’ is??
April 26th, 2006 at 8:02 am
Hi neera; a vacation has been sold to you and if you consider the package to be good value, then great! Use it and enjoy it.
For the record, how did you get involved with this company? Telemarketing? A popup telling you that you are the 1,000,000th visitor to a website? Or something else? Who contacted who? Were you in any way misled, or was the sale totally driven by fact? Were you pressured into an instant purchase? etc.
April 27th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
Hi Rich - thanks for writing. I was at some festival in March and entered a draw to win a vacation. They called me and told me they had pulled my name out of the draw along with a few others. Mind you when I entered, i was thinking it was a ‘free’ vacation. But when the girl called me, she immediately made it known to me that this was nothing free, and that I had not ‘won’ anything. So she ran thru the details of the trip, making it sound fabulous, and then she said, now this is the part that freaks people out..you have to pay this fee up front. I asked why we couldn’t confer with people first and call them back or have them call back if we wanted to do it. She said that it’s just their policy and doing that, it would turn them into ‘telemarketers’….but for the record she told me as an aside that I could get my money back in full. She said she wasn’t supposed to tell people that but she doesn’t like to lie. I was hemming and hawing about whether I should do it so I don’t know if she flat out lied just to get me to do it. But before the details of the trip she gave me her full name and employee number. So at least I have that.
Anyway then i was put on the phone with a manger-type guy and the conversation was recorded and I got a reference number for if I needed to go back to the convo to hear what was said. Everthing was laid out quite nicely.
The only problem I have is that they told me SO many times that I could take up to 4 people within that 798 fee..but the website says that it’s only for 2 people…that bugs me, I am going to call and I know I re-asked that in the recorded convo so if they try to tell me only 2 people then i have back up I guess.
If you can take up to 4 people then I think it’s a great deal if they follow through with the trip details.
The other thing I want to find out is if the bonus trips are free flight (they are for sure) AND free accommodation (I think the guy told me that was free too) Because if that’s the case then yeah, this is a good deal. After all that’s said and done, even with getting to florida in the first place will be about 600cdn a person…not too shabby. Anyway sorry for rambling.
April 29th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
I was recently scammed by the Ramada Plasa Resorts offer, but after doing some research I called and asked for my money back. They first tried to sell me some more packages, but after firmly turning them down and mentioning the fact that I am within my 30 day limit, they agreed to refund my money. I then faxed the letter detailing my request for cancellation to Daniel Lambert at 954-567-9399, mentioning that I had already called and am expecting my refund soon or I will file a claim against his company.
I got my money back in six days from calling them and asking to cancel.
Thank you for your help!