:angry:
After doing a search on Royal Holiday and finding only a few dated posts, I hope that this serves to warn others about this scam for awhile.
It is connected to the hotel in Punta Cana as well as to others in Cozumel, Ixtapa, and Acapulco.
First, there are a lot of shills who get paid to invite people to visit the hotel, ostensibly to stay in the future and to tell friends about it. There are offers of bottles of booze, serapes, discounts on rental cars, a free meal, and/or tours.
Once there, you are assigned an escourt who, while showing you the 5-star suites and sharing a meal, asks a lot of personal financial questions, answers some, and makes notes of others. This takes a couple of hours. Following that, the marks get to watch a video that has less meaningful content than an infomercial and are then taken to a very noisy room where they are introduced to another pitchman. The basic pitch is that for an investment in today's money that you will get back at it's inflated value, and an annual membership fee of ~$325, the members get a number of points each year which vary according to your prime investment (which can be increased if desired, later). Those points can be exchanged for stays at participating hotels internationally. This supposedly lets the members save a lot since the hotels make "most of their money on food and entertainment." The Royal-Holiday Club also claims to have a travel service that gets good discounts on airfares (especially when they have a charter). If this doesn't get you interested, they start offering coupons for a thousand dollars worth of airfare and 30 free nights at selected hotels (BTW this has a hidden $99 service fee if used). Still not interested in a 30 year plan? Then they offer a 15 year plan (usually reserved for seniors). The catch is after you agree to pay $7500 for that, plus a $750 service fee (and get a verbal promise of an 8% discount if paid in full) they bring an attorney to your table to get the paper work done. Even careful reading the contract doesn't reveal that the 15 year refund offer is bogus; after it is signed they give you another coupon to sign for a trust company that holds your investment until the certificate matures in 30 years, and it doesn't indicate that the value will be at the inflated amount of the $7500. So, if you are 62, you are S.O.L. and have to assign it to an heir. By the time this is realized and you ask for your money back because you were led to believe you could do so at any time and at least in 15 years, you are told that you made a bad investment and are threatened with liens and bad credit ratings, and collection agencies (and all this without having received any thing, service, or benefits of equitable value).
If you only put $2750 on your credit card, you might just be out that even if you signed future credit slips for a few payments for the balance. Close the card and tell the credit card company that if any further charges are invoiced you will dispute them due to fraud. Tell Royal-Holiday Club that you have done this and will not be paying the annual membership fees.
Go to: thesqueakywheel.com
and to
groups.yahoo.com/group/Royal_Holiday_scam
and put some pressure on the Royal-Holiday Club to get a refund. Inspite of what they say, they have given some people their money back.
Warn others. Better yet, don't get into it in the first place. The hype is a highly choreographed psychological manipulation in an environment designed to inhibit clear thinking. There are a lot of bait and switch tactics from meaningless verbal offers and worthless coupons to a membership in a club that ends up costing more than you would have spent on vacations anyway.
After doing a search on Royal Holiday and finding only a few dated posts, I hope that this serves to warn others about this scam for awhile.
It is connected to the hotel in Punta Cana as well as to others in Cozumel, Ixtapa, and Acapulco.
First, there are a lot of shills who get paid to invite people to visit the hotel, ostensibly to stay in the future and to tell friends about it. There are offers of bottles of booze, serapes, discounts on rental cars, a free meal, and/or tours.
Once there, you are assigned an escourt who, while showing you the 5-star suites and sharing a meal, asks a lot of personal financial questions, answers some, and makes notes of others. This takes a couple of hours. Following that, the marks get to watch a video that has less meaningful content than an infomercial and are then taken to a very noisy room where they are introduced to another pitchman. The basic pitch is that for an investment in today's money that you will get back at it's inflated value, and an annual membership fee of ~$325, the members get a number of points each year which vary according to your prime investment (which can be increased if desired, later). Those points can be exchanged for stays at participating hotels internationally. This supposedly lets the members save a lot since the hotels make "most of their money on food and entertainment." The Royal-Holiday Club also claims to have a travel service that gets good discounts on airfares (especially when they have a charter). If this doesn't get you interested, they start offering coupons for a thousand dollars worth of airfare and 30 free nights at selected hotels (BTW this has a hidden $99 service fee if used). Still not interested in a 30 year plan? Then they offer a 15 year plan (usually reserved for seniors). The catch is after you agree to pay $7500 for that, plus a $750 service fee (and get a verbal promise of an 8% discount if paid in full) they bring an attorney to your table to get the paper work done. Even careful reading the contract doesn't reveal that the 15 year refund offer is bogus; after it is signed they give you another coupon to sign for a trust company that holds your investment until the certificate matures in 30 years, and it doesn't indicate that the value will be at the inflated amount of the $7500. So, if you are 62, you are S.O.L. and have to assign it to an heir. By the time this is realized and you ask for your money back because you were led to believe you could do so at any time and at least in 15 years, you are told that you made a bad investment and are threatened with liens and bad credit ratings, and collection agencies (and all this without having received any thing, service, or benefits of equitable value).
If you only put $2750 on your credit card, you might just be out that even if you signed future credit slips for a few payments for the balance. Close the card and tell the credit card company that if any further charges are invoiced you will dispute them due to fraud. Tell Royal-Holiday Club that you have done this and will not be paying the annual membership fees.
Go to: thesqueakywheel.com
and to
groups.yahoo.com/group/Royal_Holiday_scam
and put some pressure on the Royal-Holiday Club to get a refund. Inspite of what they say, they have given some people their money back.
Warn others. Better yet, don't get into it in the first place. The hype is a highly choreographed psychological manipulation in an environment designed to inhibit clear thinking. There are a lot of bait and switch tactics from meaningless verbal offers and worthless coupons to a membership in a club that ends up costing more than you would have spent on vacations anyway.