Free gifts from vacation companies

Q. Ever wondered how vacation companies like Global Exchange Vacation Club could give away free vacations or free round trip air fares for two?

A. They don't! They cheat you and read on if you do not want to be cheated.

Few weeks back Global Exchange Vacation Club (GEVC) http://www.globalexchangevacation.com/ contacted us through their marketing company and here I am blogging about my bitter experience with them. If I can help even ONE person out there save 90 minutes of his / her personal time, I will mark this blog successful.

They promised us 2 round trip air tickets any where in continental US absolutely free! only for listening to their 90 minutes presentation. They also promised no questions would be asked at the end of the presentation. They sounded very promising on the phone and had already wasted too much time by calling us multiple times, trying to book an appointment. I am not sure what we thought and signed up for their session after confirming it was not a timeshare program. I tried to look around on the web to see if there were any past experiences that others shared about them but found none.

30 mins into their presentation we realized it was yet another timeshare program (which they promised it would not be). On trying to confirm whether it was a timeshare, we were reaffirmed it was not, so we continued.

Everything was pleasant until we said we were unwilling to sign-up for their program. Their first reaction was look at us as if we were doing something wrong. They actually started making us feel bad about not taking their program using phrases like - "Look into your own eyes and say sorry to yourselves". Two people continuously tried to give us better offers and yet again made us feel bad about what we were doing.

Finally they gave up on us and sent us to an empty corridor stating we would be taken care of. The guy on the window was already rude. He gave us our gift certificates which had a long list of terms and conditions. Usually one is left feeling so miserable that he leaves the place without reading any details on the gift certificate, but since we were already finding things a bit fishy we continued to read on and alas - I came across the fine print that I was looking for ever since I signed up to go for their preso. There had to be a catch! - the fine print said - "Mail in with a $100 money order to receive your gift certificate". The company that provides the free gifts would be yet another farce company who would not care to respond or send you your gift certificates. They did not stand answerable to any of my questions and did not care to be respectful anymore. The only response they had was that you have to pay taxes on your gift. Does any one remember paying taxes on gifts!? On asking why they did not tell us about paying taxes on the gifts - they conveniently punted their fault on the marketing company that called us.

Bottom line - Both their statements of the program not being timeshare and the gifts being absolutely free! were absolute farces. They lie to you on your face and have no guilt feeling about doing that. Worse of all is that you give them your valuable time and they make you feel miserable.

I plead you to stay away from these folks and any such offers that others may give you. I first thought of hiding this shameful experience but in stride of creating awareness and saving your valuable time I decided to spend another 30 minutes today to blog about it. Hope this helps someone out there.