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.
7 comments:
Hey! Thanks for this. My wife and I got a call about two weeks ago to attend one of their presentations and receive a Free 7 day cruise along with other goodies. We are scheduled to attend tomorrow evening in San Jose, CA. What these people don't know is what we know about timeshares, etc. We also have very close contacts at the San Jose Police Department and City Council. So we shall see what transpires when they try to pull some of their tactics on us. Thanks again for the warning. I thought it was a total scam and it appears to be just that.
I just got off the phone with them...looked for reviews and found yours. All I can say is thank you...and your blog says if one person is helped...well...I was helped...when they call back to confirm I will cancel.
Thank you,
Scott
Another one saved, two actually since my fiancee was the one that wanted to attend the 'meeting'.
Funny thing is, when we called and rescheduled a meeting that we were suppose to have a month ago, they warned us that their 'free offer' was for only one more month. When we did not call to reschedule, one month later (almost exactly) they called and rescheduled with my fiancee and this time offered us 'TWO' trips, instead of just one.
Tells you the inherent value of the trip, doesn't it?
I've been doing a lot of reading on this company, and their CEO who is Richard Sargent - who by the way holds all of the 'officer posts' of his company, and the two others of similar name. Six addresses, as many different phone numbers - yeah, if you are a glutton for punishment I'm sure this is the guy to go see.
Thanks for your blog though, it was the first thing I found when I went fishing for this 'fishy' company. Let's hope more people find your page, and the plethora of comments out there on GEVC, and pray they go out of business soon.
Crap!! I just bought into this scam. I went to their presentation today 12/1 and bought GEVC timeshare. Afterward I read their reviews and didn't find good reviews at all and now to confirm I found this site by accident. Now after reading this site I have to cancell my contract. I read somewhere where they said I can cancelled within 7 callender days in writing. I put $1200.00 deposit on my credit, I wonder if I can just call the credit card complany and cancell the purchase. At first I was thinking of calling the sales person and talk to them about this now after reading what people say about them on the blog I realized it doesn't make sense for me to call I just have to put it in writting and mail it to them on monday and hope cancelled my contract and get my deposit back that way. Thanks everyone, I'm glad I ran into this blog before it was to late.
Thank you for your blog and I'm sorry I didn't see this sooner. It would have given me 90 minutes more of my life back. We actually attended their presentation this past weekend and was happy with the sales person who pitched the idea saying there was no pressure to buy then. We hadn't planned on buying anything anyways, but wanted to know the price in case friends/family were interested. The free roundtrip airfare for two to Hawaii plus accommodations and a $100 gas card didn't hurt either.
Once the "closer" came in and started talking about how much it would cost, it went downhill from there. When he went over the different packages, he ended up dropping the price ($13k to $9,800) when the lowest package wasn't going to work for us. When we didn't ask any questions (because the 1st guy did a good job in going over everything but the price), he yelled at us for not asking questions, crumpled up his paperwork, then stormed off cussing under his breathe.
Then the third "corporate" guy came in. We thought it was going well, then he explained that if we wanted to come back in a year we could still get the discounts they offered that day ($3,900 in savings) plus throw in 30k points but we would have to pay $1,295 now. When we explained that this wasn't affordable for us now, he too crumpled up his paper in anger and stormed off telling us to go to the reception for our free gifts.
When we did go there, we were told they were out of certificates because they were so busy that day (it was an 11am appointment) and that we would be mailed that and the $100 gas card within 7-10 business days. We did know up front that the trip was only for 2 nights and we would have to pay $100 (the taxes).
Now I'm wondering if we'll even get those. Did anyone that received their so called "free trip" go? I can live with losing 90 minutes of my time if the trip does happen, but the more I read about this company, the more and more I do have questions. When I did read the fine print of the "free gift" it did say the trip was from Tues - Thurs (2 nights) and that if you wanted to extend your trip you had to pay for it. Then it goes to say that these are for "economy" accommodations.
If this "free" trip was suppose to be to get familiar with the companies properties, why would they put you up in the cheapest accommodations and make you pay to stay longer or in a better place. I thought the whole idea of this vacation company was so you can stay at the best 4-5 star hotels. You would think that if they have thousands of places around the world, they would want you to see it for yourself. Then if you weren't prepared to buy that day, then you would definitely consider it once you stayed at such a wonderful place.
I too hope no one falls for this and that people don't waste their time going to their presentation. Who likes to get yelled at for not buying something that day...especially when it costs $13,000!
thanks for the post. my wife got a flyer a few weeks ago from gevc, saying that because it's her birthday, they want to give her a plane ticket. she signed us up to attend a presentation next week, but i really don't want to go. we received some vouchers in the mail last week from them. i read the the fine print, and it sounds awful. yes, they want us to submit some information along with money in order to get some other certificates. it sounds very bad. i hope i can convince her not to go.
Post a Comment