2-9-06 Time Share Blues
If your 4-month journey through Mexico ever gets boring, sign up for a presentation at a timeshare resort, purchase the darn thing, and then spend the next 4 days trying to get out of it.
You probably know the deal, the guy on the street offers you some great day trip or other gift if you'll just sit through a 90 minute sales presentation at the resort. We accepted a snorkel package in Cozumel if we'd listen to the spiel at The Mayan Palace between Playa del Carmen and Cancun.
On Friday, the 4 of us were delivered to the Mayan Palace (MP) and had a huge breakfast buffet and then began the process. Between my curiousity at how one rents out their weeks, Miles's excitement to be at a big resort with no prostitutes living downstairs (it turns out they're in the back office!), and Ruth's interest in trading time share weeks for travel in Europe....They got us! By 6:30 p.m. we had put $4,500 on our credit card with another $7k due in a month.
By 8 p.m. we were back in our little hotel in Playa del Carmen (that we absolutley adore) nearly sick to our stomachs.
We finally read everything very closely and realized there was a 5 day cancellation period.
Saturday morning we hustled right back out to the MP. Not surprisingly, the bubbly, cheery "closer", Kathy, from the night before was in no mood to see us Saturday and told us the contract couldn't be cancelled. We pointed out the language in the document, she said it didn't apply, brought in another "woman" (that's not really the right word) who also said we couldn't change our minds. Then they offered us some convoluted deal that if we returned our snorkel voucher and wrote a letter to incriminate the guy on the street who had offered it to us, they would write a letter saying what we had done, but wouldn't guarantee us a cancellation and refund.
Our poor kids. They had never seen such evil behavior and were sobbing throughout our time with those scum. Especially considering the cheery behavior offered us the night before. (Between the interesting placement of women's tattoos on the beach in Tulum, and the sub-human behavior witnessed in the MP office, Miles and Jill have learned a lot. Sooner or later maybe they'll learn Spanish.)
We returned to Playa del Carmen Saturday afternoon brokenhearted, furious, embarrassed, stressed out, ... you name it. Then I did some quick internet research and found out that Mexican law was clearly on our side and that we had 5 business days to cancel no matter what. Unfortunately, I learned that on a Saturday afternoon, and everything was closed on Sunday and Monday for a national holiday, so although we were well within our 5-day period, the stress and uncertainty took a heavy toll.
Tuesday morning we left the kids with some very kind neighbors from Canada and Ruth and I trekked off to the local PROFECO office. PROFECO is a free government service that protects consumers. We went in loaded for bear and I had a letter written to the MP with copies for PROFECO, The Texas Attorney General (MP has corporate offices in Texas) the US Embassy, and Discover Card.
PROFECO told us not to worry, all we would have to do is take a PROFECO document out to Mayan Palace for them to sign. We told them we weren't going alone since MP had treated us so badly on Saturday. So PROFECO sent an agent, Joel, with us. The MP security guards treated Joel, Ruth and I as if we were trying to escape East Berlin and the office staff were just as bad, but ultimately we prevailed and got a full cancellation and refund.
All kinds of observations and reflections to share in person someday, but in summary: Don't even go to the time share presentation in the first place; there are a lot of evil Americans working in paradise with B.S. devotion to Jimmy Buffet and Margaritaville ("My life is great! I've got pictures of Jimmy all over my office! And I screw people all day long and go home to the beach at night and drink margaritas!")
So we got our money back and..... the prostitutes moved out downstairs!
Life is good and my hour is up (I bet the prostitutes use that line too!)
Paul
If your 4-month journey through Mexico ever gets boring, sign up for a presentation at a timeshare resort, purchase the darn thing, and then spend the next 4 days trying to get out of it.
You probably know the deal, the guy on the street offers you some great day trip or other gift if you'll just sit through a 90 minute sales presentation at the resort. We accepted a snorkel package in Cozumel if we'd listen to the spiel at The Mayan Palace between Playa del Carmen and Cancun.
On Friday, the 4 of us were delivered to the Mayan Palace (MP) and had a huge breakfast buffet and then began the process. Between my curiousity at how one rents out their weeks, Miles's excitement to be at a big resort with no prostitutes living downstairs (it turns out they're in the back office!), and Ruth's interest in trading time share weeks for travel in Europe....They got us! By 6:30 p.m. we had put $4,500 on our credit card with another $7k due in a month.
By 8 p.m. we were back in our little hotel in Playa del Carmen (that we absolutley adore) nearly sick to our stomachs.
We finally read everything very closely and realized there was a 5 day cancellation period.
Saturday morning we hustled right back out to the MP. Not surprisingly, the bubbly, cheery "closer", Kathy, from the night before was in no mood to see us Saturday and told us the contract couldn't be cancelled. We pointed out the language in the document, she said it didn't apply, brought in another "woman" (that's not really the right word) who also said we couldn't change our minds. Then they offered us some convoluted deal that if we returned our snorkel voucher and wrote a letter to incriminate the guy on the street who had offered it to us, they would write a letter saying what we had done, but wouldn't guarantee us a cancellation and refund.
Our poor kids. They had never seen such evil behavior and were sobbing throughout our time with those scum. Especially considering the cheery behavior offered us the night before. (Between the interesting placement of women's tattoos on the beach in Tulum, and the sub-human behavior witnessed in the MP office, Miles and Jill have learned a lot. Sooner or later maybe they'll learn Spanish.)
We returned to Playa del Carmen Saturday afternoon brokenhearted, furious, embarrassed, stressed out, ... you name it. Then I did some quick internet research and found out that Mexican law was clearly on our side and that we had 5 business days to cancel no matter what. Unfortunately, I learned that on a Saturday afternoon, and everything was closed on Sunday and Monday for a national holiday, so although we were well within our 5-day period, the stress and uncertainty took a heavy toll.
Tuesday morning we left the kids with some very kind neighbors from Canada and Ruth and I trekked off to the local PROFECO office. PROFECO is a free government service that protects consumers. We went in loaded for bear and I had a letter written to the MP with copies for PROFECO, The Texas Attorney General (MP has corporate offices in Texas) the US Embassy, and Discover Card.
PROFECO told us not to worry, all we would have to do is take a PROFECO document out to Mayan Palace for them to sign. We told them we weren't going alone since MP had treated us so badly on Saturday. So PROFECO sent an agent, Joel, with us. The MP security guards treated Joel, Ruth and I as if we were trying to escape East Berlin and the office staff were just as bad, but ultimately we prevailed and got a full cancellation and refund.
All kinds of observations and reflections to share in person someday, but in summary: Don't even go to the time share presentation in the first place; there are a lot of evil Americans working in paradise with B.S. devotion to Jimmy Buffet and Margaritaville ("My life is great! I've got pictures of Jimmy all over my office! And I screw people all day long and go home to the beach at night and drink margaritas!")
So we got our money back and..... the prostitutes moved out downstairs!
Life is good and my hour is up (I bet the prostitutes use that line too!)
Paul
posted by The Lambersons at 11:57 AM
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