Suncoast Vacations promises its members they will "never pay retail again"...but the state of Florida says that's just no so. Consumer Reporter Kerry Kavanaugh began investigating Suncoast in November, 2007 after the state received more than one hundred complaints that the company wasn't delivering on its promise of discount vacations.
The Florida Attorney General launched its investigation in March and now says the office will be taking action and suing the vacation club.
The Florida Attorney General launched its investigation in March and now says the office will be taking action and suing the vacation club.
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We joined this 'club' in August of 2007 and have not been able to use it yet. Every time I contact them regarding vacations and motels or car rental, I have been able to find lower prices myself on the computer. We are still making payments (automatically taken out) of our checking account.
We are not happy and feel we have been scammed by this company. Is there going to be any lawsuit against this company? We would like to be included if there is one. We would like a refund of our initial costs and payments made since then.
Thank you.
Margaret and Frederick Palmer, Arcadia, FL
You should contact the FL attorney General to both register your complaint -and find out what is being done on their end to combat these types of vacation scams. Go to myflorida.com and you should find info there.
You can also check with a consumer attorney as to your rights. Go to naca.net and search for attorneys in your area.
I believe I have read about individual lawsuits against this company -do a Google check. Also you may want to reach out to the company and let them know you are filing complaints with the AG, Better Business Bureau and want a full refund of your money...Keep us posted.
Denise
I also purchased the product at the end of 07 and haven't had any satisfaction with them. I attempted to make plans with Suncoast for my "Guaranteed Discount Week" and found that they take an extremely long time to find resort options for me to choose from. By the time they came the emailed me the very short list, two options that fit my request, it was so close to the travel date, the cost of travel escalated so much I wasn't able to go. It was due to how expensive the travel expenses were going to be with out enough notice. I have also attempted to use my "Free promotional week Cost with 199.00 finder fee" but found you have to give 120 day notice. So, I am attempting to use this bonus week and gave them the notice in their required time notice but after 4 calls to see why I haven't received any options in 45 days, they tell me this week isn't handle the same as a regular week and that often they do not find the available rooms, for me to pick from, until about one month or less before the travel date. Also mentioned to me that it is not guaranteed that they will even find availability at all. Now I want to know, who has the flexible lifestyle where they can you schedule a vacation with the possibility that you may have a place to go but then again if nothing is available you won't vacation till they find something at their leisure. Waiting this term, they say is standard practice for them, you would loose one third of the year wondering if you should make travel arrangements and schedule time off work. Lastly, if they need 120 days to find a resort then why is it they usually find it within the last month of the needed time frame? I feel I've been taken and this is a complete rip off. As others have mentioned, I can find cheaper prices for travel, cruises, hotels and rentals but the one catch that sold me was the free week, the free cruise, and the fact that it would get a prime location to vacation for a low price that was locked in to the same price for life guaranteed to never go up as long as I kept up with my yearly fee of 200 or so dollars.
I joined Suncoast Vacations in 2007 and never used my membership for a number of reasons dealing with problems scheduling, availablility of units, and problems finding information on locations.
I stopped making payments to Monterey Financial and received a letter threatening to send me to collections and file a report with credit bureaus. How can I protect myself agtainst collections and bad credit reports?
Thanks
Andrew
My husband I spent $3199 to Suncoast vacations and have not received anything for our money. I refuse to pay Sams Discovery for these fraudulent business tactics. They are criminals, exploiting senior citizens. Discovery seem to be condoning what these crooks are doing.
But, how can I protect myself against weekly calls from Discovey, asking why I have not payed my credit card bill, for payments that I will not make, and also against bad credit ratings.
Is there going to be a lawsuit taking place regarding this company?
That's a great question for the FL Attorney General's office! Make sure if you haven't already done so, file a complaint with their office. Seems to be a continued and consistent stream of complaints. Keep us posted...
Same problems as everyone else. When they finally send you possible "resorts" they are old and decrepit. Nothing that was promised at the sales presentation has been fulfilled. I filed a complaint with the FL Att. Gen. and he said he was going to file a lawsuit this summer. Have not heard if that has happened.
I have the same situation as the above club members. It wasn't util just recently at I was informed that they were no longer in business. And if it wasn't for a lady from another company with a similar name to "suncoast" I wouldn't have had this information. We were taken for $3000.00 and not happy about it. Something needs to be done about companies that scam you. I will be filing a complaint with the FL Att. Gen. as well
We also have received very poor service and results from this company. After bogus promotional attempts like free gas and no promised airline tickets; we get run-arounds on scheduling bookings with no real offers of savings going through their program or discounts. As far as we are concerned they robbed us. We have a lot of details and notes of our conversations with agents of this company revealing their inflexibility and utter lack of cooperation to what we initially thought would be requests of vacation travel that a legitimate travel agency could easily follow through. The only service Suncoast Vacations has provided us since October 2007 is LIP SERVICE, a whole bunch of "cannot allow", and countless excuses. Meanwhile, as a further insult, they continue to debit our account $225.00 annually!! We have not booked ANY travel plans with Suncoast Vacations...it was like facing a stone wall if we were able to get in contact with this group.
Please keep us posted as we also intend to file our complaints with the Fla. Atty General
I just got an invoice in the mail about service fees, I already finished paying my balance in full about $4,000 to this company and have not used any of their vacation packages. I called them this morning and talked to a representative and she told me to fax a signed note to terminate membership and I have been faxing for the past hour with no answer from this company. They are not even answering my fax or phone calls. I am so frustrated and very angry that they can't even have the decency to answer the fax! I tried four years ago to challenge them in getting my money back and they made it so difficult for me to get a refund and to contact them. This company should be stopped from scamming anymore.
Any one know of a class action suit let me Know, Used them once and the hotel was horrible.
I am a member since 2007,and also feel we are being abused and scammed. We have used this service only twice in 5 years, and were not satisfied with the locations,very poor quality accomadations, I would rank them 1 star, because you can't rank lower.In both instances I never recieved my first choice,and I've paid the yearly service charge and also lost some of the bonus due to time and availabilty during the first year.if you don't use the vacations you still have to pay a yearly service charge on top of paying the expensive membership, which offers no advantages. a local travel agent can do better and you don't have to pay anything.
PLEASE ADVICE OF ANY CLASS ACTION SUIT. ALSO FORWARD ME THE INFO OF ANY LAWYER OR FIRM HANDLING THE SUIT
Iam the person that contacted SEN. Mike Fasano about SunCoast Vacations being Crooks ! He forwarded the materials of SCV To the State attorney,who began the investigation! That is now
5 years ago!!!There are well over 800 hundred of us who have been SCAMMED! IN OUR CASE OVER $4000!
I was told over a year ago that there would be
a court case in a month or two !!!As you know there has been nothing !! They have all the info they need ! The 5 years of investigation has been done and they have all they need to go to court!
The AG office has dragged its foot long enough! The AG office is supposed to protect it citizens!
It is time for those of us to contact the TV & newspaper media to see why this has taken 5 years! again and get this back on the table !!! And get a new AG or go to court! !!! GJM ..
We were ripped off by Suncoast-Vacations. We paid in full $5800 on March 7, 2008. We used it once and it was not that great. We have not had any luck since. We would really like something to be done about this company, they just rip off customers. We would at least like some of our money back. Thank you.