Sunset World Resorts & Vacation Experiences review: Fraud and dishonesty! 64

The whole travel club membership is FRAUD. The member service lie about everything, you cannot get an honest answer to any inquiry. I have lost thousands of dollars as well to these people. DO NOT TRUST ANYTHING THEY TELL YOU! Please if the is a class action lawsuit against this company, include me in it. They epitomize disgraceful business dealings!

Hey. I was víctima of this Sunset Royal Scam as well. One year and a half trying ho get this fixed and all I get is poor traatment from Sales Reps when I call. Anyone able yo get out of this? How?

I am a victim too, like everyone else I have been scammed by this company, please let me know if there is a lawsuit being filed to get these [censored]!

I almost got scammed myself. I insisted that they email me the properties that are offering n the package as destinations. They refuse. "You get a detailed email after paying for the package, there will be a link where you can make your payment". Very unusual procedure. I asked for the details of multiple travel destinations package. The initial contact person posted on FB that she is a supervisor in a Cancun Resorts and she wants to sell her vacation. What a lead in! She added that the package is a great value, that it is transferable, and has no expiration date. I promised nothing. I said I'll keep an open mind.
Then she had someone call me to close the deal. I refused to proceed and insisted travel package detail. Her "closer" finally agreed to text me the details. I looked at the internet those properties and added up the costs if bought separately as needed. The combined costs was equal to or greater than what was being offer. So there is no value or savings hence, there was no benefit for buying the package amidst the Pandemic when international travel is still restricted. When I asked who is really the travel agency that I am paying to, they were vague about it. I politely declined the offer.

The initial contact who pose in FB as a supervisor in a Cancun resort blasted me with abusive text for not pursuing the offer. Remember at first she said she was trying to sell her vacation as an employee. When I did not take the bite, she texted that she needed to sell at least 7 of these to supplement her income!
I became suspicious these series of complaints of others. They offer via text Ocean Spa Hotel and Laguna Suites and Spa under the website: www.sunsetworldresorts.com. The above comments confirmed my suspicion of a potential scam.

Since I was not conned into buying the travel package, I can not confirm that each of those properties are complicit with this apparent scam. I can not confirm that the person on the FB is not really a supervisor in a Cancun resort as she portrays that she is. Something is really off. Beware!

We purchased our Sunset Fisherman's timeshare 10 years ago, my daughter and son-in-law also bought when we did. After years of going we were surprised about 4 years ago and taken to Tres Rios for our week because of renovations at Sunset Fisherman. Unfortunately, the stay there started off with a sales pitch to upgrade to this destination. When we offered to give them Sunset Fisherman's contract on an even even trade they made us sign a contract that said we could not stay or visit Tres Rios in the future. Our original contract told us that we could use those or any other Sunset property at any time. (By the way when we returned to Fisherman's the next year, no improvements to the property were noticed) We paid our timeshare off and now just see the maintenance fees increasing every year. At the bottom of our most recent maintenance invoice (doubled for updating property) purposes, there is a statement: "would you like to stop paying maintenance fees? please ask me how: maintenancefee@sunset.com.mx". Guess what? No such website! Are you surprised, you shouldn't be. We will not pay anymore maintenance fees and will not return to any Sunset Property. Sue me [censored]es!

Hi! Has anyone successful stopped paying maintenance fees? We had enjoyed going to the Sunset Royal in Cancun for many years. We did not buy the all-inclusive. We liked going out & trying different restaurants. Now that my husband has passed away & I had a stroke, I cannot use & pay the fees! Has anyone had succes contacting a lawyer or another company to get out of their timeshare? I cannot even sell mine for $1.

I have evidence showing the lies and how Sunset promotes it´s memberhsip.

If someone wants to make a discussion forum and share information, contact me ...

sunsetgrouplies@hotmail.com

The first thing you need to watch out for is the timeshare sales pitch. Timeshare vendors often encourage people to go to a timeshare sales presentation by offering incredible prizes if they stay the entire presentation. Also, they will tell you that you are making an excellent financial investment, and that you can rent or sell your timeshare weeks for a profit. So, if you listen to these promises, you better go away, is probably that you will become a victim of a Royal Sunset Timeshare.

Salesperson promises to buy back the timeshare at a better price should the client ever decide that they no longer want to use it. http://www.timesharescam.com/

Salesperson promises to buy back the timeshare at a better price should the client ever decide that they no longer want to use it.
Salesperson promises that they can rent out their weeks for over 4 times the price of the maintenance fee. They can choose to use some weeks and rent others so that they have free vacations, or rent them all so that they can pay off their membership quicker. The clients are referred to a rental company that charges them a listing fee to market the property and does not rent any weeks.
In the presentation, they claim that the all-inclusive is for corporate weeks only, and for regular weeks they can choose whether or not to pay for the all-inclusive. In reality, all-inclusive is mandatory for usage at all their Cancun locations. http://www.timesharescam.com/

You know what they say: "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" My husband and I were scammed in Cancun with a Royal Elite Timeshare last August. They promise you everything and deliver NOTHING! We were sucked in by their promise to get us a balcony for an inside cabin rate. We do alot of cruising and thought-Wow this is really a great deal. However, it turned out to be more of a great rip off since everything they told us was a lie. Fortunately we only joined the club and NOT buy a timeshare. That was enough though. $2, 000 down t he drain. They gave us 4 of those worthless vouchers for Sandos resorts which are also worthless. That HSI exchange is suppose to sell the vouchers for you at at least $500 is also abunch of bull. Please don't fall for anything that has Royal Elite's name on it. I'm in the process of calling the BBB and seeing what they can do. Possibly the attorney General also! These are more complaints about this resort:

http://www.timesharescam.com/timeshare-complaints-resorts-black-list/6-royal-elite-sandos-timeshare-complaints/

I know how you feel, and it seems like this is a common problen in Mexico. I purchased a travel program through Sandos Playacar at Royal Elite Timeshare Resort in Playa del Carmen last March and I requested to cancel within the 5 day grace period but they still have not refunded my down payment of over $9000 US dollars. I have been in touch with people there and they say they are working the process but it takes time. It has now been almost 5 months and I am losing faith they will ever pay me back. This is another forum with more complaints about this company:

http://www.timesharescam.com/timeshare-complaints-resorts-black-list/6-royal-elite-sandos-timeshare-complaints/

I believe we should do something about it, as I understand Mexican regulations forbid the offering of gifts, free vacation certificates or any other promotion strategies without informing the consumer the specific purpose of the offer. I want to complaint with PROFECO about this, and get my money back

We are unfortunately on the same boat as everyone else. We have tried many times now to practice their "Buy Back" option which was promised to us on their presentation when we purchased. Of course they continue to respond with the "we are not interested at this time" for the past 2 years. It is sooo frustrating to know that business like these continue to exist and rob others of their hard earned money. I would be very interested in a class action lawsuit also. Please contact me if anyone is able to find a better way to deal with these criminals. zillayh@gmail.com

We are also victims of Sunset Group. Unfortunately we didnt realize we were being scammed until later. We have NEVER even gotten a chance to use this timeshare so we decided to try the "buy back" option. Of course after trying for almost 2 years, we have been constantly been given the " not interested at this time" respond. I would also be interested in any class action lawsuits or any way to getting our money back. Please contact me at zillayh@gmail.com

Same thing happened to us. We purchased the membership in 2008 for Tres Rios cancun and went to the resort for the first time this year. While we were there they started to pressure us about meeting with them - since it was our first trip back - so they can tell us how much the value of our purchased had gone up. We told them that we were there to relax and did not want any meeting. I can't even begin to tell you how they continually bother us to meet...with a promise that it was not to sell us anything but just to provide us with new information. We finally caved in and agreed to meet the last day that we were there. I totally regret this. They kept us there for almost 4 hours pressuring us to upgrade our contract to receive extra weeks and other privileges. I can't begin to tell what a horrible experience it was. We kept telling them that we had some place to go and were late and we needed to leave. They kept bring a new person to promise us more and after 4 hours I was so nervous and couldn't think anymore - we agreed and gave a deposit. BIG MISTAKE! However since it was our last day there, when we got back the very next day I called to cancel the contract upgrade as was my right according to - THE EARLY TERMINATION OF THE CONTRACT paragraph in our contract. We were well within our 5 business day window. I emailed the contract attorney that was at the meeting to inform him of our decision to cancel and if I sent an email was it legal and he said it was and there would not be a problem. I also sent registered letters immediately just to be sure and cover all angles. They had already charged my credit card for the deposit. I got a call for a Jose Aguirre, who said he represented the Corporate Membership Services and the legal department. He very nicely said that they would refund my deposit - HOWEVER there was a reactivation fee - to reactivate my old contract at a cost that was more that the upgrade cost. Now there is no mention in any part of the contract of any reactivation fee, "so how could this be legal" I asked and he told me that it was there policy. Well! You can imagine that I that point I knew something was wrong with this and I was dealing with cons. I kept going back and forth with them. Since we had already paid for our first contract we felt we couldn't afford to let that go so when they offered to give us two other options we listened. The first was to continue with the upgrade - which we did not want. The second was - they would keep our deposit as the activation fee and gives us 20 extra corporate weeks and a paid membership for two years with Ice Gallery, which is suppose to be worth thousands according to them. We accepted the second option. This was in March and up until this day they still haven't paid our membership to Ice Gallery. I keep calling but to no avail.

I wrote them and informed them that they were in breach of our contract - for failure to honor refund policy stated in the contract and for undisclosed or unsubstantiated charges, not mention in contract and for service never received. I would very much like to escalate this and would be willing to be part of a class action suit, but I don't know where to go from here. If anyone has information on contacts I would appreciate the info. They have an office in Miami - which they do business from there. I'd like to see if any of our government agencies can at least stop them from doing business in the U.S.

It's such a shame that these crooks are taking advantage of vacationers. Same happened to me in Playa del Carmen. but this timeshare by Royal Elite/Sandos. We attended the presentations just to get the freebies, , after 4 hours, we started to get a little frustrated, we just wanted to go out of there, we didn't care about the free gifts anymore, the swore the product they were selling wasn't a timeshare, but pretty damn sure it was. NEVER again, I feel sorry for the people who end up falling for the Royal Elite Timeshare trap. Beware of timeshare scams in Mexico! this is a forum with more complaints made to royal elite:

http://www.timesharescam.com/timeshare-complaints-resorts-black-list/6-royal-elite-sandos-timeshare-complaints/

We purchased a timeshare contract with Royal Sunset Beach Club after a VERY high pressure sales presentation that lasted for several hours with our 2 small boys in tow (ages 5 & 1 at the time) July 22, 2006 at the beginning of a week long vacation in Cancun (we were not leaving until day #6 & there was no readily available means to further evaluate this contract plus the 6 month delay to even access any of the "proposed benefits" presented in the contract / presentation). In addition to the fraudulent timeshare contract fee (discrepancies noted below) we were also required to pay an additional fee of $549 to Resorts International Marketing Corp. for exchange purposes and for Sunset to use first several years worth of weeks as credit towards contract fee. This was also to be used for rental purposes to provide rental income for our timeshare as an investment.

As multiple issues became apparent with our contract, we referred back to pages 5-6 regarding clauses 12, 13 and 14 that paraphrased states "Failure on the part of the "Promoter" to provide the service means the penalty is then that the "Promoter" is obliged to reimburse all amounts paid by the "Member" for the undelivered services. We attempted on a number of occasions to work out the issues with Sunset and their only solution was 1) either to continue to pay on the fraudulent contract or 2) to accept a contract cancellation with no refund of our monies already paid to Sunset (neither of those options were acceptable).

After multiple attempts to rectify the situation we escalated our complaint to PROFECO as well as registering our complaint with econsumer.gov. Our primary problems are:

1. FRAUD (charge #1) - Pg. 1 of Membership Purchase Agreement shows balance financed as $9, 815.00, however Amortization schedule, pg. 1 shows balance financed as $10, 295 in addition to the fact that this was financed at a 6.9% interest rate. There is nothing stated in the contract
to justify the additional $480 added to the $9, 815.00 balance.

2. FRAUD (charge #2) - Pg. 1 of Membership Purchase Agreement shows annual maintenance fee is $719 which matches the fee for Cancun Sunset Club (Royal Sunset - on the beach), however when 2008 week was paid for Royal Sunset, the week that space banked with RCI was for Sunset Lagoon which has a lower maintenance fee of $616 per the 2006 schedule. Therefore we are being charged a higher maintenance fee and receiving a lesser accommodation exchange with RCI.

3. UNAUTHORIZED ATTEMPT TO ACCESS OUR CREDIT CARD - 6/8/2010 documentation showed verification from our bank that Sunset tried not once BUT twice to access our Visa Card for $822 on May 17, 2010 & again on June 1, 2010 (which Sunset denied the first time I notified them regarding
the May 17 charge, in an email dated Sat. May 22, 2010 @ 12:56 PM).

In addition to these serious issues, other problems noted, included:
1. Interclub transfer was not just an even exchange for only $89 as presented - instead Sunset tacked on additional fees that basically came to the full price of a week long hotel rental at an Interclub resort. The majority of resorts available through the interclub program were some of the worst rated resorts in the RCI manual.
2. Resorts International Marketing Corp. was not the rental program that was presented and that Sunset required us to pay an additional fee for. Once we initiated the contract dispute / cancellation, we were told that the RIMC fee would be refunded but after 2 unauthorized attempts to charge our credit card, I am leery of providing that information to them again.
3. Billing discrepancies of not charging the biennial maintenance fee when they had the credit card info on file and were charging monthly payments and then charging us a late fee. Charging our credit card for the monthly finance fee after we had contacted Sunset and told them specifically they were no longer authorized to debit payments from our card (late 2009). After this they charged our credit card and cashed a "check" payment for the same month's payment. This took several months to correct.
4. Multiple issues requiring emails and phone calls to get the RCI membership fee paid that was in the contract and also to take care of various other administrative issues with limited response.

While Sunset continues to argue their case to illegally keep our money during negotiations with PROFECO, we are continuing to present justification to prove our point of Sunset's failure to uphold the terms of our contract (clauses 12, 13 and 14) and the fraudulent means they have taken to maintain this position. I will continue contacting appropriate websites and agencies to present and/or post my case and the ongoing issues I have with Sunset and their goal to keep our money.

Thank you for your time and if anyone has any further suggestion regarding how to solve this, please let me know. email: gatorpachris@hotmail.com

just got a call from them..there number is [protected] and the manager is named nelson..they were offering an 80% off on my wife for a vacation..good thing my wife is not at home and i'm the one who answered there call..i turned them down telling them that i can't decide yet and i need to talk to my wife..the guy is a filipino..i knew that cause i too am a filipino and he keeps on talking filipino dialect when he knew that i'm from the philippines..when he knew that i can't decide, he abruptly put the phone down..and because i feel bad of what he did, i tried to open my computer to see there website and file a complain on there customer service..but this is what i saw..a lot of complain and soon i realize that good thing i didn't fall for this scam..thank you all for posting this..you did really help a lot..just a simple advice, see more details before you decide..they are good, very good..but too good to be true..(Mr. J from California)

The Sunset Group is a scam. They tell you lies to make you buy their packages. I bought their package and regret it very much. I wish I had done some research about them...Ocean Spa Hotel, Laguna Suites Golf and Spa, Premier Cancun Vacations are all part of the Sunset Group.

They just called my house. Never spoke to them before. As the caller went on and on about this great deal, I googled them and page after page there were sites, like this, exploiting them for what they are. I want to thank all of you for your posts. I am sorry they stole your money, scammed you, but am glad that you are warning people, like me. I basically told the woman on the phone that I was reading posts about them and they were not good. Then told her I know they are scammers and not to bother me anymore.

These guys are scammers and worst is that the Mexican Government lets them do to who ever they want.
We contacted the Mexican Embassy in Canada who told us “Ill help you” and guess what we never heard back. Go figure.
Mexicans are Mexicans they have no scruple and actually enjoy ripping hard working people off that they don’t have to work hard they are all scammers and probably in some type of Mexican Mafia.

Unfortunately we used to enjoy going to Mexico many times in the past but now we will never go to Mexico or buy anything that is made there.

We should all boycott that country.

The tmeshare industry in Mexico is taking almost a Billion Dollars every year from Americans and Candians. They are taking away their earnest money based on lies and misrepresentation. I have collected evidence to support the claims of thousands of people deceived from this company. Share this info with your general attorney, the Federal Trade Commsision, the Consulate of Canada and USA in Cancún as well as any government agency that you believe might be interested in putting pressure in the Mexican Government to stop these companies from scamming more honest people.

Please visit this website (specially the video section) to know in detail how these companies operate.

www.sunsetscam.com
www.sunsetscam.com
www.sunsetscam.com
www.sunsetscam.com
www.sunsetscam.com
www.sunsetscam.com

We have the same story as you. Same lies...A class action is not possible, you would have to sue them in Mexico. Try Profeco, and don't take no for an answer. We were able to get our contract cancelled and $1, 000 of our $14, 000 back. So many have been ripped off it's amazing that the Mexican gov't allows these crooks to continue to operate.

They got me too. I actually thought we had a decent price, and wanted the deal to work. But they lied about everything. We couldn't get reservations 9 months in advance. Our "VIP week" couldn't be booked at all. We couldn't use the 2 weeks concurrently (travel w/family). We couldn't extend a stay (at our cost) ouside of the proscribed 7 days. I did talk to the Tourist Police & a couple of quasi-consumer agencies the next time I was in Mexico, but everyone was extremely not helpful. I got a kick out of the Bilingual such & such agency for consumer complaints that was staffed by Spanish-only speaking staffers; not too helpful given my pidgin Spanish. If there is somesort of class action please count me in

My wife and I had a bad experience with them also. At the airport they offered us nice rental SUV for the whole week for $99 if we would tour the "hotel". Basically, we gave them $99 cash, and then rented the car for 1 week, and they would give us a form to cover the rental at the end of the tour. I got suspicious when they kept adding 'requirements' to the tour that they did not mention before we rented the vehicle. Things like, you must be a married couple, must bring a credit card, must stay for the whole presentation. I wanted to cancel but my wife wanted the SUV for the week.

I agreed, but we agreed that if things got too far out of control we would walk out and just pay for the rental which was through hertz and eat the rental cost. The tour was nice, then came the HIGH pressure sales pitch. They started out at $300K for 4 weeks, plus you pay $99/per person per day every time you come, plus $1000 per year per week maintenance fees. I kept writing down there numbers and showing them how they provided no value compared to what we pay just by renting. The 90 minute presentation took 6 hours and they tag teamed 3 sales people on us trying to wear us down. By the end of the day they were down to $4000 for a 10 week base, + 10 weeks options, + 10 weeks corporate giveaways, + a free cruise for a 10 year contract. And every deal included the $1000 per week maintenance fee and $99/perday/person to come to the resort which is no deal considering that is 2x the amount I pay by NOT being a member of the club. At that point though I had caught them in so many lies and fraudulent claims that I just kept saying NO NO NO. Some of the lies:

1. There is equity in the "purchase". Big lie. I insisted on reading a sample contract under the guise of, if I like it I'll sign. It says right in the contract that you own nothing, it is a membership fee. I asked that if I decided I didn't like the "private residency" after using it a year or two from now, and since they claim these "private residencies ONLY go up in value" would they agree to buy it back from me at the same cost I paid. After all, they claimed it only went up in value and I was willing to agree in-writing to sell it back to them AT-COST if I ever decided I didn't want it. Of course they refused. That proved to me they were lying about the value of the "product". And they have right of refusal if the owner tries to sell it themselves. The contract also says a sale or transfer may take "60 days to a year and even that is not guaranteed."

2. They said it was tax deductible. It's a lie. The document they show is a complete fake. Ask to use the internet to download the real form from the IRS. Or tell them to hold on for a minute and use a cell phone to call your accountant or tax-professional. That really shakes them up.

3. The resort they showed us "Tres Rios", is not even listed in the contract as part of the deal. Lie #3. At this point I asked them to put away the marketing material and let's review the contract line-by-line so I "understand what you are selling".

4. I wanted to see what they were required to provide to us in the contract. All it says is "access to services". It does not guarantee you any actual access to a room for any amount of time. It does not guarantee any level of quality of the room. It does not say what "services" are. They showed us 1 great looking room, but would not allow us to randomly select an empty room in the building to check. They would not allow us to roam the facility or talk to any of the guests. When I pressured them about a guarantee regarding the quality of the room and services they completely balked. All they would say is "that is what your maintenance fee guarantees". My answer was that "the maintenance fee guaranteed they got paid to provide quality, not that I actually would get it."

5. If a hurricane destroys the building, there is no required repair or fix. And you cannot trade your 'private residence' to go somewhere else if it is destroyed.

6. The contract referenced a set of "rules" that we had to follow and says we agreed that we were shown the rules and agree to them. I asked to see the rules and they changed the subject. They refused to show me these mysterious rules.

7. I asked to take the contract home to have a lawyer review and if OK I would mail them a check and signed documents. They refused. They said they cannot do business via phone, fax, or email. I said "I said mail, not phone, not fax, and not email". They still refused to let me leave with a copy of the unsigned contract to review with an attorney. They offered to let me review with their on-sight lawyer but I refused that for obvious reasons.

8. If you pressure them. they will admit that trading your private residency with someone else costs $189 each time. Membership in RCI is extra and you have to pay that yourself if you want to trade any of your time at another resort.

9. They said we could come anytime to use our 'week'. But the contract actually lists only 7 months out of the year that we are allowed to use our "week".

At the end of the day, staying at an all-inclusive private residency 1week that they say I would 'own' would cost $971 maintenance fee + $99/pp/pd x 2 people x 7 days = $2357 not including any trade fees. While staying at the all-inclusive hotel we booked in cash only cost about $1000 for the whole week for the two of us. What a rip off and that's before considering the "membership fee" which varied but I had them down to $4000 for 10 years.

The whole thing is a rip off as far as I can tell and very stressful for anyone. I'll never agree to waste a full day of my vacation with these scammers again. I'd rather just pay for the SUV rental and enjoy my vacation. They did honor the initial agreement and pay for the SUV rental, and our transportation to and from the resort. But I had to say NO about a thousand times and really dig into them for details to essentially prove to them that they are rip off artists. It was very uncomfortable going back and forth with people that I caught in lie after lie, and half-truths, all day especially since we felt "captive". After coming home and investigating some more, I feel lucky to have gotten away from them alive.

What is your contact christina?

Hello If anyone is filing an Action Lawsuit against them please contact me, Thank you.

If there is an Action Lawsuit going on some one please contact me thank you

Have you had any luck with your fight against these crooks? Our story is similar only we were foolish enough to pay in full and at our first opportunity to use the resort we were refused a reservations with over six months notice. There are so many complaints, is a class action lawsuit possible?

Our experience was similar:
On August 31, 2007, my wife and I attended a sales presentation at Sunset Fishermen’s Village in Playacar. After a lengthy and compelling presentation given by Jose Luis Hernandez and Patricio Muldowney, my wife and I agreed to purchase a membership.
On September 5, 2007, we notified Patricio Muldowney, a sales manager at Sunset Fishermen’s, of our intention to exercise our rights and cancel our contract within the 5 working days provided under Article 56 of Mexican Federal Consumer Protection law. Mr. Muldowney agreed to help us facilitate our request to terminate our contract, but when we had arrived at the office later that afternoon, we were told by Jose Luis Hernandez that Mr. Muldowney was “sick”, and had left the office for the day. We then informed Mr. Hernandez of our intention to exercise our rights under Mexican law and cancel our contract. Mr. Hernandez told us at that time that we could not cancel our contract, and he refused to accept our cancellation, either orally or in writing. Mr. Hernandez and another sales associate presented us with a copy of a document entitled “Marketing Agreement”, which he claimed waived our rights to cancel our contract, even though this waiver is not implicitly or explicitly stated in the Marketing Agreement document, and directly contradicts Mexican consumer law, which states that the right to cancel a contract cannot be “waived”.
Additionally, we have repeatedly requested a copy of the catalog promised us so that we may exercise our additional membership privileges, but were recently informed by customer service representative Alvaro Cardena that we would not receive a catalog for as long as 90 days.
We are seeking an immediate cancellation of our membership, and an immediate refund of all monies paid, for the following reasons:
1. By not allowing us to exercise our rights to cancel our contract within the time period set by Mexican law, Jose Luis Hernandez, Patricio Muldowney, Alvaro Cardena, Rosalie Silva, Jennifer Snyder, and other participating members of the Sales, Marketing, Management, and Legal staff employed by Sunset Fishermen’s violated Mexican law and committed fraud. This effectively nullifies the contract.
2. Sunset Fishermen’s is in breach of contract because of their failure to deliver the membership materials promised to us. As a result of this failure, we have not been able to exercise the membership privileges promised to us.
Sunset has thus far refused to refund nearly six thousand U.S. dollars, and has turned our account over to their collection agency, RMI.