My wife and I were invited to attend a presentation by Royal Palm Center (name of the company that was given to me when angel called us), but found out that the name of the company is Royal Palm Travel. Also we were ask to go to 13355 Noel Rd Galleria 1 Tower, Suite 1800, but found out it is at suite 1850 . Angel told me that in exchange of listening, we will get the following gifts : a $1000 gift card and a $300 gas card. When we were invited, Angel told us to that we would listen to a presentation for household products. Tuesday night after we were greeted, a guy named Adam McBride presented the product as a deep discounted travel program. The program was impressive such as going to Italy for a 7 days stay in a house by the beach for about $2300 instead that more than $7000. After the presentation a Adrian…. tried to sell us the travel package for $8995 + 399 doc fee +199 for yearly maintenance fee. To convince us, he reduced the price to $6995+399+199, still we were not convinced, he reduced to $2595 for the whole package. When my wife said that she will not give that amt of money upfront, the guy left and another guy came. This time, he offered $25 a month fee ‘till we paid the $2595 package deal. Lucky us, we insisted that we do not like the package. The package seems to be too good to be true. Anyway, we left with the gift that they promised us, $1000 gift cert and $300 gas cert. Suspecting that there is was a death fish going on, we decided to go to the website to claim the $1000 cert. The website is www .keshoppingonline.com. You need a special code to open the retail page. This is also, we believe, a fraud. Imagine, buying an item where the amount of shipping is greater than the amt of the item to be purchased. We are lucky, we lost only 3 hours and did not lose any money. These people will really suck any blood that you have. I am writing this to warn people about these fraud practices. I indicated the address and the name of the company. On the way out we met a couple that was promised a 2008 Cadillac SUV. They also did not get the price and were planning to complain to the BBB. The phone number given to us has been busy. [protected].
Please don't fall for these slimy leaches. They deserve hell.
Good job recognizing their game and not letting them steal your money! I have done a lot of research into this "business" and I am convinced that it is all a big scam and it has been going on for a very long time.
They put a hard sell on you to get you to sign on the dotted line of their contract then they have you! If you catch onto their game and cancel within three days, they will still keep up to $1750 (if you paid the initial asking price of $8995) for nothing. They call it a 15% restocking fee and $399 processing fee. Worse yet, if you don't catch onto them fast enough and cancel within the three days, you are just out of luck because you will be out the full high price you paid for the misrepresented travel club membership. There is no satisfaction guarantee or anything you can do to get a refund from them even when you try to reason with them about their deceptive business practices.
The free gifts are a scam too. Anyone interested can look for themselves into the complaint history of Freebeegas.com and Worldwide Travel Center.
Read on if you want to know more details that my research revealed…
I have traced it all back to a guy named William H. Bailey who lives at 18686 Country Club Lane, Carlinville, IL 62626. His personal travel related businesses were shut down fairly recently after a BBB lawsuit against him but this kingpin keeps it going by recruiting other people to register distributor businesses to sell his travel club membership. The membership club has gone by many names. One of which is Funseekers Vacations. It is still a currently registered business in IL that was originally incorporated in DE but get this, it is registered to Bill Bailey's live-in girlfriend Christy Spensberger! Castaways Vacation Club is another name but I did not find the state of incorporation or registration. Same thing with the most recently contrived name they use which is SeaLand Travel. These are all one and the same mediocre travel service that does not live up to the claims that are made at the distributor presentations. Each have different toll free numbers but they all go to the same place. Bill still advertises looking for people who want to start a business to sell Castaways Vacation Club memberships.
This particular distributor, Royal Palm Travel in Dallas, is run by Adrian Miller who is just 27 years old but has learned the game well from Bill Bailey. Adrian lives at 1800 Hunters Ridge Dr. in Grapevine, TX. His cell phone number is [protected] but you won't get anywhere trying to reason with him. He is a slick con artist who will put on the hard sell again and try to persuade you that you are wrong about their con. Then he won't take your calls anymore if you don't fall for it again. It looks like he started a few years ago when he took over Beachcomber Vacations of Florida from Bill Bailey and it was then moved to Adrian’s homestate of Texas. He ran it as Beachcombers for a while then later renamed it to Phoenix Travel (or Phoenix Vacations). Now it is Royal Palm Travel. Actually the legally registered business name is Royal Palms Travel, Inc but in practice they don't put the "s" on the end of "palm" (part of the scam to create confusion).
They regularly create different business names in an apparent attempt to keep reinventing themselves so they can keep the scam going by disassociating themselves with the old businesses after they build up too many complaints. Most times the only physical address you will have is the office where they get people in to make the presentations but they won’t even receive mail there. It is just an office with a short term lease. They regularly create new business names and change office locations. For correspondence they hide behind mail drops at places like UPS Stores. They create just enough legitimacy to collect credit card payments and the credit card companies will take their side when you claim they have committed fraud against you. The contract you sign also firms up their position. It does not matter to the credit card company that the names of the businesses are fictitious and the addresses just go to mail drops. The credit card company may call the business and ask about it but they will believe their lies about the fictitious name and address maybe being a "sister company" or something to the legally registered name that was used to charge the credit card transaction. This is also very clever because the complaints build up against fictitiously named businesses and the real business name is kept clean. The fictitious names are often based on subtle changes to their legally registered name. Most of the time they will add or remove an "s" in the name or they change a word like use "travel" instead of "vacations". This creates confusion and keeping people confused is all part of the scam. They also make it very difficult to figure out who is really running the business and where it is physically located.
There is also another distributor that I found in Austin, TX who is selling the same club membership. This is Bon Voyage Travel and is run by Ron Schleppegrell who I found has a questionable history in the travel industry.
I have filed complaints with the BBB, FTC, and TX AG as well as put the word out to many message boards like this one. Some of us victims are even handing out flyers and talking to people outside their offices sharing our bad experiences to help inform people of what they are about to get into. I encourage others to please do the same.
These guys are very cocky and condescending because they have been getting away with it for so long and they feel untouchable but they will eventually be caught, heavily fined for their deceptive business practices, and shut down. For now though they are stealing a lot of money from honest hard working people by selling them on a dream of vacations for steep discounts that really do not exist. Beware of these snakes! Also note that they are in more states than just Texas. Oh and watch for their rebuttals right here where they will pretend to be satisfied customers.
This is just so unbelievable. I wasn't scammed by a travel company but the same gift (free gas) you talk about here was given to me.
Check out these links:
Freebee Gas — Fraudulent rebate service.html#c163344
and
Secure Gas Redemption — A scam, can't get any response
p s royal palms travel 13355 noel road, suite 1850 (18th floor), dallas, texas 75210.their current address! Please sue them on their ###.
Still at same address, however are doing business as All Inclusive Excursions. Rich was the speaker, Sheryl was the first sales person, Charlie was the 2nd sales person, Kyle was the verifier and Arnulfo is the customer service rep. Please contact me with any advice on getting a refund.
Omg same exact thing happened 2 us last month, we are in the process of filing a lawsuit because they refused 2 refund our money when we tried 2 cancel within 24 hrs! $4, 093. I need info for my lawyer, we are appalled that this is happening 2 so many people everywhere and they are getting away with it. Please give me any possible feedback and advice guys. My lawyer is trying 2 investigate who to actually file the lawsuit against. We sent out a demand letter and gave them ten days for our money in full, but I have a feeling this is definitely going 2 court ; and I just hope they get what they deserve.
Hi, my email is fred.riegle@hotmail.com. I was scamed last weekend. The speel sure changed to the actual. Lies, switch and bait, "trust me", I fell for it all. If you were taken by these people I'd like your advice or let's do something that might get us results. They're slick but we can fight it together.
Vacation clubs are a good deal if you use them and travel. If you don't travel then don't buy into one. If you did and want out because you have buyers remorse then you should have figured that out before you signed any contracts. In the state of Texas, you forfeit your right to cancel a transaction while doing business in the sellers place of business. For those of you who bought this and felt scammed, maybe next time you should find the balls to say no. Seriously, I doubt these people held a gun to your head and forced you to sign. I also find it hard to believe that people really think anything is free. How much of a mooch are you people, "It said free, " I am thinking there is no hope for the human race based on some of these comments. Look at Fred Riegle, he can't even construct a complete sentence or spell scammed correctly. It is probably better they have your money because from the sounds of it most of you are ###s. Not one person mentions the service or what they bought from these people. They just point fingers and say they want their money back. How were any of you lied to anyway? None of you have given a legitimate reason for a refund. Ronda put someone's complaints there... well Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world and I can show you complaints about them. Does that make you not want to make purchases there anymore? John MacKay wrote down an address and wants to sue. I have an address does he want to sue me too. M101 knows some people's names, I think he should get a refund too. Amaris, you tried within 24 hours, I guess you forgot that you forfeited that right since you lived in Texas... too bad man. Then there is Mike, his real name is Dauber Malachi, he's an ex con who used to work for them.
I know a woman who was the "ringleader and animal trainer" (her words) for this outfit in my area (to be named later, after the fallout) . and she is eat up with remorse and racked with guilt for her participation in this scam outfit. Once she learned how the business really works, she told Bill Bailey himself to go piss up a rope. The only goal in this organization is to separate you from your money.
Here are some more people involved with All Inclusive Excurions.
Chase Hooper, Jason Flores and Jerry Jackson.
I got scammed as well. I sent cancel letter the very next day. I disputed with credit card company. Credit Card company informs me that they can't do anything. I have filed with BBB though not confident something will happen.
Here is some info to those who can google during presentation. Once you leave the place, then your life gets difficult.
www.sealandtravelclub.com
member # SL3106AI
passowrd: 0015
Feel free to compare the travel prices with reputable sites like vacationstogo.com, kayak.com.
Amaris - you need to sue the name of the sales office where you joined. That is who is actually selling you the lies. You are going to need some proof however where they promised you "upfront" discounts as this is what they cannot produce. Never will they beat your price if you use kayak.com or by using funjet.com or applevacations.com directly. The only perk out of this program is getting an after travel rebate, they call it. This tends to be 50 - 75% of the commission they are receiving for your travel purchase. Sure its something you would not get back from your local travel agent or if you were to book on your own, but was it worth the upfront $4, 000? Ya, okay they also provide the service of searching for the best deal, they claim, but when they dont call you back for a week or two, are you really getting efficient customer service?