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Cozumel Trip Report
Posted by Gottapass@aol.com on 11/05/01

Reef Club scam

Early in July my Wife and I were vacationing in Cozumel. While walking down the main street we were continually hounded by car rental agents from J&E rentals. On a Sunday morning one offered us a "great deal", $20.00 rental including insurance (which they tried to charge us for in the end) and a hour of our time to listen to a presentation and a "free" breakfast thrown in. We
agreed, got our Beachboy (really sharp looking, crappy running, rental) and off we went to Reef Club of Cozumel. Upon arrival we were treated like royalty, great breakfast friendly people until we start "the process". We were shown a model (the only one completed) and escorted to a sales room. Mike O'ree was our sales person, pretty typical of what you would imagine, slapping you on the back while reaching for your wallet smiling the whole time. From the minute we sat down we were lied to. We were told this wasn't a time share but we would be purchasing a block of "POINTS" that we could spend as we chose in one of two catalogues shown us. It works like this..you use a certain amount of points from 3 to 7. per week depending on the accomodations and time of year.  The first book is from RCI. They hit you with a lot of meaningless facts about RCI so read between the lines. It's supposed to be the largest travel agent in the world. OR you could use your points at one of "their" properties(pay attention now). You're shown another thinner book that shows a map of the Caribbean displaying 15 properties that you can spend your points at. At this point we became more interested as we travel mostly through the Caribbean. Make a long story short we bit and bought 75 points about $8,000 usd. A couple of days later I went back to the sales office to try to spend three of my points to go to Grand Cayman in August. Come to find out there are NO... 15 properties through the Caribbean. We were lied to, there are only three, the Reef Club we were at, and two others in Mexico. We immediately canceled our contact (which has to be done there,in writing,and within five days. We are awaiting our refund with our fingers crossed. The Reef Club Resort is extremely nice and we would have enjoyed it more if not for the "business" we had to take care of. Warning...If it sounds to good to be true......RUN!!! or Take the deal on the rental car, eat the breakfast and have the only thing you can say is NO!
> Happy Days!  :)  10/18/01 Our credit company has saved us. We are free from this scam. "Word of warning" if you do get into this presentation for "points" listen very carefully, ask
a million questions,don't rush into emotional decisions, WAIT 24 hours to sign anything (they will still take your money tommorow) READ & UNDERSTAND the contract........then run! The Reef Club itself was very nice, food was very good (minus the enormous amount of flies) , and the staff especially the General manager and Gonzales one of the waiters were superb. I am in the Hospitality business so this IS a qualified judgement, enjoy,..... but be careful.

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