Last night we got a call from great vacation destinations saying that we had won a trip after having entered a ballot at the wedding show last weekend. We filled out every ballot that we could there, so it was possible that we won. Woo-hoo!
It sounded great. 7 night vacation. It included a 2 night cruse, 3 nights in orlando, a rented car for a week, tickets to disney land. Somewhere in their spiel there was a 3 night vacation to cancun and 2 days in Las Vegas. Sweet.
All we had to do is pay the small administrative fee that we "knew about already" and the airfare. But what a vacation! Let me tell you more about it!
If you didn't pick up on that, our "free vacation" turned into a "fee vacation". Oh, and we'd have to sit through a small 2 hour sales pitch at one point of the trip. What was the price of this admin fee you ask? 399 USD per person. All we had to do is tell her our credit card number. Oh ya, we weren't allowed to hang up and call her right back.
So we were like "no, we can't afford it right now" to which the sales girl responded "that's why we put it on your credit card, so you can pay it back in little chunks". Riiiight. No thank you. For anything that we win, I don't expect to have to pay several thousand $ to take advantage of it.
So, in other words we didn't take advantage of it. Laura also pointed out that on their website, the "contact us" and "about us" links aren't even active. Doesn't inspire confidence that it's not a scam. I think that it's as close to a scam with it still being legal. Another funny thing that the sales girl said: that we "won" because we fit the right demographic. I'm a little sad 'cause that means we are in the "young and stupid" demographic. Ah well.
I heard about this same company before. Obvously, you did the right thing. Some people went to the session, and they were literaly bullied.
ReplyDeleteYou were way too nice to them. That whole "we can't afford it right now" thing isn't going to stop them. Start with trying to see if the person on the other end has any problems with trying to scam people out of money. Ask them if they feel good about how they make their living. Then, ask them if what they're doing is legal, and maybe even report the call to the police. They may not have gotten you, but i'm sure they got a few others. The cops love to bust people doing this kind of scam, because it creates really good press.
ReplyDeleteI'm from Vancouver,BC and my friends and I just recieved call from the same company. Luckily, both of didn't fall into the trap... be really careful!!!!
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