The Villa Group, Universal Vacation Club, ResortCom International, Constructora Los Arcos Del Cabo Resortcom.com, "The Club", Constructora de los arcos del cabo, s.a. de c.v., Universal Vacation Club, Robkis Marketing FRAUD, MISREPRESENTATION, SCAM ARTISTS, SHARKS, DO NOT STAY AT THEIR HOTELS OR ATTEND THEIR "TIMESHARE" PRESENTATIONS IN CABO, PUERTO VALLARTA, NUEVA VALLARTA, and in 2010 LORETO and CANCUN San Diego, California

Please, if you are reading this and have become so called "owners" of a Villa Group timeshare in Mexico or are considering purchasing a so called "timeshare"--Stop Paying These Scam Artists, Don't Do It!!!  After you are unsuccesful in trying to use your "timeshare" in the manner they present to you during your high pressure sales presentation...you will realize that you absolutely did not get a good deal nor are you going to save any money.  If and that is a big IF you finally get a booking, probably during a week you never would have normally gone on vacation and you want to trade it you will have to pay fee after fee to try to trade or use it for exchanging cruises (beware you can only exchange for cruises if you paid for a 1 bedroom unit--we were led to believe that studios could be exchanged.)

They collect your money via their front Resortcom.com and threaten you with collections and law suits and No Provisions to Cancel letters if you want to cancel your membership.  These are empty threats--did you notice they don't even have your social security information?  After purchasing our "timeshare" in Feb. 2008, my husband and I were led to believe we were buying proprietary interest in a studio unit at Villa del Arco and any time we've tried to use it we've run into road block after road block and nasty customer service agent after nasty customer service agent.  We tried to cancel as soon as we tried to use it which was around August of 2008 and were threatened that we couldn't cancel and were going to lose our $4300 deposit.

Recently I lost my job and my husband and I could no longer afford to keep paying our ~$200 per month "loan" payment.  I put "loan" in quotations because it isn't really a loan--you are paying for absolutley nothing except to be part of a facade--a vacation club.  A vacation club that promises you exceptional savings when in fact you can go on Orbitz...book a room at any one of their hotels a week before your trip at a lower rate than you would by booking a room a year in advance as a time share owner (if you could get a room...we tried and failed several times and we were supposed to get priorty as time share "owners"! Ha!).

The following is our story--We have tried from every angle to pay off this so called "timeshare" or to cancel but to no avail.  Now since I lost my job and after some heavy duty research and figuring out we've been scammed out of our hard earned money our goal is to recouperate our money that we have paid for nothing (as one of the resortcom customer representatives confirmed!!!!)

This is our letter that we've sent to the owners of Villa Group and the President--Robert Kistner--who just so happens to run a marketing business out of the same suite in San Diego that Villa Group, Universal Vacation Club, and Resortcom International work out of--WHAT A SCAM!!

August 6, 2009

To: Mr. Kistner, Mr. Gonzalez, Ms. Torres

We are writing this letter to notify your company of our dissatisfaction in the product and services provided by ResortCom, Universal Vacation Club, The Villa Group, and Constructora de Los Arcos del Cabo, S.A. de C.V.  On February 6^th 2008, while staying at the Villa del Palmar, in Cabo San Lucas, we were lured into a tour of the brand new Villa del Arco Resort with the promise of free gifts and hotel discounts.  We went on the tour and were very impressed with the amenities and styling of the new Villas del Arco resort.  The sales person, Valerie Nickle, showed us a two bedroom unit then a studio unit.  The product that was being represented for sale was ownership in these units in this resort.  When we reached the sales office, we had many questions.  We discussed with the salesperson the many benefits of timeshare ownership.  At the time of this discussion the terms timeshare and ownership were used in reference to the product we were being offered.  We were especially interested in the significant savings represented by the salesperson.  The salesperson also discussed with us membership in the Interval International.  The salesperson emphasized the tradeability of the Villa del Arco units at all levels (studio through 3 BR) through Interval.  She even cited examples of her own experience in trading her del Arco 1 Bedroom unit for exotic locations.  We spent at least an hour asking specific questions about this.  We tend to be spontaneous travelers and were assured that since we were interested in a winter week (the high season in Cabo) it would be no problem to book last minute trips and trade our week.  We were interested in going on cruises as well.  We were told that, should we decide to purchase a studio unit, that the unit would be tradeable for cruises on many of the popular cruise lines.  Finally, after the salesperson provided answers to our questions, we decided to purchase.  We were presented with pictures of the very units we had just toured at Villa del Arco, neatly arranged in a sales binder, with the full price of each unit clearly stated.  We were then presented with discounts and incentives for purchasing today.  We decided on one winter week in the Villa Del Arco Studio unit.  The price, including an additional summer week marketed as the Gold Week Option, was $15,595.  We were told that a deposit of $4,345 would be necessary to secure the unit today and that we could finance the remaining balance of $11250.  The final purchase process was very fast, and surprisingly they needed no personal information for the loan.  When we asked about this we were told that it was actually financed by the Mexican development company, Constructora de Los Arcos Del Cabo, but would be administered by the U.S. based ResortCom company.    We were very excited about our decision to own a piece of the brand new Villa Del Arco resort in Cabo San Lucas and even talked of referring our friends and family.  It wasnt until we returned home two days later that we began to experience some remorse about our decision, because of what we had heard from other owners during the remainder of our vacation who had experienced this sales pitch and failed to get what they thought they had purchased.  However, because we were told we would lose our deposit if we tried to cancel (which is also misrepresentativewe have since discovered under Mexican law we had 5 days to cancel with full refund of all money deposited) we decided to give it some time and see for ourselves if we could enjoy all the benefits of being timeshare owners. 

It wasnt until we tried to experience these benefits that the truth about what we had actually purchased was revealed.  Our first attempt to use the timeshare was when we attempted to book a cruise.  We paid for the maintenance fee and deposited the summer Gold Week for 2008 and called Interval International with the intent of booking a Mexican Riviera cruise.  After a lengthy conversation with the Interval travel agent, it was finally explained to us that cruises can only be exchanged with 1Bedroom units or larger.  Studio units do not qualify for this type of exchange.  We were naturally disappointed at the discovery that we had been misled by the salesperson.  We called the customer service number for ResortCom and demanded an explanation.  When we spoke to a ResortCom representative, the only thing they could do is refer us to the resort at which we purchased.  When asked, we said that we had purchased a Villa del Arco unit.  After a brief moment on hold, she told us that we were part of the Villa Del Palmar Group or VDP or Vill Group for short.  This confused us, since we were certain we had purchased at Villa Del Arco.  This raised more questions.  We called the number given for the Villa Group and learned that we had purchased a unit within the Villa Group and did not necessarily have ownership of a unit within the Villa Del Arco resort.  In the end, VDP refunded our maintenance fee for the summer Gold Week but not without spending hours on the phone speaking with many agents representing themselves as supervisors.  Realizing that the product we thought we purchased was misrepresented, we demanded a refund of our deposit and wanted to cancel our ownership.  It was explained to us that this was not possible and that if we failed to pay the full balance on our timeshare that we would go into foreclosure, the matter reported to the major credit bureaus as defaulting on the loan and that our account would go into collections.  Not wanting to tarnish our credit, we decided to give it one more chance.  That maybe, if were strategic about our vacation planning, we could still realize the benefits of timeshare ownership. 

The second incident happened in December 2008 when we attempted to deposit our 2008 Winter week to bank it for the following year.  We paid our maintenance fee on time and called to deposit our week.  We were told that the deadline to deposit the week had passed.  This is yet another point that was not explained to us when we purchased.  Nor was this explained in the contract.  Nor was this deadline communicated to us by mail.  It simply came and went.  We complained that since we purchased in February of that year and that we had no way of knowing about this deadline since a year had not lapsed since we purchased (we were under the impression we had a year from the time of purchase to use our week) that it would be reasonable to offer an exception in this case.  ResortCom representative explained that an exception could not be made and that we would have to pay a fee to re-instate that week.  The confusing part came when we called to find out what the re-instatement fee, we got a different response from three different agents, ranging from $90 - $160.  Ultimately we were able to re-instate the winter week, but only after speaking with many different supervisors over a period of a week. 

Since then we have attempted to use our timeshare to trade for vacations through Interval International, but there has never been availability at Villa Del Arco.  We have tried to book vacations at Villa Del Arco, but the resort has never been available during the time that we purchased.   We were told that when we purchased at Villa Del Arco we would have booking priority over the general public.  We have since learned that 35% of the rooms at Villa Del Arco, are available to owners.  When we confronted the Villa Group about this it was explained to us that we do not have ownership in the resort, but that we are members of a vacation group that has priority in the composite of all the resorts in the group.  Not necessarily in any one property within the Villa Group.

All of the above experiences have caused us to realize that the product we purchased, as represented by the VDP sales agent, is indeed not representative of the product we received.  We feel that this product was grossly misrepresented during the sales process.  We have tried several times to explain the concerns from above, to various different customer service representatives and expressed our desire to cancel .  Most recently weve begun to inquire what would happen if we stopped paying our monthly installments.   These inquiries have been met with threats of law suits and collections.  No customer service agent is willing to listen to our concerns or has attempted to reasonably remedy the problems.  It is now VERY clear that we  were led to believe we were buying proprietary interest at Villa del Arco in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico when in fact we were buying a membership to a vacation club which has cost us in total thus far $8746.95. This entire transaction is based on misrepresentation and fraud on the part of the sellers and their agents.

A year and a half after weve purchased this membership it has come to our attention that we have been misled and defrauded of thousands of dollars due to unethical sales practices that are going on at your resorts in Cabo San Lucas.  We were very worried that our credit would be negatively affected if we defaulted on our so called loan in Mexico and we would end up with a foreclosure on our credit.  It wasnt until we spoke with Diane  at Resortcom.com (a.k.a UVC, a.k.a. Villa Group, a.k.a. Constructora de Los Arcos del Cabo, S.A. de C.V., AND a.k.a. Robkis Marketingall located at  404 Camino del Rio South Fourth Floor San Diego, CA 92108) told us that our membership is not ownership of deeded property, it is a vacation club membership.  This was definitely NOT how the unit we purchased was explained to us, nor anyone else that makes a purchase at VDP.  We explained to her we would like to cancel our membership and we were sent a pre-fabricated No provisions letter which explicitly states that we have no right to cancel and receive our deposit back.  We called back after receiving this letter and spoke with Renee in your collections department.  We inquired as to what exactly would happen if we were to stop paying on our loan since it was held by a Mexican developer.   Renee eventually said it would go to collections.  When asked exactly what would get reported to collections, he said that was between the collections company and us.   We explained that we had a right to know exactly what actions the company would take against us.  We continued to explain that we feel weve been scammed into believing we bought a timeshare and have in fact discovered from your office that we have not bought a thing to which Renee replied,  What are you worried about then?  We have a transcript of this phone call and a recording.  We will proceed with the following unless this so called membership is cancelled and all money paid is returned within 7 days after receipt of this letter.  If our money is not returned we will proceed to file complaints with the Better Business Bureau, Ripoff Report, timesharecrooks.com,  Complaints Board, National Consumers League Fraud Center, Federal Trade Commission, Office of the Attorney General, U.S. Commodity Futures Trade Commison, PROFECO, and any other consumer protections agencies we can find.  We will also post this complaint at tripadvisor and all other hotel rating websites and request Orbitz, Expedia, Sidestep, etc. to investigate the fraud that is going on at the Villa Group hotels and seize to represent your hotels on their websites.  If this path fails to obtain the proper refund from supposedly honest business people then legal action will be initiated in an American Court against all parties concerned including all American agents and collection entities.

We will look forward to a money order or certified check sent to the following address in the amount stated above:

Obviously our money has not been returned...thus I will proceed with all of the above and legal action as well.

You can also contact the Fraud department at your credit card company or bank and explain to them what you are going through--they may be able to help, ours is an international bank with heavy duty resources and they are helping us to get back some of our money.  The people at PROFECO are very prompt in returning emails and making sure they compile a very good case against companies such as Villa Group.

I suggest if you are going through the same thing we are you do all of the above--these people aren't even Mexicans, they are sneaky, white, rich, "business men" without any kind of values.

Good luck