Absolute Vacations Club False promises, fraud, ripoff Daytona Beach Florida

We bought into the Abosute Vacations Club last November after attending one of the presentations in Daytona Beach.  We booked a 2 day stay at a resort in Panama City Beach in December, for only $196.  The beach was deserted, which was good for us, but when we arrived the resort would not let us check in until we paid an additional $143 "resort fee".  That's 70% over the quoted cost of our stay.  I later complained to the BBB and also to the State of Florida's Consumer Protection Agency.   Absolute Vacations would not reply to any of their inquiries.   The state's agency said that, since I paid the extra money to the resort, and not to AVC, my complaint was with the resort, not AVC.   However, the only dealings I had and the only contract A(and contact) I had was with AVC.  The purpose of having a club was for them to get good prices on hotels that they contract with and pass on those savings to those who have joined the club. 

So we're stuck, as they say, between a rock and a hard place.   The scammers who have loved Florida for so long and have given them such a bad reputation as for as time shares and vacation clubs, have found a way around the rules that have been set in place to stop misrepresentations and fraud.   While, in the fine print of the AVC contract, words elude to the fact that there may be an additional "resort fee", AVC would have to have known that this was a huge fee that kept the quoted price down and got us to buy into their plan.   But this was never disclosed to us and the fine print only serves to allow them to hide these incredible overcharges!! 

I would advise anyone to never even step foot in one of the Absolute Vacation Club's presentations.  Lawyers are writing all of the fine print that hides the real Absolute Vacation scheme.  It would be almost impossible to understand what the thoughtfully worded fine print really means.  Florida has failed again in its attempts to protect its tourism business by first protecting the tourists, like myself.  Another win for the bad guys.