In early February, my wife and I were enticed to attend a timeshare presentation in order to receive a "free vacation" we had won. Having won a prize with a similar agreement in the past with a company that completely fulfilled its promises, we accepted.
After receiving the vacation certificate, I carefully followed each of the very detailed instructions included in the Terms and Conditions with the suspicion that any deviation would be used as grounds for void my claim. A little more than one month after submitting my registration validation form with money order for $100, my money order was returned to me with a letter containing a list of various reasons for rejection with an X beside "The sponsor's information was not filled out".
While filling out the form, I had wondered about the line at the very bottom of the form which said "Sponsored by:________" as no instruction at all was given in the precisely written Terms and Conditions. Being as how the line came after my signature block, I doubted whether it was my responsibility to enter the information, or the company which gave the timeshare presentation, or even someone verifying the certificate at MVI Marketing. In fact wasn't even sure if it was a company name or an individual that should be entered into that spot, so without further direction and no number to contact to ask for instructions, I simply left it blank.
The company's response showed clearly that they're intention was to avoid honoring as many of their certificates as possible. The fact that "The Sponsor's information was not filled out" was part of the list of 6 reasons for rejection shows that the company was very aware that it was common for people to make this mistake, and they therefore deliberately avoided including information in their Terms and Conditions to address the problem in order to have a reason to avoid honoring the certificate.
Furthermore, my registration validation form contained my phone number as well as email and home address, so if MVI Marketing truly wished for me to redeem the certificate, it would have been simple to contact me on the matter and would probably have taken less than two minutes to discover who the sponsor was. Finally, obviously wishing to avoid all contact and chance for correction to be made after denying the attempt to claim the prized, the final line of the letter stated, "Unfortunately, re-submission of the above will not be accepted." and no phone number was included anywhere in the letter or registration validation materials.
I advise all to avoid dealings with MVI Marketing, Minivacations Inc. due to their overtly deceitful business tactics and failure to make reasonable efforts to fulfill their obligations. I am only thankful that at least my money was refunded to me whereas so many others whose testimonials I have read have not been so fortunate.
Daniel
Bremerton, Washington
U.S.A.
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