Vida Vacations Grand Mayan, The Bliss, Mayan Resorts Vida Vacations - Grand Mayan Resorts Deceptive Sales Practices BEWARE Crooks Puerto Vallarta Mexico

On July 29, 2013, we were victimized by a team of salespeople representing Vida Vacations. We purchased a timeshare (or “vacation membership,” if you insist) due to the false and fraudulent claims made by these salespeople, in particular by our second-level salesman.

The theme of the sales presentation was using the membership as an investment. The sales person insisted throughout that we would be able to rent out our four weeks for a profit of $1,500 a week. The Grand Mayan was in the process of building a huge theater to house a new Cirque du Soleil show, a city walk, and a train for kids, he said, all of which would greatly add to the value of the resort and its desirability as a rental venue.

The sales person recommended The Golf Network by CVM as a company that would handle rentals for us. He cautioned us not to mention his recommendation, as it was against company policy. Later we received a document recommending five different rental companies!  

They also highly touted various companies, and told us we would be able to travel easily anywhere in the world. This was after we told him that we were only interested in returning to Mexico once every 3-5 years.

The sales person and his cohorts kept us there for over eight hours, without once giving us the time to talk it over in private. They insisted that this “deal of the century” had to be done that day. They served us drinks to help with our decision, all the while stating that this, too, was against company policy. On top of everything, the senior salesperson flirted shamelessly with our friend who was with us, and then spent several days in our company, ostensibly to show us how much he liked us but obviously so that we wouldn’t rescind on the contract.

The renovations described by the sales person have not been made. We paid The Golf Network $500, with the guarantee of the $1,500 per week rental windfall; it has now been over a year and our timeshare has not been rented one time. We deposited our points, and then searched for several months to find a location of interest, with no success. Meanwhile, within six months of our purchase our maintenance fee went up by $26.38.

In short, everything we were told was a lie or a failure to disclose important details. We have never used our membership, and will not use it.

We have been working on a resolution for the last few months and was generous in requesting only a partial refund.  I received a call today stating they are not willing to negotiate at all.  My membership will be cancelled without a refund. Vida Vacation/Grand Mayan Resorts will not take any accountability in employing a sales staff that’s mission is to lie and mislead unsuspecting tourist. Their practices are appalling and unscrupulous!  Please stay far away from this company - they cannot be trusted.  I do not want any tourist to fall into a trap like we did, you cannot trust these people.