Mayan Palace Riviera Maya; Grupo Vidanta; Beware of Deceitful Bait & Switch Sales Tactics Playa del Carmen Mexico

Beware of the deceitful bait and switch sales presentations at Mayan Palace / Riviera Maya / Grupo Vidanta.  Our story of deception takes place at the Mayan Palace located south of Cancun.  Based on reports I have read on this site and others like it, Mayan Palace / Grupo Vidanta uses the same sales tactics at all their resorts.  What we were told during the 6 hours of sales presentation IS NOT what we got in writing. 

In a nutshell, the four major lies we were told are:

1)  There is no annual maintenance fee.  You only pay the “usage fee” when you want to use or exchange a week in any given year.  NOT TRUE

2)  Your week can be used as one or more “days” at high quality hotels throughout the world.  NOT TRUE 

3)  We will sell your existing timeshare through an outside broker.  NOT TRUE

4) The “White Time” will be modified from “June and September” to “May through September”.  PARTIALLY TRUE – but only for 5 years.

Unfortunately for us, these 4 benefits disappeared (or were severely limited) when we signed the contract with Mayan Palace.   We feel that we are the victims of a very deceitful sales process used by Mayan Palace.  

My husband and I exchanged for a week at the Mayan Palace for our honeymoon in July 2014.  The resort and staff were wonderful – but - STAY AWAY from the sales presentations.  Whatever they offer you – Say NO.

Our initial sales person was TK.  Over the time spent at breakfast and a tour of the facility, my husband and I expressed some of our frustrations with our existing timeshare in Florida.  Our primary issue is that we have discovered that at this time in our lives, it is often difficult for my husband to take a whole week off from work.  We expressed that we would prefer to be able to use our timeshare time for long weekend getaways instead of full weeks – specifically at Lake Tahoe where we ski during the winter.  TK used our frustrations to deliver a deceitful sales pitch that specifically stated how Mayan Palace is different and would address our frustrations. 

The entire sales experience from check-in to signing the contract was more than 6 hours.  Over that time, we spoke with TK plus two other sales people.  The ONLY reason we eventually decided to sign with Mayan Palace was because it was presented as having specific benefits compared to our existing timeshare.  At that point, we received tons of paperwork to sign and initial in just over 20 minutes.  Unfortunately, we did do any research on Mayan Palace after signing the contract as we wanted to get on with our honeymoon!  After we got home from our honeymoon, it took many hours of poring over the written documents to figure out that we were scammed.  What we were told IS NOT what we got in writing. 

Since early August, we have had numerous e-mail exchanges with Member Services at the Mayan Palace regarding our dissatisfaction with the deceptive sales tactics and the discrepancies in the final written documents.  Mayan Palace has not been able to satisfy our request to live up to its verbal commitments.  We have requested that Mayan Palace cancel our contract and return the $4,500 deposit in full.  We feel this is a reasonable request as we have not used or received any services or other items of value from Mayan Palace after signing the contract.  After several unsatisfactory “solutions” offered by Mayan Palace, we have reached a standoff.  They will not cancel the contract and we will not pay the remaining balance.

You can check out other websites in addition to this one and/or Google search for “Mayan Palace” or “Mayan Palace Timeshare Scam” and you will read several horror stories similar to this one if not worse. The Mayan Palace is listed in the top 3 of the “Blacklist of Timeshare Resorts” on timesharescam.com.  We will not stop disputing this agreement and hope that our story may prevent others from being taken advantage of by Mayan Palace.   

See below for details of how the scam works.

THE SCAM:

Here is a re-cap of the top 4 alleged “benefits” of owning at Mayan Palace.  As I said, what we were told does not match what we got in writing.  We were told:

Benefit #1:  “There is no annual maintenance fee.  You only pay the usage fee when you want to use or exchange a week in any given year.”  NOT TRUE. 

What we received in writing contradicts those statements and shows that the usage fee for the registered week is due in full ($960) each year for 10 years.  In the e-mail correspondence with Member Services, we were offered two options: (1) trade our unit for a smaller unit with lower annual maintenance fees or (2) trade our unit for a smaller unit that could only be used every other year with a maintenance fee that is lower and due every other year – for the SAME contract price.  These offers do not satisfy the alleged benefit of “No annual maintenance fee”.  In addition, it was ridiculous to offer us less value and/or less time for the same price.  This was obviously not acceptable and was not a real effort to resolve the deception.  

Benefit #2:  “Your week can be used as one or more days at high quality hotels throughout the world.”  NOT TRUE.

We had mentioned to TK that we were interested in using the exchange as individual nights in hotels - specifically at Lake Tahoe.  Repeatedly, we discussed a week as being 7 individual days.  Verbally, and in writing on “the infamous piece of paper” that Mayan Palace sales is known for, TK converted the term "weeks" to "days" to mislead us into believing that we could exchange our week(s) at Mayan Palace and use them for one or more nights (not as a whole week).  

During the sales pitch, TK discussed using SFX as the exchange company.  We use RCI for our current timeshare exchange in Florida; we were not familiar with how SFX worked.  Based on the discussion during the sales presentation, we had assumed that SFX was different than RCI (another deception).  After we got home from our honeymoon, I spoke with SFX several times in order to understand how their exchange process works.  I discovered that we can only exchange weeks for weeks through SFX.  We are extremely frustrated with this deception; we cannot exchange the Mayan Palace weeks as "days" as we had been told.   

This “alleged” benefit is a major issue for us as this was a major selling point that we used in our decision to buy.  This “alleged” benefit was not something we could verify in the written documents as the exchange process is not reflected in the documents we signed.  Plus, we could not investigate this claim until the SFX account was in place a few weeks later.

Benefit  #3:  “We will sell your existing timeshare through an outside broker.”  NOT TRUE.  

We were given “credit” of $26,900 for our existing timeshare during the negotiations on buying at Mayan Palace.  The “Equity Acquisition Agreement” form has text about the Trade-in Requirements that were X’ed out.  We have no recollection as to when the text was X’ed out.  However, we were told by TK that the broker would be in touch with us within a week of returning home to get a copy of our deed and other documents to begin the sale of our existing timeshare in Florida.  It is now clear that Mayan Palace never intended to sell our Florida timeshare for us.  This was another example of the bait and switch tactics.

Benefit #4.  “The “White Time” will be modified from June and September (as stated in agreement) to May through September in an Addendum.  We thought we were purchasing use of Mayan Palace properties for 5 months out of 12 months.  PARTIALLY TRUE  - but for only 5 years out of the 100 year contract. 

In the addendum to contract for lodging rights and services, White Time was revised to May through September for 5 years from date of signing.  After 5 years, the time period reverts to June and September.  We received the addendum at time of signing all documents.  This issue regarding White Time has been partially addressed by Member Services with extension of the White Time definition of “June through September” from 5 years to 10 years.  But, we were never told that the White Time would be restricted to a portion of the contract.  To completely satisfy this issue, the modified White Time must apply to the whole contract period – for 100 years - as was initially represented to us.