Help! We got scammed by Real Club in Cancun

[clipntrim Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close clipntrim]

Real Club

I as well purchased some time with this club. It only cost me $7,000.00 for 140 weeks as well I negotiated 10 free all inclusive weeks at any real club resort with this price. I was also told about selling weeks which is very difficult to do unless you sell to friends at a low price just to recoupe your initial investment. The 10 free weeks covers the cost of the investment so now i sut with 140 weeks with RCI or you use these weeks to negotiate time at the real clubs. With these people everything is negotiable things you may not realize like the free all inclusive weeks I worked on for two days.

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

Though I do agree the way in which the real club persuades you to purchase a membership may be a little on the "shady" side but I have a membership and know about 15 others who do as well that love it! I did not spend $20,000 to purchase mine either. I continuously told them no and at the end they offered me a 12 week, $2,000 option that has 5 blackout dates. I have been a member for almost 3 years now and most of the weeks have been used, but I will be "renewing" my membership soon. I have sold a few of my weeks through RCI with no problems as well. The Real Club team has always been very nice and as helpful as possible. In May we went to Playa del Carmen for my college graduation and decided I liked the "scene" of Cancun much more. I simply contacted the represenative at the hotel and asked to be switched to the Gran Caribe in Cancun, within an hour I had received a phone call asking me when I would like to transfer hotels, cost free. Once at the Gran Caribe we decided to upgrade our room, which took about 10 minutes from start to finish.

I wish I had 2 grand to buy a timeshare when I was in college. Just how did you sell a few weeks through RCI ?

[SunTraveller Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close SunTraveller]

Real Club / Real Resorts Memberships have a bad reputation!!

We almost got sucked into buying their membership but we told the "shark" we'd like to do some research first (much to his dismay) and we found this thread from Trip Advisor Do NOT buy any REAL Club membership!!!!! - Cancun Forum - TripAdvisor

Whew! Thankfully the internet has so much information. They say it's posts like this that can make or break a business. Hopefully others will continue to share their stories on here.

Good luck to you all.

Julie

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

Unfortunately there is also much misinformation on the internet. Sharks from unethical outfits like Real will post favorable things about their operation, so we have to keep an eye on all posts to determine who the shill posters are. Mexico has a bad reputation and most of it is well deserved.

[SunTraveller Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close SunTraveller]

Sharks on Trip Advisor

We completely agree with you. The majority of the reviews on Trip Advisor for the 2 Royal resorts are posted by the sales reps, their friends and their family. I noticed that there are not many Mexican sales reps and they try to match you up with someone from your country or they say they have lived in your country. The good thing about Trip Advisor is that they also have forums where folks, like us, can share their experiences.

[SunTraveller Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close SunTraveller]

How can you sell them on your own?

[drjackcv Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close drjackcv]

We contacted Profeco 3 months after...

We have a timeshare with Sandos, and have loved it. They have tried to fulfill the promises made to us.

Real Club, in contrast, has broken just about every promise made from day 1 in the sales office, by the sales manager afterward, and even their commitments to Profeco to refund 1/2 of what we were out of pocket. Here's our latest email to Profeco.

Estimada Sra, Sanchez & Associates at Profeco.

15 April, 2011. Another week, and Real Club has still failed to honor their commitment to refund even a portion of our money by 3 February.

We are looking for a lawyer to take this matter to the Mexican courts. Please annotate our file that Real Club has wantonly failed to settle the matter with us or honor covenants made with Profeco.

If Profeco is aware of any class-action lawsuits against Real Club or Real Resorts, we ask that you notify us at your earliest convenience.

After reviewing the history of this matter over the past 2 years, our impression is that Real Club never intended to fulfill any of the promises made to us by Martin Ventura, Jorge Carlos, or other employees of the sales office, or to el Departamento de Conciliación a Residentes en el Extranjero either! We have a Sandos timeshare in Mexico and their dealings with us have been honorable. We suggest that revoking Real Club's business license would be a net stimulus to the economy of Mexico.

Thank you for all of your efforts to resolve this unhappy situation over so many months.

We suggest that more people request that the Mexican government pull the license of this high-class scam operation.

[drjackcv Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close drjackcv]

Mexican fraud lawyers

We are looking for a lawyer who handles timeshare fraud cases in the Yucatan.

If you have had good results with a professional, please email through this website or to jackcv a-t shaw point ca.
Thanks much

[Clunasky Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Clunasky]

how i got my contract cancel

I was also scam by real Club last year, I tried to cancel myself but seems a one way street, every time i called to ask for information I will get of hold of a different person every time and they all tell you what you want to hear and that they will send you an email with the information and you wait and wait and wait a little more until you realize you ain't gonna get that email, I try avocados Law firm total fiasco, got me no where with them just spend a couple hundreds with them. then I found this article about how to cancel your contract with PROFECO and it worked. I filed a complaint with PROFECO and a few months later GOT MYSELF MY CONTRACT CANCEL!! ..

PROFECO: Mexico's Consumer Protection Agency

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

No question about it PROFECO is the way to. It may take a while, but it's better than some get more of your bucks legal or illegal outfit.

[Rick Lasker Member Find all posts View Profile Close Rick Lasker]

Hi tony,

You are right PROFECO can be very effective specially when you hire them within your 5 day cancellation period. The process is long ( keep in mind that the department CARE the one that will assist you in your complaint has plenty of work and not so much resources) but at the end they might help you in some cases; yet sometimes since profeco is an administrative entity of the Mexican Federal government the resort will simply ignore profeco. Please let me know if you have questions.

[jnbsevy Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jnbsevy]

We fought Real Club after 30 days and won (sort of)

We sent everything we could gather to Profeco, several months after signing the contract and trying to follow Real Club's directions. They gradually arranged meetings with Real Club's legal eagles, worked out a compromise that returned $1478 USD to us (about 1/2 what we had paid them up front).

It was long, and Real Club ignored us, tried to upsell and downsell us, threatened us (legal department stuff, not mafia), stalled, and played games with us. Definitely zero integrity at the Club.

AIMS (Alliance Integrated Marketing Systems) was the scam timeshare rental company that Real Club Playa del Carmen used. Pure BS.

One good piece of advice we received was to refuse to talk with Real Club on the phone. That's just sales people and harrassment. Everything was by email, except for a couple short confirmatory phone calls from Profeco, and 3 or 4 from us to Profeco to confirm that things were still moving along.

Profeco is obviously overworked, but they keep at it if you do. They have no power, apparently, to impose sanctions, fines or anything else against the resort, even faced with blatant bad faith and insolent disregard of written agreements with Profeco itself. Real Club jerked us around for two months after the date they agreed to refund part of our down payment, and Profeco personnel insisted that they can do nothing. If you want to push for sanctions, you need a lawyer.

If anyone wants to file a class action lawsuit against Real Club, we'll join and cooperate. Somebody must have a brother-in-law who would like to take this on for a third of the action.

[Rick Lasker Member Find all posts View Profile Close Rick Lasker]

Hi jnbsevy,

Unfortunately you are right Profeco has plenty of work and not the sufficient human resources; yet profeco can impose sanctions and fines to the resort. THEY CAN EVEN CLOSE THE SALESROOM; but time and afford is required in order to do so of course that you will need a proficient lawyer on your side in order to achieve such difficult task.

You can send me a message if you have questions. Have an excellent day.

[Rick Lasker Member Find all posts View Profile Close Rick Lasker]

PROFECO is a good option when you are within your 5 business day period or when you have a lawyer working directly for you. Unfortunately PROFECO doesn't have the human resources to provide a quality service to all the complaints that they receive; due to the low budget that they have ( as most government agencies in Mexico). That being said if you want a professional service you a lawyer is needed.

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

I expect that Rick/Ricardo would be happy to point you to a lawyer,but don't expect any lawyer to get your money back. Profeco is slow, but the best way to get anything done.