A German consumer who recently bought the product of Orbit Travel after sitting through a lengthy sales presentation in Arguineguín, Gran Canaria, has reported alleged fraud to the German Police.
Once he went home and carefully analysed what happened on the roof of Club Puerto Atlántico in Arguineguín at Gran Canaria, he suspected he had been defrauded.
The reason to suspect this is because the German consumer was lured into such a sales presentation under false pretences after supposedly having won the main prize in a draw through a scratch-card. In order to pick up this “big prize” he had to attend a “short” presentation. After hours of sales talk and again under false pretences, the consumer was persuaded to sign into a ‘holiday product’, which has the sole objective to pull consumers into the circle of supposedly cheap holiday accommodations. What isn’t mentioned is that consumers will be exposed to further sales presentation with each future holiday where then again they will try to convince them to spend more of their hard earned money on yet another product.
The following is the description we received from the German Consumer:
“My wife and I were approached in May 2015 on the street in front of the Hotel RIU de Palmeras in Playa del Inglés by someone who gave us two winning tickets. When we opened them we found that my wife had won a T-Shirt and I won the main prize.
This person did not wear any visible batches, authorization or any other identification, which would show that they belonged to Orbit Travel. He congratulated us for our main prize and urged us to take 1-hour time to go with a taxi to Arguineguín, to visit the Hotel Puerto Atlantico. We received a free ticket for the taxi to the hotel and back. These tickets were only valid for that day, we were told. He spoke about 1 – 2 hours, which we would have to stay there in total.
Once arrived at the hotel, a woman received us and took us to the roof terrace. After asking us for some details as names, address, what our wishes are for our holidays, how many times we holiday per year, which countries we go to and with which type of luxury we do like to holiday etc.
After that they showed us a really nicely equipped suite (high luxury class). Later on she took us for a walk through the village to know more about Arguineguín.
This was followed by further explanations about hotels worldwide where we would be able to book our holidays with Orbit Travel, and which were also shown to us in a catalogue, not the newest one. All these hotels were supposedly hotels with high quality standard and available for our bookings. If one of the hotels would be fully booked, another one with the same standard would be offered. We were not told about a membership in a holiday club or about the attendance at future sales presentations.
With this information given, another man (the superior of the ladies) appeared and made then the offer, including 6 vouchers (weeks) for bookings in hotels worldwide, whereby one of the vouchers corresponded to the main prize we had won and which could be used immediately, if a deposit was made on that day, and with a further payment of €980 in instalments for each of the 5 vouchers.
Furthermore they offered the possibility to book additional weeks for €375 each, during the period from May to August, or €472 from September to April. No guarantee would be given for these bookings. They also offered the coordination of flight bookings and hotel transfers which would be done by Orbit Travel but which had to be paid by us.
The accommodation weeks were guaranteed to be always in 4 or 5 star hotels.
When I asked this sales man why the documentation is titled with “timeshare”, he assured us that this had nothing to do with the offer we were made.
Finally we decided to accept the offer and signed up. After that we were invited to food and drinks; two bottles of champagne, one to celebrate there and another one to take with us.
On that day we paid €300 deposit, plus a further €1,700 a week later.
The whole presentation did last until late afternoon, around 16:30h.
The day after we were again picked up (again for free) and taken to the Hotel Puerto Atlantico to have breakfast and were answered a few more questions. As the day before it was quite a lot information.
We were shown several websites where we could see all the hotels that supposedly were available for booking. The necessary access code to select these hotels would only be made available to us, once we had paid the full purchase price (a further €4900), and could be booked via Orbit Travel.
The validity of the six vouchers (weeks) was promised to be until year 2021.”
***(Text translated from original email from German consumer)***
For more information / articles on the above mentioned company and connected ones have a look at the following links:
Orbit Travel, the latest Holiday club linked the Voyager Travel group. http://wp.me/p1kmoi-1xF
Voyager Travel & Go Compass: The Holiday Clubs under the spotlight – Canarian Journalen http://wp.me/p1kmoi-1cr
Go Compass, the latest “trick” of Voyager Travel / Lifestyle Holidays http://wp.me/p1kmoi-1aT
Resume of articles about Voyager Travel https://mindtimeshare.me/?s=Voyager+
Hi jackie,
We tried to contact you by email, but the address don’t seem to be correct.
could you please drop us a quick note at customercare@mindtimeshare.com so we can send you some information?
Kind regards
Customer Care
There is an old song of which the lyric goes, ‘It seems to me I’ve heard that song before….’ I’m surprised the German gentleman parted with that amount of cash but maybe he was anxious to make his escape..However from the fact-sheet of what happened, it appears as though the German couple did go along with the presentation.
Had he really not heard of this scam after al these years?
Marrion, .
I agree not a cheap holiday anymore, in fact cheaper just booking your own accommodation and flight. Cheap flights that’s a laugh! Better with package,and separate when you see these idiots on the streets we watch them in the front of the Palm Beach in Tenerife! Time as person above says get rid of them all
And so it continues! It’s about high time the European Parliament took some interest in these continuing scams, have you ever tried getting MEPs involved Alberto?