Has anyone purchased from Vallart Gardens?

VG was flashing a letterhead from Re/Max, and they implied verbally that Re/Max was representing the property. I believe the"letter from Re/Max", referred to in the forum last year, just stated that they were not affiliated with VG. It won't help with the c/c company. VP Services is a hoax as was Berkshire Financial Group and others, and their connection is that of a liquidator of time shares that VG stated (contracted) they would take in trade, or liquidate. The MO pattern should be evident to c/c companies by now. Sylvab, I recommend you use the email address for thomasb to join the "fight", and disclose the c/c company that you used. I am corresponding with him, and others should do likewise. If necessary, we can set up another email address for communication.

The Remax affilliation is seperate from that of the marketing company. They have always said they have the remax connection. The marketing company is what they keep changing. Basically it is Vallarta Gardens themselves constructing a website and fake company name. If you go through all 11 pages of posts you will see all the fake companies they hage used. The more of us that can band together the better.

Yes, it is the marketing/property management companies that are all bogus. I just thought if I have some official documentation showing that Vallarta Gardens is downright lying about their connection to ReMax from ReMax, that it would be yet another piece of evidence that VG is running a scam. As for joining the fight, is there a private off-line chat you have going on? Joan1188 mentioned that I should email you. What is your email address? Have you started some kind of group or have any ideas or suggestions on how people like us who have been cheated by Vallarta Gardens can ban together to help each other to either get our money back from the credit card companies, or figure out how to get out of our contracts? I'm new to all this as I got scammed just last month. Looking forward to hearing back from you. Thank you!

Having said that obviously Remax has no connection and I do have a letter from a broker stating there is no relationship. Would be willing to send you what I have. Am willing to give any information I have to anyone looking to recoup there losses at the hands of these thieves!

We are kind of in the early stages right now but yes I would say the goal would be to pool our information and figure out the best plan of attack. To figure out what works and what doesn't. I would think strength in numbers can only help. If we get enough people there is no reason we couldn't band together to come after them civilly and my preference criminally. At this point I would trade the money they stole from me to see them shut down or in jail. My email is blohmmb@aol.com

Don't know if this might help you or maybe all of us. Article 32 of the Mexican Federal Consumer Protection Law states "the information or publicity relative to goods or services by any means or forms, will have to be truthfully, verifiable and clear of texts, dialogues, sounds, images and other descriptions that induce or can induce error or confusion by its inaccuracy. Seems pretty open and shut case to me. (Truthfull not truthfully)

I'm responding to your forum message mostly out of curiosity. I posted a notice 3 years ago about the scams at Puerto Bahia. Everything you said in your posting matches what my husband and I went through. I did eventually get back 6 months of credit card payments, but not the initial $24,000 down payment on a 3-bedroom timeshare (2 weeks).

When you referred to the name "Jeff" it is the same name that we had to deal with when we complained to our Salesman Todd Dehn at Puerto Bahia (just up the road from Vallara Gardens). Actually, the man at Claudio's who made the initial contact with us tried to get us to go to Vallarta Gardens but we said no. He then talked us into going to Puerto Bahia. They also got very rude and rough with us and then offered us an additional 3 weeks along with the inital 5 weeks of rental income at $2600.00 a week from Mercury Property Managment. Who in the world would decline that offer? They also told us that we were to keep our mouths shut when we went to the Puerto Bahia office. We were not to say a word about what they had offered us.

We never did get a penny from MPM (Mercury Property Management) of St. Louis. We still have the 2 other timeshares that we thought we traded in. It's a SCAM in bold print. I did manage to negotiate with the person who took over George Triggs job, to take less time with no more payments, but the experience was so bad for us that we have never gone back to Puerto Vallarta and doubt that we ever will.

If you search the Internet of Todd Dehn and George Triggs you will see that they have now been in Costa Rica and Panama pulling the same scams. Pathetic that they can do this over and over.

I have read on a couple of posts on the many sites and believe "Jeff" May be the same person. I have also read on posts that the Mercury Management "company" address was actually a vacant lot and Secretary of State had no record of them. The "company" name they used on us was Berkshire Financial Group out of Oklahoma City, also no record and also a vacant lot. The "company" They are using now is VP Services and they are stepping up their game a little, the address is an actual mall as opposed to a vacant lot. However there is no VP Services in said mall. Am curious why you didn't get down payment back

The "Jeff" we dealt with was mid 40s, stocky, about 6'1, balding with a stubble hair cut

Sounds like the same Jeff. You asked why we didn't get back the original 24,000 down payment. The 24,000 was on two different credit cards and it had been six months since the original purchase. This is part of their scan when they tell you that it could take up to six months for the liquidation company to sell your trade in properties and then it becomes too long to protest those charges. After learning that Mercury Property Management really didn't exist and they didn't have any contracts for us and that our rep from there we no longer there, it was time to do something. I protested and sent a 32 page document regarding the Sales staff tactics and enclosed all the Internet complaints and sent them to the closing officer (he was not a salesman). In my original contract I found a section that stated if I had complaints and they didn't cure within 10 days I was entitled to a refund. I had also informed them that they would be receiving no more funds from us. Three months went by when I was notified by the financial manager complaing to me that they were not receiving payments. I responded that they were never going to get another payment from me and they should read the documents that I sent by surface, email and certified mail. At that point we had paid the down payment and 6 months of additional payments. Finally, they called me and said that they found my docment in a stack of papers on George Triggs desk but George was no longer there. I knew that I would never get the original down payment back, but did get a refund from my bank for the additional payments. I was also able to negotiate and new contract with the Puerto Bahia managment (not the sales people) for a larger home with less time and no more money. The sad thing about this entire experience is that after we purchased the house I went back to our resort and googled them...I read all the bad things. I immediately called our salesman Todd Dehn at his home and told him that I wanted out of the deal. We should not have allowed them to talk us out of it. We were not new to timeshares and have been happy with the ones we have...this deal stunk from the very beginning. Never again.

After 16 months I was able to get a partial refund of my down payment for Puerto Bahia sales agent, Jerry Forney, after being scammed into purchasing in Jan/2014 by filing a complaint with Profeco. Upon returning home I learned that MPM was replaced by another bogus company called Timely Travel with a fake address in South Dakota. It came as a surprise since there were about 15 other complaints filed on ripoffreport.com against this resort. A consumer fraud agency in San Francisco had called me in an investigation of these complaints but I never heard any results from them. This agency claimed I was the only one that they knew of who was offered a partial refund from the Calidon bank that handles the resorts payments. I expected nothing from Profeco but it did work to recover 1/2 of my down payment.

Sharon, was your dispute with Puerto Bahia or Vallarta Gardens....Bahia I presume? Which credit card company were you dealing with, if I may ask, please. Thanks for your time.

I am so sorry but I think I have misplaced this somewhere on my computer. I have looked but will keep looking. It was a e mail from the head office of Re/Max. When we won our compensation from our credit card company I must have thought I could get rid of it. I will still look though. You could call a Re/Max office and ask who you should call like I did. They referred me to the proper place here in the states. I also talked to the Re/Max offices in PV and they told me the same thing. Hope this helps... I got lucky!!

I see that recently, starting in mid June and have seen posts on July 6th that Vallarta Gardens is now putting out posts and blogs about how they are not a scam. They are actually under the headings Vallarta Gardens scam prevention and such. Probably the biggest crooks in timeshare and fractional ownership ever are putting out this garbage. I would encourage everybody scammed by these guys to keep putting your posts out there on all the forums and put out your own blog to help offset their ridiculous posts.

They can put all the disclaimers they want on the Internet. There are too many of us out here who have been scammed by not only Vallarta Gardens, but by other resorts up and down the highway from Puerto Vallarta to LaCruz. Hopefully, the continued posting of our experiences will hinder future scams.

We purchased in March 2015, we're you able to get your money back?

We are currently in the dispute process with credit card company. Are you in same process? If you post your story it would help. VG promised some people to sell or liquidate their previous timeshares and others like myself to market fractional ownership purchased through VG. Of course the marketing company was bogus. Did they use Berkshire Financial Group on you?

In response to your question. We went to Vallarta Gardens and didn't like it...next day went to Puerto Bahia just down the road and my husband was talked into purchasing. They have the same scam as Vallarta Gardens. Take the time to read all the notes and to research Vallarta Gardens on the Internet and this site. Periodically, they change the resale company. They have used many different names, all of which don't exist. They usually tell you it will take 365 days to process your resale and receive your money to pay for the timeshare you are purchasing. As an incentive they will throw in $2600.00 per week for up to 10 weeks. That depends are how hard it is to make you bite. My husband was easy and settled for 8....I didn't like the salesman and he knew it so he upped it to 10 weeks at $2600.00 per week. They tell everyone the same thing...only change is the name of the re-sale company. I asked how they managed to keep the units rented. He told me that they used a group called "Fly and Buy" where they fly in very wealthy people in a private jet to see the property. None of it happens.

Because they tell you it can take up to 365 days you don't start asking questions right away, it takes about six months of hearing nothing before you start asking questions. We were also told that once out of the Sales office we could not discuss the transactions with anyone....not even the contract manager at the office. As we were walking down the hill we were reminded of that two more times.

Our re-sale company was MPM, Mercury Property Management. After six months of waiting and hearing nothing I called, only to find out that the contact person they gave me was no longer there and I had reached a call center. Address on the letterhead was a vacant lot. BBB had never heard of them. The call center informed me that my contracts were no longer valid and that Matthew Day (my "personal representative") had pulled the contracts many months before and they had no record of why he did it and they simply didn't exist anymore. I asked for Customer Service telephone number and FAX. They could not provide it because they had recently moved. After I hung up I immediately called my Credit Card company and cancelled the card. I believe nothing was ever sent anywhere and the people at the call center have a script to read when inquiries are made. I would like to hear from anyone out there...that has actually recieved the promised $2600 per week for rental .

In the end you not only have your newly purchased fractional property, you also have your old property.

Everyone seems to have slightly different variations of the same scam. We were offered only $1900/week, 4 times a year (total of $7600/year) to rent out our unit, but for a period of 5 years. They also threw in one free week at VG which made it even more appealing. It seemed like a no-brainer -- get a nice income per year and still have the luxury of staying for one week at the resort.

The property management company we were given was VP Services out of Brownsville, TX. Of course, there is no information on it, no BBB rating, located in a strip mall with a representative calling from CA. VP Services was supposed to sell our existing timeshare, plus rent out our weeks for the next 5 years or as many as we would like thereafter. The rep Cliff got very nasty with me when I told him that I wasn't comfortable with his company and basically said that I need to make a decision and stop wasting his time! I asked for a Certificate of Good Standing for VP Services from the state of Texas, and never received an answer from him. I emailed him a few times and he never emailed me back once. All he would do is call me and push me to pay the enrollment fee so he could get started on selling from timeshare.

Since I refused to pay the $1275 enrollment fee, which I was certain was included in my purchase price, we lucked out of losing that money. As soon as I realized that this was a scam, I immediately filed a dispute with my cc company for the downpayment I had given them, and then closed my credit card. I also informed VG that I was not comfortable with the information I had received from them since my return from Mexico because there were too many inconsistencies.

I told them to hold off from charging me the monthly finance charges that were supposed to start the following month.

I also declined the 25- Swiss Annuity that they were offering as an added bonus. I was told that it was optional. When I told the woman Melissa, who kept calling me to confirm that my credit card would be charged $1001 for the principle deposit, that I was not interested in the annuity, she got very short with me and said that I would have to take it up with VG and that it WASN'T optional and that VG has already taken it out of their price. This person actually called me on the Sunday of Father's Day at 8:30 p.m. What legitimate financial institution would do that? Plus, I had my friend who works in the financial field to look them up and she couldn't find anything on Swiss Alliance.

These people are despicable and have no moral conscience. I'm sure that the pictures of their children that they show us during the sales pitch aren't even their kids. It's an elaborate scam. Only thing to do is file a dispute with your credit card company and supply them with the countless pages from all the different forum posts on VG. Plus any other information on the property management company showing that they are questionable, etc. AMEX has ruled in my favor and there is a hold on any other charges that might try to come through in the future. It's not an easy process, and some people have been swindled out of a lot more money than others, but if we can all help each other in any way, we need to do that. I do know that there are a few people who are taking this to very high levels and will not stop until they are shut down and hopefully arrested.

Unfortunately, they will only open up again under another name and resort. Shame on the Mexican government for allowing this to go on, because they are very aware of the timeshare scams in their country.

I'm sure that they have their people checking all these posts on a regular basis...

My story was a little different. I knew enough about timeshares in Mexico that I knew their promise to sell my old timeshare and rent my weeks out were not ever going to happen. So I made my deal without all that. My problem was that I purchased a unit that hadn't been built yet - and three years later is still not being built. On the flip side, that made it easier to get my money back. When the date on my contract came and there was no studio unit, my credit card company finally got my money back for me. The only thing I lost was the money for the Swiss Annuity, which we all now know is completely worthless. And yes, they monitor this site - I had them actually threaten me with legal action for "slander". I told them to bring it on - because everything I said about them was true and I could prove it. Needless to say I never heard from them. They are thieves, plan and simple. How they are allowed to continue to operate is beyond me. I've owned timeshares in the past, and although they all like to exaggerate their benefits, at least they were not outright thieves. These people are shameless. And I believe the Baha property is owned by the same people.