Vida Vacations & Grand Mayan lies

yes

Ignore it! We sold a MP t/s about 12 years ago but we still get the odd call. Now that we are back to Vida, we get those calls. I ignore numbers I don't recognize and block others. It's a Mexican/US scam, "they have a buyer, or a renter, cash" and at a price higher than purchase price. It's doubtful that Vidanta, the company, commits fraud, but their employees will lie through their teeth. When on site and you're in this situation, leave and go directly to a manager at the front desk or concierge. Get credentials, names and numbers and note all of it, including the time. Then tell them you want to take that manager back to the sales room for a chit chat - if you are so inclined. Vidanta is now a huge company, worth billions. It's unfortunate that time share scum makes it to the sales tables. The owner lists are always circulating, and like everywhere, most of these guys off site are immune from prosecution. Check out www.insidethegate.com; report any US illicit activity to the state attorney general office. They take these matters very seriously.

endscams wrote:

.....report any US illicit activity to the state attorney general office.

Good advice --- for timeshare matters conducted within the U.S., but no state AG has any influence or jurisdiction whatsoever regarding matters (illicit or not) conducted entirely outside of the U.S. (such as in Mexico).

Hello, my situation is strange so bear with me... TL:DR - Purchased a cheap RTU yesterday only as leverage to sell my current expensive Timeshare in FL, want to cancel, taking advice to best do so.

I purchased a timeshare last May in Orlando, FL. Big mistake, want out. Currently on vacation in Cancun, did the presentation at Vidanta yesterday, signed up, but here is why..

Our salesperson told us that we could get our Orlando timeshare offloaded in 3-6 months as part of the deal with signing into this new contract. She said they work with TRM (timeshareresalemarket.com) and for $995 they sell it, and if it's not sold in 1 year they refund the $995. So she told us to get this new contract, have TRM sell the old and just never pay anything to Vida towards the Vidanta week we got, and that in Mexico they will just terminate our RTU membership after 2 missed payments and not come seek us. She was basically giving us some insight on how to get out of our crappy Orlando timeshare cheaper than paying the remaining balance and taking the huge hit.

I felt like this was a good course of action, but now that i have time to Google some stuff, it's looking more questionable than that. I want to cancel since I just signed up yesterday, well within the 5 day period.

My question: should I go back over to Vidanta and cancel or just call the number they provided? Also, i gave them no liquid cash, they opened an RCI card in credit on my name. Even if i cancel today, should I expect to have to pay that anyway?

I reached out to TRM and basically asked if I could just use them to sell my timeshare without the contingency of owning this new contract. I didn't tell them that Vida was asking for $995, I want to see what price they come back with first.

Thoughts? Taking all advice, thx

NEVER pay anyone money upfront that claims they can get you our of their timeshare !!! All exit companies are SCAMS !!!!

arelg wrote:

Purchased a cheap RTU yesterday only as leverage to sell my current expensive Timeshare in FL, want to cancel, taking advice to best do so. Thoughts? Taking all advice, thx

Rescind your recent purchase since you are within your rescission period. Get on it immediately, if not, sooner.

We have seen deals like this offered in Mexico. Basically what they will tell you is that they do not want your current (Orlando) timeshare and so you can keep it. You will then be stuck with two timeshares. They will not "cancel" your Orlando timeshare.

Now if you want to get rid of your Orlando one, first and foremost is to not pay any one a large, upfront fee to sell or get rid of it for you. Those are scams. You have to find a willing buyer/taker. You can advertise it here on RedWeek or other reputable timeshare-related websites such as My Resort Network, E-Bay, Craigslist (but be prepared for some scam and spammers), or Timeshare Users Group (aka "TUG"; tugbbs.com) that has a Bargain Deals section which allows you to list for free that you want to give your unit away.

Went over this morning to rescind. 3 salespeople later, we got an offer we couldn't refuse and have 100 weeks at Vidanta in a 2BR.

YEA RIGHT! We are fully canceled, refunded and no longer under obligation at Vidanta. Even during the cancellation meeting the price and perks magically kept getting better and better.

The resort is amazing, I will say that, but their pushiness is 2nd to none. I was proud of my wife for putting the last guy in his place and putting an end to the tabletop portion. Time to enjoy the rest of our stay here in Cancun

Hi, I would cancel everything you just did as long as you are within the 5 day period. Then look into everything & go back to Vida with a proposal. We did "sell back" a Mexican time share to Vida. It did cost us something, I'll have to look back in our paperwork. Did you sign a contract?

arelg wrote:

Hello, my situation is strange so bear with me... TL:DR - Purchased a cheap RTU yesterday only as leverage to sell my current expensive Timeshare in FL, want to cancel, taking advice to best do so.

I purchased a timeshare last May in Orlando, FL. Big mistake, want out. Currently on vacation in Cancun, did the presentation at Vidanta yesterday, signed up, but here is why..

Our salesperson told us that we could get our Orlando timeshare offloaded in 3-6 months as part of the deal with signing into this new contract. She said they work with TRM (timeshareresalemarket.com) and for $995 they sell it, and if it's not sold in 1 year they refund the $995. So she told us to get this new contract, have TRM sell the old and just never pay anything to Vida towards the Vidanta week we got, and that in Mexico they will just terminate our RTU membership after 2 missed payments and not come seek us. She was basically giving us some insight on how to get out of our crappy Orlando timeshare cheaper than paying the remaining balance and taking the huge hit.

I felt like this was a good course of action, but now that i have time to Google some stuff, it's looking more questionable than that. I want to cancel since I just signed up yesterday, well within the 5 day period.

My question: should I go back over to Vidanta and cancel or just call the number they provided? Also, i gave them no liquid cash, they opened an RCI card in credit on my name. Even if i cancel today, should I expect to have to pay that anyway?

I reached out to TRM and basically asked if I could just use them to sell my timeshare without the contingency of owning this new contract. I didn't tell them that Vida was asking for $995, I want to see what price they come back with first.

Thoughts? Taking all advice, thx

We're also a victim of their lies and they swindled me and my wife lots of money. First we bought a grand mayan 2br unit in Riviera maya back in 2016. We only used it once last year in grand mayan Los cabos. We attended their timeshare upgrade presentation with Ricardo. We were unsuspecting this time because we don't have any issue last time. Ricardo presented to us that vidanta is partially owned now by Goddard group which also own cirque de Soleil and even told us that we can convert the unit into stocks when vidanta open an IPO in the US.He presented it to us as a very good investment because I told him that we have a daughter in college and there will be another one two years from now. They got us for over 50k with 1br loft 20%down.We did some research when we get back in the US and we found out that most of it are lies. We contacted their member services after a week and even pleaded to return back to our old contract to no avail. The funny thing is that we will not even gonna fit in that 1br loft with my 4 kids. Because of this bad experience, I will just walk away from my contract and no plan to ever go back their again. Any advise will be greatly appreciated. Thank you

Well your idea of just not paying any more and then walking away seems like your cheapest option right now. Just do not go paying any law firm, charity, or other company that claims it can "exit" you from your timeshare.

Hi, Do you have the full $50K or just $10,000? If it is only $10K, I agree, walk away. The sad thing is you can go onto Home Away or VRBO & rent the big units from other owners, sometimes for the same price as your maintence fee. First time I have heard the stock conversion, where they going to put that in writing?

We put a total of 12500 including closing cost. The salesperson told me and showed me the list of subsidiary under Goddard group including cirque del soleil. He compared it to be the next Disney theme park alike in Latin america. And then the next couple of years they planned to open an IPO In the US and could convert the unit into stocks. And I just let it go for a couple of months and still pay the monthly balance divided into 10 yrs from their inhouse financing plus 10% interest, because maybe, theres a bright side of it in a couple of years. But what pissed me off so bad is that according to the latest info, they even dropped the name of cirque del Soleil theme park into just THE PARK. What a shady business! So basically is just a simple fraud from an investor standpoint. The sad part of it is that all those things are not recorded which is I get it. But that's not how you build your business. They could easily get sue here in the US. So I'm just done with it and learned from it and move on. I wrote this so that hopefully, it will warn other potential victim especially retired Americans. Thank You.

I just bought monday unfortunately is didn’t read this till today, I need to get out of this deal immediately I was told there is no right of recision in MX, can I still get out? What is I cancel my VIsa purchase and do not pay the balance

You do have 3 days to cancel. I would cancel your credit card payment immediately & then deal with the cancellation of the contract

Make sure you follow your rescission instructions exactly as was printed in your new owner's material. Make sure you send it as instructed, likely by certified mail. Do not phone or go into the office. They will likely reiterate the lie they told you (that you can't rescind) or try to talk you out of rescinding just like the way they talked you into buying.

Get on it quickly!

Fwiw, the rescission (cancellation) period in Mexico is 5 days. It's not 3 days, as inaccurately stated by laurab848 in a post above.

The advice to cancel the credit card first is also misguided. Cancel the contract first, then deal with the credit card.

Sadly I purchased a few months back when I went to visit Cancun. What happens if I stop paying Vidanta? Do they report to US credit agencies?

Just stop paying and walk away .

We also went along to their “90 minute” presentation. Luckily the 90 minutes that turned into 4hrs is all we wasted. It is a great resort and we will go back there but will definitely never attend another timeshare presentation anywhere. I wonder what the Mexican law says about handing out pamphlets at the airport or in town that say” Do not attend a time share presentation until you have read the reviews on redweek.com

WE WON BACK OUR MONEY!!!!!!!!!

I just wanted to let you know, we won our dispute against VIDA, and this is how we did it. We had already put our deposit down and were 1 month into our fees (about 3 months into our contract). We started a dispute with our credit card company and blocked any further charges from VIDA. We lost the initial dispute because they provided our signed contract. But then the credit card company gave us an opportunity to CONTEST THE CHARGES AFTER LOSING THE DISPUTE. We wrote in an-depth response of how fraudulent VIDA is, citing the number of websites/forums talking about how scam-worthy they are and our experience with not being able to travel outside of Mexico, not being able to use our VIDA dollars for travel as promised, how they would turn off the recording every time we asked a question, etc. And OUR CREDIT CARD COMPANY REFUNDED ALL OF OUR MONEY!!!! No joke. Every last dime. The kicker is that our credit card company is the one that took the hit, since VIDA still got to keep our deposit. However, I am hoping this put a major red flag on Vida's name for any one else using our credit card company!!