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Anyone who has experience with Sapphire Holiday Collection weeks ?
They are a VERY CORRUPT COMPANY! We were "tricked" into buying with them in Mexico and not given any info on how to cancel. They also said we had not "rights" or information until we paid the rest of our money plus waited 3 months! When we got home we tried to find them but didn't until we disputed their $1400 charge to our credit card! Then they called and tried to get the other $1600 from us! They fought us with the credit card company and showed them that we signed the contract so we LOST! And in order to keep from paying the rest we cancelled the credit card and got a new one. VERY corrupt! They make money on poor deceived people!
Steven/Nancy K.
We purchased vouchers in October 2017. Have not seen anything. Have had multiple emails with many excuses, tried to stop credit card and couldn’t,. Now all emails are being returned. Said we had to work thru Marketing Travel Solutions which is now not answering emails, phone disconnected and said they were having trouble because of government regulations. FRAUD FRAUD FRAUD EXPENSIVE LESSON LEARNED
harolde54 wrote:Impressed with their honesty? You obviously work for them. Never met a more corrupt organization in my life.
Virginia B.
We were able to get 60% of our money back. Don’t know if it was due to the weekly phone calls every Monday, the posters I made up stating that Sapphire Holiday Collection was a SCAM and handed out to all the venders in Puerto Vallarta that wanted us to go to a time share presentation or threatening to go to Prefeco. I also talked to a guy that was in law school and he told me to bring copies of all my contacts and all emails with Sapphire and take them to there version of a BBB called Prefeco. I also left comments on Expedia about Vallarta Gardens in Puerto Vallarta and Sapphire Holiday Collection being a scam. They started out offering a 30% refund but I wanted 75% but settled on 60% just to end the hassle of dealing with them. They had me sign and return a contract stating I would not leave any more posts on social media. They did not honour their original contract to provide me my vacation weeks so why should I. I hope this will help some of you that have lost money to those crooks
Richard H.
I have also been scammed by Asevig Group Travel and Holiday Rewards US. They took my $4000 for the travel weeks, pressured me to pay another $500 to Asevig Travel & Management to convert those weeks into lots for airfare, hotels, etc. Since then, I've never been able to book travel. Emails don't get returned, phone calls go unanswered, phone #'s are disconnected.
I would be happy to join a class action lawsuit.
Kim H.
kimh800 wrote:I would be happy to join a class action lawsuit.
Caution is always in order when joining a class action lawsuit or publicly expressing your desire to do so. With a lot of these CALs, the attorneys, if they're even successful, make off with most of the money and the plaintiffs are left with very little. The amount is usually not worth all the time and effort they put into pursuing such a CAL.
Also, when you publicly express your desire to pursue such a course in a public forum like this, a lot of unscrupulous law firms take advantage of people like you and prey on your emotions.
Lance C.
This is a lengthy description of our recent and hopefully final encounter with the folks with the Sapphire Holiday Collection group. While it may take some time to read it does have a favorable outcome and may contain some information for those looking to get some or all their money back.
We purchased our “membership” after rejecting the sales pitch to buy into Vallarta Gardens in October of 2017. We paid $4200. Like many folks on here, our first attempt was to cancel our credit card after SHC failed to meet any of the 30-day commitments. Then came all the fruitless phone calls/emails and being ping-ponged between SHC and the Marketing Travel Solutions. We pretty much gave up and stopped communicating with them.
The street agent that took us to Vallarta Gardens initially was Eva Gutierrez. She works at a shop across the street from the Westin Hotel on Av. Paseo de la Marina Sur Marina Vallarta. On our most recent trip to PV, which began on the 12th and lasted until the 26th of May 2019, we decided to pay Ms. Gutierrez a visit. She was “so glad to see us”, wanted to hear our story, wanted copies of email correspondences etc. etc. She insisted that we return to talk with her again. While we were with her, she forwarded a copy of a couple RedWeek posts we pulled up, to her contacts at SHC.
Our follow up with her was on Saturday the 18th. She was nice at first but said she had talked with the SHC folks and there was a “mix up” on our paperwork and that we needed to plan a trip to visit there. We told her that was BS, and that was as nice as our visit got. The rhetoric got very heated and the proprietor, a shorter older man with whitish hair, jumped into the screaming match and told us we needed to “get out” repeatedly, to which I responded “#$@&%*!” as loud as possible, down his throat, also repeatedly! Tourists, shop owners and passersby stopped at the open-air street shop to check out all the fuss. We were told that everything was being recorded on video and that they were calling the cops, to which I said, “I do not care, go right ahead!”
Quickly, officers arrived on bicycles and began questioning what was going on. It was EXTREMELY helpful that my wife spoke fluent Spanish. Officer Ceileo Pelayo began to assert himself in our situation. He was able to get a contact and a phone number at SHC to call. Officer Pelayo was able to speak with someone claiming to be the Gerente de Ventas (Director of Marketing). Whether they lied when they gave a name to the officer or they lied when we finally made a visit is unclear, but the name we were given was Miguel Diaz. He either does not exist or we never got to meet him.
Officer Pelayo was very firm with whomever he spoke with, told them this was a serious matter, that the area depends highly on happy tourist and asked the Gerente de Ventas what he wanted to do about it. The phantom Mr. Diaz responded: “fully refund their purchase” and then requested an account number for the transaction.
Not being the most reliable operation in the world, we certainly were not going to provide them with another account number, as transactions can travel both ways. We simply told them to refund the account that was originally charged.
Officer Pelayo told us he gave them until Thursday to refund the account or there would be subsequent actions. He told us, if the refunds were not received that morning, to take a taxi to Vallarta Gardens and request a meeting with Mr. Diaz. Of special note, the proprietor of the shop loudly objected to the officers not doing anything about our disruption to their business. The Officer told him, he was doing his job the best way he could, he called in the incident, but did not file a report. Oddly enough on Monday morning we received the following email from SHC after not hearing from them for ages:
Good morning, Mr. M******
We hope you are doing well. We are writing to you today to invite you to schedule a phone call that we would like to have to discuss some important matters between you and our company that needs addressing. We would love to hear your thoughts on this. Is there a day and time that works best for you this week? And, what’s the best number to reach you at?
We look forward to hearing from you.
Customer Service Staff.
We responded: Multiple attempts were previously made to resolve this issue, unsuccessfully. It's well past the time to talk. On Saturday 05/18/2019 , Gerente de Ventas, Miguel Diaz agreed with the Puerto Vallarta police officer, Mr Cecileo Pelayo, that our money ($4200) would be credited to our account not later than Thursday morning 05/23/2019. Reversing the charges on the credit card used in the original purchase is how to accomplish this. From our perspective, there is nothing further that needs to be discussed.
Of course, the money did not arrive, so we spent $400 pesos on a cab and arrived unannounced.
Getting through the guard station was not easy. While they had our name, and apparently knew we were trying to get our money back, the taxi driver said we were there for a presentation. After multiple conversations they said they were sending someone to take us inside.
We witnessed a small session going on between a few men, and then one came to our table. Claiming to be the Dir of Marketing for Vallarta Gardens. He was heavy set, mostly rude, kept interrupting, told us we had no beef against him, that SHC was shut down over a year ago that they had rented an office from VG, but they broke relations with them completely. Being a “talker”, my wife was beginning to buy into his story.
After his short rant, we told him what the officer had told us, and that if we didn’t not get our money to call 911 and file a police report. He responded saying: “I guess we are done here; I’ll call security to escort you out.” and he promptly left.
Sitting there, feeling deflated, no one was rushing to the table or to confront us, so we just sat there. Another man arrived nearby and was speaking with someone else we noticed in the earlier group. He turned out to be a key guy. Jesus Carmona _Director of the Operations for the hotel and has apparently been there over 6 years. While writing this missive I found his LinkedIn profile, confirming his position and tenure. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesus-carmona-2141158b/
While waiting to be kicked out, a fortuitous thing happened, after being told SHC was no longer there, I happened to see the SHC “lady” that sold us our package walking through the breakfast sales area. My wife forcefully went right up to the Mr. Carmona and told him that we were just lied to about SHC.
Mr. Carmona clearly was the guy we needed to speak to. Initially he wasn’t that accommodating, but we showed him the recent correspondence between us and SHC, he read the short response and pondered for long time. Finally, he said he wanted us to leave happy and that he would stay with us until we were. He directed the Controller, a fellow named Hector to do what was necessary to get us our money and stopped by to follow-up numerous times.
They operate through ResortCom (based in Las Vegas) as their transaction facilitator. Initially our transfer was approved, but while we were trying to confirm the transfer, they stopped the transaction. The expiration date on the card we used had changed plus the Merchant ID they used on the original transfer had changed as well. Even though the Merchant name was still RANGO Uno D. (We don’t have the full story, but the Merchant ID apparently change over a year ago, so maybe there was some sort of change in the relationship. Who knows?)
This mismatch made an electronic transaction impossible, so we settled for cash and left with nearly $80,000 pesos. In addition, we were asked to sign a letter saying our Membership has been cancelled. Whatever that means.
When we thought we would be escorted out, we did call 911. We were told that if we called (044) 221-2423 we could get instructions on filing a police report, which we still intend to do, and I suppose others can do as well.
Of course, we are pleased with the results and the way Mr. Carmona and Hector handled our issue while we were there. We also owe a debt of gratitude to Officer Ceileo Pelayo, who was incredibly professional, and very gracious to work with.
It’s still disconcerting that SHC still exists and that so many others have been unable to be refunded their hard-earned money. I hope this helps others and that no negative consequences come from this note. (except to those that deserve it) Harry
Harold E.
Last edited by phyl21 on May 30, 2019 09:01 PM
Harolde54: thank you so much for that number. México is a great place and I am happy to read the police cares about their tourist.
Take care and congrats
harolde54 wrote:This is a lengthy description of our recent and hopefully final encounter with the folks with the Sapphire Holiday Collection group. While it may take some time to read it does have a favorable outcome and may contain some information for those looking to get some or all their money back.We purchased our “membership” after rejecting the sales pitch to buy into Vallarta Gardens in October of 2017. We paid $4200. Like many folks on here, our first attempt was to cancel our credit card after SHC failed to meet any of the 30-day commitments. Then came all the fruitless phone calls/emails and being ping-ponged between SHC and the Marketing Travel Solutions. We pretty much gave up and stopped communicating with them.
The street agent that took us to Vallarta Gardens initially was Eva Gutierrez. She works at a shop across the street from the Westin Hotel on Av. Paseo de la Marina Sur Marina Vallarta. On our most recent trip to PV, which began on the 12th and lasted until the 26th of May 2019, we decided to pay Ms. Gutierrez a visit. She was “so glad to see us”, wanted to hear our story, wanted copies of email correspondences etc. etc. She insisted that we return to talk with her again. While we were with her, she forwarded a copy of a couple RedWeek posts we pulled up, to her contacts at SHC.
Our follow up with her was on Saturday the 18th. She was nice at first but said she had talked with the SHC folks and there was a “mix up” on our paperwork and that we needed to plan a trip to visit there. We told her that was bullshit, and that was as nice as our visit got. The rhetoric got very heated and the proprietor, a shorter older man with whitish hair, jumped into the screaming match and told us we needed to “get out” repeatedly, to which I responded “#$@&%*!” as loud as possible, down his throat, also repeatedly! Tourists, shop owners and passersby stopped at the open-air street shop to check out all the fuss. We were told that everything was being recorded on video and that they were calling the cops, to which I said, “I do not care, go f’ing right ahead!”
Quickly, officers arrived on bicycles and began questioning what was going on. It was EXTREMELY helpful that my wife spoke fluent Spanish. Officer Ceileo Pelayo began to assert himself in our situation. He was able to get a contact and a phone number at SHC to call. Officer Pelayo was able to speak with someone claiming to be the Gerente de Ventas (Director of Marketing). Whether they lied when they gave a name to the officer or they lied when we finally made a visit is unclear, but the name we were given was Miguel Diaz. He either does not exist or we never got to meet him.
Officer Pelayo was very firm with whomever he spoke with, told them this was a serious matter, that the area depends highly on happy tourist and asked the Gerente de Ventas what he wanted to do about it. The phantom Mr. Diaz responded: “fully refund their purchase” and then requested an account number for the transaction.
Not being the most reliable operation in the world, we certainly were not going to provide them with another account number, as transactions can travel both ways. We simply told them to refund the account that was originally charged.
Officer Pelayo told us he gave them until Thursday to refund the account or there would be subsequent actions. He told us, if the refunds were not received that morning, to take a taxi to Vallarta Gardens and request a meeting with Mr. Diaz. Of special note, the proprietor of the shop loudly objected to the officers not doing anything about our disruption to their business. The Officer told him, he was doing his job the best way he could, he called in the incident, but did not file a report. Oddly enough on Monday morning we received the following email from SHC after not hearing from them for ages:
Good morning, Mr. M******
We hope you are doing well. We are writing to you today to invite you to schedule a phone call that we would like to have to discuss some important matters between you and our company that needs addressing. We would love to hear your thoughts on this. Is there a day and time that works best for you this week? And, what’s the best number to reach you at?
We look forward to hearing from you.
Customer Service Staff.
We responded: Multiple attempts were previously made to resolve this issue, unsuccessfully. It's well past the time to talk. On Saturday 05/18/2019 , Gerente de Ventas, Miguel Diaz agreed with the Puerto Vallarta police officer, Mr Cecileo Pelayo, that our money ($4200) would be credited to our account not later than Thursday morning 05/23/2019. Reversing the charges on the credit card used in the original purchase is how to accomplish this. From our perspective, there is nothing further that needs to be discussed.
Of course, the money did not arrive, so we spent $400 pesos on a cab and arrived unannounced.
Getting through the guard station was not easy. While they had our name, and apparently knew we were trying to get our money back, the taxi driver said we were there for a presentation. After multiple conversations they said they were sending someone to take us inside.
We witnessed a small session going on between a few men, and then one came to our table. Claiming to be the Dir of Marketing for Vallarta Gardens. He was heavy set, mostly rude, kept interrupting, told us we had no beef against him, that SHC was shut down over a year ago that they had rented an office from VG, but they broke relations with them completely. Being a “talker”, my wife was beginning to buy into his story.
After his short rant, we told him what the officer had told us, and that if we didn’t not get our money to call 911 and file a police report. He responded saying: “I guess we are done here; I’ll call security to escort you out.” and he promptly left.
Sitting there, feeling deflated, no one was rushing to the table or to confront us, so we just sat there. Another man arrived nearby and was speaking with someone else we noticed in the earlier group. He turned out to be a key guy. Jesus Carmona _Director of the Operations for the hotel and has apparently been there over 6 years. While writing this missive I found his LinkedIn profile, confirming his position and tenure. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesus-carmona-2141158b/
While waiting to be kicked out, a fortuitous thing happened, after being told SHC was no longer there, I happened to see the SHC “lady” that sold us our package walking through the breakfast sales area. My wife forcefully went right up to the Mr. Carmona and told him that we were just lied to about SHC.
Mr. Carmona clearly was the guy we needed to speak to. Initially he wasn’t that accommodating, but we showed him the recent correspondence between us and SHC, he read the short response and pondered for long time. Finally, he said he wanted us to leave happy and that he would stay with us until we were. He directed the Controller, a fellow named Hector to do what was necessary to get us our money and stopped by to follow-up numerous times.
They operate through ResortCom (based in Las Vegas) as their transaction facilitator. Initially our transfer was approved, but while we were trying to confirm the transfer, they stopped the transaction. The expiration date on the card we used had changed plus the Merchant ID they used on the original transfer had changed as well. Even though the Merchant name was still RANGO Uno D. (We don’t have the full story, but the Merchant ID apparently change over a year ago, so maybe there was some sort of change in the relationship. Who knows?)
This mismatch made an electronic transaction impossible, so we settled for cash and left with nearly $80,000 pesos. In addition, we were asked to sign a letter saying our Membership has been cancelled. Whatever that means.
When we thought we would be escorted out, we did call 911. We were told that if we called (044) 221-2423 we could get instructions on filing a police report, which we still intend to do, and I suppose others can do as well.
Of course, we are pleased with the results and the way Mr. Carmona and Hector handled our issue while we were there. We also owe a debt of gratitude to Officer Ceileo Pelayo, who was incredibly professional, and very gracious to work with.
It’s still disconcerting that SHC still exists and that so many others have been unable to be refunded their hard-earned money. I hope this helps others and that no negative consequences come from this note. (except to those that deserve it) Harry
Diego M.
We did not get travel vouchers and did not get our money back. After 2 years of emails and phone calls we have nothing. They no longer answer our calls or emails. They lied, lied and then lied some more. Good bye $4000. Shame on them. I hope what goes around comes around and slaps them hard!
Christy D.