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| Puerto Bahia Villas and Spa REMAX Paraiso Deceptive and Fradulant Practice, could not deliver title/deed and refused to return deposit money La cruz |
| 14th of Oct, 2011 by User949866 |
| Developer could not deliver deed by date stipulated in purchase agreement which also stipulated a return of deposit, in full, together with 3% interest. Developer also refused to return a "fully refundable" deposit made to hold the price on the new construction of a residence. There are already criminal charges being filed for fraud and deceptive practices with the local District Attorney (by the law firm of Connell & Associates, Puerto Vallarta) for obtaining funds fraudulantly and being used for purposes other than an equity position in the real estate pursuant to the terms under the respective purchase agreements of several Purchasers. WARNING, Do NOT deliver any funds other than to a bona fide Escrow Agent (Title Insurance Company) and only after the Purchase Agreement and Escrow Agreement has been fully reviewed by a local attorney, NOT the local Notary. Otherwise you risk losing the entire deposit and any progress payments you will be pressured into making. None of the agreements you will be offered will be signed by the Land Owner of record. Only by Marc Talon, the marketing and sales organization, which has no rights or interest in the property for proper conveyance of a good deed or title to this property. BEWARE, you will be offered incentives for additional payments or progress payments, but without any protection for your investment. You will have NO rights to this property and all your hard earned money will be gone, history! |
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I doubt these people have anything to do with ReMax, and would be highly suspicious of any claims they make. I also heard they went through several property managers recently, lost some key investors and essentially ran out of money, putting the project on indefinite hold until they scrape enough cash from gullible tourists to resume building.
Here is my story of visiting the property, which did not go well at all:
Why buy a week at a timeshare when anyone with a computer and internet connection can get the same or better deal through expedia or hotels.com or other site? In this case, our gig was touted to be a 90 minute presentation with ReMax realty for a property they were building out in La Cruz, not a timeshare, but a housing development in the works. It wasn't completed, but they had model homes available we could look at to get an idea what they were. As a bonus, they would also give us breakfast at their resort plus 3000 pesos, 2000 of it up front, and 1000 pesos after the end of the spiel along with some tours we've been wanting to do in the PV area.
The cost to us would be a 200 pesos, we pay to reserve our spot for Sunday morning, that way if we pull a no-show they aren't out of pocket for the taxi reservations or what not. We've heard that from other timeshares offering show tickets though most of them don't seem to want any money up front. Anyway, the deposit was promised to be returned to us after the initial taxi ride at breakfast, so we said sure why not, at the going rate that's between $15 and $20 USD. He would pick us up at 9:15 from a spot near where we were staying. Monday night we would go to our show and be 3000 pesos the richer for sitting through what we didn't then realize would be yet another time share presentation.
Once there, we parted ways and the guy turned us over to a suave looking sales man who then turned us over to your typical sexy looking woman sales person, who then turned us over to yet another sharp-dressed man who would (finally) be our actual salesman. We don't know why, but most the time shares like to do the people shuffle. I saw the phrase "private residences" and sure thought this looked a lot like the time shares Marriott was doing awhile ago in Hawaii. The man assured me this is a home, not a time share.
At the LaCruz marina, the salesman pointed out a small fishing boat which he said was owned by the property, and as owners (if we bought into it..) we would have access for $200 USD per day to rent it out. The boat was wrapped and docked as if it had been stowed there unused for some time, though the salesman said it was only put there just this weekend because the captain takes Sundays off. We later saw a photo of a much nicer yacht in their brochure which looked nothing like the little boat in the marina.. RED FLAG!!
Once back at the to-be-property location, he drove us up a steep and sharply banked road to show us where the spa and some houses would be. At this time I thought we'd get to see one of the built homes, but there were only a few, and when asked, he said NO he wouldn't show us one because it was having its pool repaired. I didn't see a pool, I just saw an eyesore of a retaining wall looking like it was keeping the place from sliding down the hill in some awful mudslide. RED FLAG!!
He then drove us up an even steeper hill paved with a bumpy sort of faux cobblestone concrete paving, to gaze upon flattened lots teetering on the edge of the hill. I imagined the potential car wrecks getting in and out of this place. Seeing the clear-cut trees making way for flat parcels reminded me of how rain forests are being swathed out to make way for cow pastures and civilization. Though the place was touted to be eco-friendly, I didn't quite get that impression.
Finally, we arrived at a heavily populated sales office to watch some novice computer-generated simulations of what the rooms and area were supposed to end up like. I wasn't so impressed. The layout reminded me of a miniature golf course, and their digs were furnished on the cheap with modern furniture resembling a cross between Wal-Mart and IKEA.
It didn't look Mexican, it looked like lower middle-class America. I wondered if the video had subliminal advertising. We were offered a round of alcohol but the wife and I opted for bottled water. We each received a tiny glass of water, similar to what you may get on a commercial airplane for brushing your teeth.
The salesman commented about how nice the luxury accommodations and 5 star living would be here.I held my short glass of water in hand, looking around at the dollar-store decor and mumbled and nodded, pretending he must have meant somewhere else.
Since the place was so overbooked with sales people we didn't actually get a place to sit, and had to stand outside in the 85+ degree heat. I didn't mind because the inside of this room was way over air conditioned, and of that, it was of poor quality, perhaps because they exceeded the rooms maximum capacity.
The salesman asked if we had any issue making a decision today, and indeed we had no issue. I was planning on saying "no" and walking.
He then said (and I quote) "if I show him my credit cards and buy the property he'll basically shut the hell up and let us go." A bit crude I thought, but then an hour had passed, and we were about 10-15 minutes into our remaining 30 minutes.
I said we were planning on investing in a more permanent home for our retirement but that this place didn't quite fit the bill.
Seeing that we weren't overwhelmed, he told us to wait and ran off to get a hand-written note confirming what we said along with extra verbiage we never said: #1 we had money tied up in our existing time share and to invest would be beyond the budget -- frankly we could have put over $30, 000 just from my credit card, let alone digging into my checking account. I was insulted and annoyed. #2 he said we were thinking it was too pre-construction -- again untrue, we realized it was pre-construction, the problem was he didn't show us the model we were promised to see. I felt they were hiding something, simple as that.
We later heard one of the salesman tell a woman the place she was renting in ocean-side Bucerias was a dump. The lady was renting an upscale condo in Bucerias, whose decor and location ran circles around this unkempt place.
I had enough. I mentioned we didn't get the 2, 000 pesos up front, and thus called him on the promised gift of the tour. He said, ok, give me a minute and we'll get your gifts so you can return to enjoying your vacation.
He asked us to sign the form to accomplish this goal, so we shrugged, wrote additional verbiage into his paragraph that we'd return to see a model, and we hopped into one of their off road jeeps to be dumped out to the bottom entrance to close the day.
We entered the small building and overheard a woman mention she had asthma and couldn't stay in an air conditioned room very long, so would need to be interviewed at a place that was more open. I didn't think accommodating this woman's medical needs would be a challenge, seeing as I had to sit with my wife outside on a concrete wall instead of inside, where the tables and chairs were, just moments before.
When we sat down, a man with deep set tired shifty eyes went over our statements and asked if the salesman had failed or was rude. I recalled a few occasions but held back since it wasn't my job to be his mother and teach him basic etiquette or table manners. At breakfast the salesman put his dirty napkin onto my plate, this was before I had finished my 150 peso omelet.
Just then the asthmatic lady began choking in the table next to us, and her sales man rolled his eyes as if she were faking it. She let herself out of the building while her husband sat in disbelief at the rudeness of the sales team.
Our next guy then tried to sell us a membership with GTC, a smaller travel club that we didn't need. He then informed us we weren't getting our gifts, and stated if we were thinking we'd be able to use the timeshare we bought, then (again I quote) "we were blowing smoke out of our asses."
Our sales guy never said we'd be out our gifts by signing his document, but that's what the bait and switch amounted to.
We weren't impressed. He then said, they had a sister property not far, and they would pay us 5, 000 pesos to visit it and listen to their other presentation. We shook our heads, seeing the writing on the wall, knowing this scam wasted 4 hours of our morning, and we had nothing to show for it.
In the view of many other people I repeated what they promised us up front, which wasn't delivered, and that they also promised they would show us a physical home, which we were not let into, and yet they say now we changed our mind or story in other ways breaking some prenuptial contract? Ridiculous.
I asked him how he sleeps at night lying to people, and he didn't answer. He walked off somewhere else while yet another lady came to verify we weren't getting gifts, and summon a taxi for us. My wife was ready to punch her out and demanded to give us our deposit back, which she reluctantly did.
The taxi dropped us off at the plaza where this whole adventure started. We marched right to the tour man and he apologized, promising he'd get back to us about the tour to see if he can make good on the deal-- of course, the folks at Puerto Bahia cussed him out as well, they seem to be well trained at using vulgar phrases, like a spoiled child whines when things don't go their way.
A scam is a scam is a scam, and a time share is a time share is a time share, no matter how you sugar coat it (or salt it, in this case).
Some places are nice, some are aggressive, and some, like this place, were just plain rude. That may work for some who are easily intimidated, but it doesn't work for me. |
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| All I can say is, I wish my husband and I have seen this before our trip this winter. I haven't experienced the "rudeness" that has been posted, but felt very rushed during our meeting. We purchased our fractional ownership with our hard earned money and retirement savings hoping that they were to rent our unused weeks and 5 yrs it would have made our investment back. After reading so many testimonials I have become sleepless and can only pray that this is not going to happen with us. All the paper signing only to discover that we had to pay for a rental company to rent our weeks. To pay a company to transfer our previous time share that we loved, for this place that hasn't even been completed. We were told that a web cam was being set up in the end of March and are still having to wait to see the progress. It appears that no one has answers when it will be up. Our sales guy told us that he would take care of our questions and now he doesn't reply to our e-mails or phone calls. He did mention 2 weeks ago that the internet was going to be down for they were putting up a new tower. So I will give them the benifit of doubt. According to what I have read, if any one misleads you or make promises that are not true it can be filed as fraud and revolks your contract. They stated in our first letter that we have made a wonderfull investment, fully deeded. Well I guess time will answer this question. I hope Peurto Bahia does not disapoint us and will be are dream investment |
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Cecelia,
You have been scammed. Period!
According to your testimonial, Your weeks will never be rented so don´t waste anymore money on a rental scam company witch will only continue with unfulfilled promises. You still own your other timeshare, you will be contacted (if not already) and will be asked a fee for transferring the ownership; don´t pay anything as you will still own the timeshare at the end but will be out more money (more unfulfilled promises).
I was a waiter at Puerto Bahia and salesmen would laugh at any "stupid gringo" who felt for their lies and gave them $XX, XXX.XX USD for an expensive breakfast and a set of signed documents that are worth nothing.
Read more about it. They are ranked in the top thirty most complained resorts in Mexico.
http://www.timesharescam.com/timeshare-scam-mexico/ |
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