Unauthorized Soliciations:
Unauthorized Solicitations and Possible Scams are now joined together to reinforce the importance of being alert. We don't want to be paranoid, but we do want to be careful.Cold calling is fine. Sales personnel have to generate leads somehow, and sometimes, the cold call is the appropriate way to reach out.
However, there is a big difference between selling legitimate products and services and trolling for naive, trusting individuals. Taking advantage of a person's naïveté for money is unconscionable.
There is a fine line between wanting, trusting, releasing personal information on blind faith and conducting a meaningful level of due diligence. Sometimes, gut reactions are alright. But other times, paying money without proper due diligence could be lost forever.
Part of the service we provide is a database of sorts. This page provides a listing of alleged companies that, through their representatives, have presented themselves as legitimate parties who want to buy your timeshare. Interesting stories...yes. But very dangerous. Do not fall into temptation.
Please send us your experiences and company names so we can post them here and in the Possible Scam pages.
Thank you for your participation. Without it, this would be a blank page!
| 2025-06-04 |
Bill is a long time Vidanta member. Like most, he would like to sell one or more of his contracts because he is not using all his available weeks. How we all get on the scammers list of people to call is a mystery hidden in the depths of the "Dark Web", that place on the Internet that is used by unscrupulous individuals and groups. The standard answer is our names are public records found in the Mexican government recording offices where bulk deeds are recorded by developers, landowners, issuers of timeshare contracts and other entities that record ownership transactions. Another less believable is exchange companies leak names and addresses of recent transactions. We don't know the real answer, but we do know our names are circulating through out the scammers web. This is the second of two offers that came after Bill made a purchase in March, 2025. Word travels fast on the Dark Web. In this case, the scammer's email is associated with a legitimate company - City.Travel. Travel is the domain name. It was created on October 5, 2007, and is over 17 years old. This is a legitimate company. Notice in the letter that appears below City.Travel is prominently displayed next to the name of the person called Erick, who contacted Bill by telephone. Erick provided an email address in his letter to Bill, and Bill responded. But the email bounced back. The reason is Erick is not associated with City.Travel at all. Instead, he is associated with a domain called cityfinancetravel.com. Cityfinancetravel.com was created 209 days ago on November 7, 2024. Not a good sign - bounced back email and association that is inaccurate and misleading. Here is Bill's letter: City.Travel vs CityFinanceTravel.com - The second name is the scammer.
This is a reminder that you must be very careful about sending personal and contract information to someone you do not know. These entities are very careful about receiving what could be viewed as anything sent by mail or email. That is the reason Bill's email was returned. Scammers do not want a trail that shows they improperly received confidential information. We all want to sell our contracts. But, please do not fall prey to the Dark Web scammers. Thank you for sharing with us Bill. Great catch and warning! | |
| 2025-05-17 |
Another scam arrived yesterday. It appears to be similar to the alert we received from Shirley. Assured Vacation Rentals claims to have been representing companies and doing business since 2007. That may be true, but It was not using the domain called assurevacationrentals.com because that domain is only 156 days old. According to whoisdomaintools.com, the domain was created on December 12, 2024 and expires on December 12, 2025. The company claims to work with a company to make arrangements for an annual celebration. Here is what the introduction says: Our company is working with a corporation that is interested in purchasing timeshare memberships to use for their annual corporate anniversary celebration. We have been provided your information to reach out to you and see if you would be interested in transferring your membership. Take a look at the prices offered: Too good to be true!
Clearly, this is not a legitimate offer. Recommendation: Stay Away! | |
| 2025-05-12 |
May has become Scam Month!
Look at the offers below that we received: These are just a few of the offers you will see in the near future. They are all false offers. They do not want to help you. They just want your money. We are very happy to learn that two Aimfair members used skills they learned on Aimfair. Shirley actually called the manager of the building listed as the address for the company making the offer. What did she find? The building manager said the company does not pay rent in the building. Yes, it is a scam. Another Aimfair member had his son in law visit the building where the real estate broker bringing a buyer for the member's contract. Yes, the $1.5 MM was deposited in the escrow account created for the benefit of the member. Yes, the buyer had great resume. He is wealthy, an art collector and very wealthy. So, his son in law visited the address given by the broker. What did he find? Nothing! No real estate company anywhere near the address. All this happened in May. There are many other examples out there. All very convincing and all fake! Just remember, if it sounds too good to be true, then it's not true. | |
| 2025-05-02 |
Chris received a call from a person called Victor Gonzalez. He claims to work for PROFECO, the Mexican government agency devoted to consumer protection. Her first contact was by phone. The caller then followed up with an email that explained the purpose of PRFECO and a form the caller asked Chris to complete. Supposedly, PROFECO is investigating fraudulent activities, and Chris' name is on a list obtained by PROFECO. All looked very official, as you can tell by reviewing the attached copy of the letter. Before we answered Chris, we checked out the domain name used by the email address of the alleged PROFECO representative. The domain name is "profeco-mx.com". Here is what we found: The "profeco-mx.com" domain is 320 days old. It was created on 2024-06-17. It expires on 2025-06-17. It was last updated on 2024-06-17. The website for the official PROFECO website is https://www.gob.mx/profeco. Clearly, Chris caught the eye of a phisher or scammer. Here is a copy of the email and the form she was to complete. There is a lot of confidential information on this form that should not be shared with anyone except those whom you trust. Phishing Form - Allegedly from PROFECO. Do Not Complete!
We all need to be very careful about providing people with information that is confidential. It is very easy to trust someone who claims to be looking out for your best interests. In today's world, it is very easy to fall prey to people who claim to be looking out for your best interests. The Timeshare Industry is filled with scam artists and fraudulent offers. Millions of dollars are lost each year, and the scammers don't feel they are doing anything wrong. In the words of one scammer, "...I don't make them pay me, they just do....". It's true, most people who pay money to people they don't know do so because they are misled. The value of our timeshare interests don't increase in spite of what we are told. So please be careful and do your due diligence before sharing anything with people you don't know. Thank you Chris for sharing your information with us. We all benefit from your contribution. | |
| 2025-01-20 |
Today, we received another call from Mexico. The person claimed to be a representative of FONATUR (Fondo Nacional de Fomento al Turismo) carrying out investigations into scam schemes allegedly perpetuated by resorts and developers in Mexico. The problem is the caller was not telling the truth. FONATUR does not have the mandate to investigate or handle complaints related to fraudulent phone calls, including scams involving timeshares. FONATUR's primary role is the planning and development of tourism infrastructure and projects, not consumer protection or fraud investigation. If you or someone you know has experienced such fraudulent activity, the appropriate authorities in Mexico to report these scams are:
The real reason for the call was to get information. Here is the letter and the accompanying forms: The letter from a scammer calling from Mexico.
This is the first page of the Phishing attempt.
This is the second page of the Phishing attempt.
The domain used by the caller is also a relatively new domain. Here are the statistics from whois.domaintools.com: Dates 496 days old Created on 2023-09-12 Expires on 2025-09-12 Updated on 2024-08-12 Be careful. | |
| 2024-12-10 |
Jim beat me to it. He sent an email with the following message: Good morning, Looks fishy to me! He received the same email as I. It was from a scammer impersonating Vidanta, and the message referenced 15 extra bonus weeks that you haven't used. Well, we have seen versions of this offer many times over the past 8 or more years. Here is the message: Fake Bonus Week offer.
Looks pretty official, doesn't it? Well, let's look a little closer. Take your mouse and hover over the sender's email address and let the information that is behind the scene come into view. Here is what you would see: Fake Bonus Week offer.
When your mouse hovers over the little arrow on the right side of the Reply To address, you see an entirely different email address than anything from Vidanta. So, in the future, simply hover over the Reply To address or any other box where the sender invites you to tap to discover who is actually communicating with you. In this case, the return address in our email was hercrangel@gmail.com. That address is not even close to being related to anything legitimate from Vidanta. The final red flag is the members@vidantamexico.com.mx email address. The domain called vidantamexico.com.mx is only 52 days old. Here is the record from Who Is Domain Tools: Domain Name: vidantamexico.com.mx Created On: 2024-10-20 Expiration Date: 2025-10-20 Last Updated On: 2024-12-06 Registrar: Registrar.eu URL: https://www.openprovider.com Whois Web URL: https://whois.registrar.eu Scammers and Phishers are ever present, and they want your information. They get paid for providing your confidential information and will try nearly anything to get it. So remember, when you are not sure about the identity of an email sender, use the online resources to check out the sender before responding. | |
| 2024-10-18 |
Another fake claim designed to get your personal information and ask for money to support a Mexican Federal Government investigation into illegal call centers engaged in fraudulent activities is being spread by cold callers. The name of this soliciting entity is Sectur Legal from Legal Tourism Complaints in Mexico. This is a highly suspect solicitation:
Recommendation: delete and forget. | |
| 2024-10-07 |
George sent in a note saying he was skeptical about the person who called him today. Supposedly, the caller was from a Mexican Federal Government Agency called Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público, or SHCP. The claim presented by the caller was George's name showed up on a list of citizens who had their private information mishandled or could have been affected by crimes listed in the email. Of course, the request is for personal information and a description of when an incident occurred and the personal or emotional feedback about the incident. Complete the form and send it in to someone you don't know or could never find anything about. Naturally, accompanying the form is an official looking id from SEP. What is SEP? It stands for Secretaría de Educación Pública - In English the Ministry of Public Education. So the bottom line is an alleged official from the Ministry of Public Education contacted George to ask him to respond by completing a form presented under the auspices of chasing down the bad guys. As it turns out, the SHCP has nothing to do with consumer affairs. That is PROFECO's job. The caller said nothing about PROFECO. In fact the email address came from a domain called legalgob.mx. That does not sound like the Mexican Federal Government to us. You guessed it, the domain was formed in 2023-11-28, less than a year ago. Well, that about does it. Definitely a scam phishing expedtion! Please don't provide any information to a person called Jesus Edwardo Castillo. The caller is probably impersonating Jesus as well. Remember, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it is a duck. Only YOU can help stamp out scammers: Don't send Money....or your information to anyone you don'e know. | |
| 2024-10-01 |
Dr. Tom sent this offer to us for our review and consideration. So glad he did, because it appears attractive (Don't they all?), but when evaluated a bit more closely, it appears to be illegitimate. Following is a copy of the terms sheet: “ “
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The empiretitleescrow.com domain is only 100 days old. Here are the specifics:
The address is located in a single family apartment building or condo complex. Who knows, maybe this group is legitimate. The telephone listed on the offer is registered to D Kellenberger in Denver, CO. Again, he may be very legitimate. But....there are too many red flags. I recommend approaching with high levels of caution. Thanks Dr. Tom for letting us know about this potentially scammy offer. If you do connect with this group, let us know your experience. | |
| 2024-08-31 |
Question from an Aimfair Member: Have you ever heard of Lillian Foster from PlatinumCounsel Enterprises? Answer: Yes we have. A couple of years ago, Lillian and her company, PlatinumCounsel, reached out to us. She claimed we overpaid for our contract and that she and her team, who she said had insider connections, could help recover the overpayments. We chose not to engage with them. Recently, another Aimfair member asked about Lillian. After speaking with her, they shared some concerning information. Consider the following paraphrased discussion:: Hi Bob. I spoke with Lillian Foster, and she mentioned that while she couldn’t reduce my debt since I have none, her company was renting a large block of Grand Luxxe rooms for an incentive trip for Arbonne in October 2025 in Nuevo Vallarta. Arbonne is a legitimate multi-level marketing company. Lillian said she organized this block rental to help Vidanta members rent out their rooms. However, Vidanta customer service told me this was a scam and that they don’t work with third parties for room rentals. The arrangement required paying her company directly and providing my member number. The prices quoted were higher than what a member would typically pay for the rooms, with Arbonne supposedly paying over $6,000 per unit. I won’t be participating—it seems like either a scam or an under-the-table deal. Look for a copy of Lillian’s forwarded email; she sounded very professional and convincing with her British accent, which could persuade some people. She told Lillian she was interested in renting her weeks. Lillian provided further details: We actually just opened up a new opportunity to our existing clients we have already worked with. We only have a few opportunities left. Typically we only work with clients who are already familiar with us but I am open to discussing with you if you are open. Here is the latest event we are accepting units for:
Here are the details of the opportunity:
Required Suites: - 55 Grand Luxxe Suites (39 RESERVED) 9 Remaining - Rate: $6,290 per suite USAGE FEE: $3,950 per unit (YOU PAY) - Return: $3,950 + $2,340 per suite - 25 Grand Mayan Deluxe or GL Deluxe or Grand Bliss Suites (22 RESERVED) 1 Remaining - Rate: $4,900 per suite USAGE FEE: $3,290 per unit (YOU PAY) - Return: $3,290 + $1,610 per suite Key Points: - We can only block the rooms by booking all at once through our company. - Payment for the room usage fees must be made upfront. - Full payment will be made to you by April 2, 2025. - PC will not collect commission from the room rentals.
This is a limited opportunity, and I wanted to offer it to you first before releasing it to my broader contact list. By investing in this venture, you will not only secure an excellent return on your investment but also play a crucial role in hosting a prestigious event for Arbonne International. If you are interested or have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at your earliest convenience. I look forward to potentially working together to make this event a grand success. I contacted Arbonne International to verify the details. While they confirmed a retreat in Costa Rica for October 2024, they had no plans for a 2025 retreat in Puerto Vallarta. We also checked the Florida Secretary of State's records and found no business registration under the name PlatinumCounsel Enterprises or its variations. Key Concerns:
Bottom Line: There are too many red flags. Proceed with extreme caution. | |