Original Message:
Re: Omega Marketing Solutions any one had dealings with them? (by Clair H.):
For three years now I've managed a Yahoo group now populated by well over 250 people (and growing) among thousands ripped off by Copeland Marketing based in Daytona, which remanifested later as World Wide Vacation Realty (out of Georgia, then Daytona) and a couple other names - after our group worked together to put Copeland out of business. These egregious operators adapted the "standard" rip-off strategies so well-described here (and elsewhere by GaryM172).
We did everything under the sun to get the Florida Attorney General's office to prosecute or force them to refund the clients - to no avail. We never could find any attorney willing to handle a class action suit - the basic futility of that has been observed and acknowledged. We couldn't seem to get any media coverage of the problem actually rolling, though advocacy was done -- even though told this was a known problem. Only a few clients out of hundreds we organized ever got any money back - that was only accomplished early on, as a result of various individuals threatening legal action. People ripped off with credit cards charged in an unauthorized way are having perpetual problems with the credit card companies actually making the refund stick. It always boils down to one person's word against another.
Yet some among us are still trying to do "something": http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Copeland_Marketing_Investigation/
My question is - have any of you found (or even heard of) a top-flight journalist or two willing to help expose this timeshare scam "industry" in a major way? Or has that happened already and if so, what/when were the programs aired or where have the major news sources published this stuff and listed the offenders?
Perhaps a better question is, how can the hundreds of "aware and angry" timeshare reseller clients scattered around on the various forums and Yahoo groups, etc, who have been ripped off by the dozens of timeshare reseller scamers that CONTINUE TO PROLIFERATE right under our noses... how/where can we all get organized to work together to expose these scams in a MAJOR way?
Our group would sure like to join a much larger effort! I wonder what would happen if representatives of about a half dozen groups of disgruntled clients "taken in" by at least that many companies sat down with the Florida Attorney General and said "look, we aren't budging until you start acting!" (Since Florida is notorious for hosting the vast majority of these companies.)
-Clair (now living in Canberra, Australia)