They are literally professional scam artists. Watch the movie QUEEN OF VERSAILLES (documentary) BEFORE YOU GO here. It's pretty much what's going on with this place. Bahia Turquesa Residences/Coco Sunset/Las Palmas finance guy "Martin Schriber" used to work for Westgate,.....
From the minute you check in here the SCAM begins. Nice upbeat young people check you in, don’t be fooled, they are all in on it. “Amy, Tom, Caroline Gogue, and her husband Travis Scott” all seemed liked normal, fun people, totally high energy...Until they hear the word no, then everything changes.
We were checked in by “Amy” curly haired American from Jersey, who seemed totally cool, but now I’m convinced she’s just part of the scam. Amy told us we had to attend this meeting to be able to use there private beach club and get access to multiple discounts from local businesses throughout our stay. She said it was a free breakfast/90 minute presentation and everyone had to go. She asked what day we wanted to go and for a $20.00 refundable deposit to keep our space. We had no idea what we were getting in to.
The first room they took us to was absolutely disgusting. It was a 2 bedroom unit with a kitchen and a bathroom. The place wreaked of bug spray scent and when I say wreaked, I could taste the smell in my throat, it made me sick. So we immediately went down to look for Amy and when told she was gone, we then talked to “Tom” the resort manager. He was very accommodating and switched us to a newer unit. When we got there, it was nicer than the first unit, but not at all up to my standards. First of all we went from a 2 bedroom to a one bedroom (not sure how that’s an upgrade), the only door on the place was glass with no cover, so you could see right in. Did I mention the bathroom is in direct view of the door, so unless you always close the bathroom door, you’re neighbors are going to know you better than you’d like. The kitchen was not functionally correct. To open the fridge, you had to move 2 chairs from the kitchen table, the electric stove heats up every burner but the one you want, and they say there is more cookware in the unit that is really there, beware, they’ll charge you for what is missing. The shower drips slowly and the 2 towels they gave us felt like sandpaper. The bed was like sleeping on a box spring, so extremely uncomfortable. The comforter was a tablecloth... And we got 1 flat pillow per person. So, after the first night, we went down and spoke again with Amy, telling her our concerns. She told us they could give us an egg crate, 2 more pillows, and some more blankets. She asked if we wanted to be in the room when they dropped it off, we said yes. We were leaving for a bit, but we told her we’d come by the office on our way back and they could follow us over with the bedding. Well... We got back and went to our room first, there was an egg crate on the bed and a trash bag with 2 pillows and a sheet sitting on the futon in our room. So much for waiting for one of us to be there... By the way...THERE IS NO PHONE OR INTERNET IN THE ROOMS OR ANYWHERE NEARBY. You must go to there office to use these things. (After our experience, I’m sure this is there way of controlling the environment)
This was all annoying, but bearable. UNTIL THE “FREE BREAKFAST” meeting the next day... We were told 90 minutes total including breakfast... That was a lie. We were there from 8:30 am til 1:00 pm, they wasted a full day of ours. Breakfast started off ok, the “host/saleschick” we got was Caroline Gogi...she was fun to talk with and we got along very well. She did remind us during breakfast that this was a sales pitch, but there was no pressure. After breakfast started the real SCAM... Caroline took us up to the units they were selling “fractional” weeks for... They were nice, as a matter of fact, these were the pictures posted on INTERVAL’S WEBSITE (which is where we were supposed to be staying). FALSE ADVERTISEMENT. After viewing the property, we sat down in a room/office with Caroline (I doubt that’s even her real name) and she started trying to work her slimy magic on us. Believe me, it all sounded great, but my instinct was telling me don’t do it. She starts the meeting and after she’s done with her part, she calls over the finance guy. THIS IS WHERE OUR STORY GETS GOOD... So “Martin Schreiber” sits down and before he started talking his crap, my girlfriend looks at him and says, “Hey I know you” He was like “Me, really?” She was like “yeah, you look so familiar.... Did you work for Westgate?” He was totally shocked and replied “Yes, I did.” My girl then told him she knew she recognized him, she had watched Queen of Versailles and saw him in the movie. Then she started talking about all the crappy things Westgate did, ripping people off, selling properties that didn’t exist, etc. I don’t think he knew what to do, he probably crapped himself a little, but he eventually kept going with the scam. These people are like vultures... Surrounding you, pressuring you, but trying to make you think they’re looking out for you. We told them my savings was for emergencies, I’m in my 30's and I’ve had cancer and back surgery, so I need a savings in case I can’t work for a bit... You would think they would back off understanding that we’re a young couple not in any position to give them $10,000, BUT NO, they could care less about you as a person, all they see is FREE MONEY, that is if they get you to sign.
Here’s there spiel... You’ll get 5 weeks a year, plus 25 bonus weeks over 30 years, for around $20,000.00 They then tell you if you sell back whatever weeks you aren’t going to use, they’ll give you $2600 per week. Do the math, over 7 years (which is what they offered us) if you put back 7 weeks a year, you’ll make about $91,000.00. Now how does that make sense? It doesn’t, but they try and convince you that it’s a no brainer cause with giving back the first 7 weeks they’ll send you a check for $13,000.00... So that pretty much pays most of the investment...
After they were done with there crap talking, we told them we needed some time to think about it. Caroline said “we need a decision now” I looked at my girlfriend like HELL NO, so she told Caroline we needed to go have a smoke and run some numbers. They did whatever they could to control the situation and keep us from leaving the meeting without saying yes, but we told them we needed time to see what we could come up with and they agreed to an hour only, but they weren’t happy about it. They tried to get us to use there phones, and computers, but still I said we need an hour and we’ll come back with a decision. Caroline went and asked her boss and her agreed to an hour since they closed at 1. We ran to our room, grabbed our computer and Ipad and headed over to there office to do a little research. OMG THANK GOD we took an hour to do a little research before handing them my savings account... I typed in Bahia Turquesa and nothing bad came up, but when I typed SCAM and FRAUD, along with Bahia Turquesa/ Coco Sunset/Las Palmas, holy crap, so many stories of being scammed out of tons of money... Our decision was easy, HELL NO, we’re not signing anything. So we went back and told them it just wasn’t going to work out...They tried hard to change our minds, changing the deal 3 times, but what they didn;t know is that we knew it was all BULLCRAP, so our answer was still no. This pissed them all off and they were rude from that moment on. We then had to go back to the office to check out of the meeting and get our $20.00 deposit back. Caroline rode down with us and as soon as she got in our car she was like “ What happened? I thought you had the $7500.00” I couldn’t believe this biatch, but we played in off and said we couldn’t get approved for the loan. Once down at the office, we had to go through another guy (says he works for RCI, but he’s full of CRAP too) He talked to much and after telling him no 10 times, he finally got it and sent us to another lady to check us out. What a crappy day, they wasted so much of our vacation time. Once it was all over, I didn’t trust or feel comfortable staying there any longer. They were scumbags and thieves, and I just wanted the heck outta there. So, we went back, packed up our stuff, and headed to a local bar to figure out where to go from here. (It was only Monday and I had already payed for this place for a full week, we were supposed to stay until Sunday) Guess who we saw at the bar, oh yes the scammers were there... Fake and phony as can be. We took off after a few drinks and went and stayed somewhere else for the remainder of our trip.
S0.... BEWARE
They have this whole spiel down... And they’re good at it. But the reality is, they have nothing, so they are just taking your money. They’ll say ANYTHING, changing the deal multiple times to try to make you think your getting an amazing deal.
People are giving them there timeshares, because they make you think it’s helping you out and they’re giving you more, but this is bull, they get whatever you give them, and you get NOTHING!!!
