Grand Mayan Timeshare Scam

My wife and I were on vacation in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and stayed at The Grand Mayan . We went to a timeshare presentation. Unfortunately I felt for it and I am very sorry that I attend to their 90 minutes presentation, which turned out to be more like 5 hours of high pressure selling strategy they use to sell one of their units. We paid them 6500 and our relatives paid them 5500. When we were to return to the States we were supposed to send a wire for an additional 2500.We were desperate for help once we arrived home from Mexico and found out we had been scammed. One day, my wife found the services of Mexican Timeshare Solutions online while trying to find someone who would rent our Grand Mayan weeks. We were tired of having to keep paying the monthly maintenance fee as it was like throwing good money after bad. The process took about 6 months but my timeshare contract is cancelled. I did verify the cancellation directly with the resort before submitting payment to Mexican Timeshare Solutions. Fortunately we are free from this contract. DO NOT ATTEND ANY PRESENTATIONS AT THE GRAND MAYAN, MAYAN PALACE OR ANY RESORTS OWNED BY VIDANTA/VIDA VACATIONS. THEIR SOLE PURPOSE IS TO RUN TIMESHARE/VACATION PACKAGE SCAMS

Roger, DonP will probably chime in soon, but let me start out by saying that your "complaint" is really an "advertisement." And MTS seems to do that all the time. Here are 2 links to other MTS shills that appear on a complaint site.

https://www.complaintsboard.com/profile-1579005 https://www.complaintsboard.com/profile-1497003

These people paste constantly about MTS - saying that MTS solved their problem. But how can Debycole have 108 encounters with MTS. Defies logic. There are additional articles on www.insidetimeshare.com which point to the fact that MTS is nothing more than an upfront fee scamming company. I could be wrong, but I think you might be nothing more than a shill. How about coming back and giving us all the details........................................ :-)

Rogerw213 is a low life SCAMMER !! He or she posts these scam stories every few weeks in the forum to lure victims to their scam website. Just going there could get your computer hacked or your identity stolen.

In defense of the Grand Mayan. We have been members since 2004 and have loved every minute of it. What do you mean by scam? We have been in many presentations, have upgraded at least 4 times. The last presentation was a little more aggressive but we were out of there within two hours. I think you might be exaggerating on a 5 hour presentation and I know for a fact that you were not scammed. It sounds like you had buyer's remorse but you were not SCAMMED. The Grand Mayan employs wonderful people and the resorts are like paradise.

kathleenr329 wrote:

In defense of the Grand Mayan. We have been members since 2004 and have loved every minute of it. What do you mean by scam? We have been in many presentations, have upgraded at least 4 times. The last presentation was a little more aggressive but we were out of there within two hours. I think you might be exaggerating on a 5 hour presentation and I know for a fact that you were not scammed. It sounds like you had buyer's remorse but you were not SCAMMED. The Grand Mayan employs wonderful people and the resorts are like paradise.

The quality of the Grupo Mayan / Vida properties is an entirely separate and distinctly different subject from that of the consistently deceitful practices of their sales weasels "peddling the "product" in Mexico. Let's not confuse those two distinctly different subjects.

A big (and well justified) "knock" for years now regarding Mexican sales practices (particularly GM) has been the so-called "trade in" gig there. Many people have reported (supposedly) "trading in" a timeshare there toward a new Mexican contract, only to discover later that they STILL own what they (incorrectly) believed they had "traded in" --- ending up with TWO contractual obligations instead of the one that they started out with. In many instances, the Mexicans then attempt to extract even MORE money to return the (never really "traded in") product. If this particular practice occurred in the U.S., someone would likely face prosecution. Unfortunately, in Mexico, the law seems more a concept than a reality, so it's apparently "just business". With a shrug of the shoulders it's "Sorry, gringo".

I agree. We should have known better but went to the presentation at the Mayan-Riviera in March 2017 for a 10% discount, MEX 3,000 credit and late check-out. We are current members and eventually agreed to a new contract but key details were reversed/down-graded during the 'verification' process. We spent EIGHT hours with the Vida sales team plus breakfast to get to this result. Naturally, we were very disappointed. We must agree with other's experience that Vida Sales people are unethical and/or poorly trained. Avoid the timeshare presentation - it is simply not worth the wasted time and disappointment. We actually are looking to buy a condo in Huatulco and will probably list our GM weeks (2) on Redweek but I'm not confident we'll get much for them.

I, too, have owned with Vidanta for 10 years now, having purchased in Acapulco (though our go-to resort now is Nuevo Vallarta). We use our weeks every year and enjoy every minute. Because of the size of the resort and the units, we use these weeks to bring friends to Mexico. Many have never traveled much, and it makes it an easy introduction to a beautiful country. I can say that we've received everything we purchased and have upgraded many times.

Oh, and yes, we purchased at a timeshare presentation.

Don Herman

All timeshares are scams. It used to surprise me that anyone with a handful of neurons would ever consider purchasing this garbage. But it just proves that the old adage is true and timeless: A fool and his money are soon parted.

jonox wrote:

All timeshares are scams. It used to surprise me that anyone with a handful of neurons would ever consider purchasing this garbage.

I wouldn't say timeshares are scams. Just purchasing them at a sales presentation is paying too much. And believe it or not, there are many happy timeshare owners. Some own more than one and would not vacation any other way.

Unfortunately, many purchase timeshares without doing research and that usually leads to headaches.

By the way, I don't own a timeshare but I love renting and staying in them so I do not think they're scams.