Vallarta Gardens Beach Club & Spa
Complaint 296722 Details

We were set up for a major scam by two sales reps, Michael Gordon and Garreth Grieve when we went to a timeshare presentation at Vallarta Gardens. They said Mercury Property Management in St. Louis, MO would sell our Mayan timeshare for $450,000 and our RCI weeks and points for $26,000, but we had to buy their time share in order to sell the Mayan. We left with Mercury contracts to sell the Mayan timeshare.
On September 9,2013, Joyce Kasinger from Crestview Funding Solutions in San Francisco, CA called us and said they were an escrow closing company and she had been called by Vallarta Gardens to close between Mercury and us. She sent us a contract for the closing and said we needed to wire money for Mexican taxes before Mexico would release the funds from Mexico. She sent documentation stating the Mexican law that required this after I told her I was not wiring money to Mexico. We researched each step of the closing process and showed the contracts to a lawyer. Everything appeared to be in order and we wired a total of $113,000. After the money was received, Crestview said we owed another $13,800 for lawyer fees and that Joyce had died on November 13, 2013. I emailed Vallarta Gardens to ask if they had heard of Crestview and if it was a scam. Mary Alvarez, member services, said she asked Michael Gordon and he said he had never heard of Crestview. Crestview telephones were shut off within hours.
We were lied to repeatedly during the timeshare presentation at Vallarta Gardens. Both Michael and Garreth told us Mexican law no longer allows a 5 day period to cancel contracts. Our Mexican lawyer says it is still in effect. Garreth & Michael said we own a 4+4 Grand Luxxe unit worth $450,000. We found out recently that we own a 2+4 worth around $70,000-$100,000 on the resale market.
Michael said he would pay the fee of $926.84 to Mercury to process the sale if we bought a Vallarta Garden timeshare. Michael charged this amount to our credit card 2 days after we left Puerto Vallarta. Four days after we arrived home, Michael called and said we owed another $4498.49 for a Swiss Alliance Annuity. We had never heard of the Annuity and did not sign the authorization form to allow the charge on our credit card. Michael sent through a charge for $4598.49 on our credit card that night without authorization. I cancelled our credit cards.
We were also told Mercury would market our weeks at Vallarta Gardens. The city of St Louis, Mo says the address stated on the Mercury contracts does not exist in St. Louis. Everything Michael Gordon and Garreth Grieve told us was a lie or a scam setup.