Oracle Travel Promotions
Complaint 300718 Details

I seek a refund for $120 paid to Oracle Travel Promotions for travel promotions that were not used. I also wish to protect other consumers from this company, which is based in Virginia but has victims all over the United States. There are practical, as well as ethical and moral, flaws in the “policies” of Oracle Travel Promotions. These policies effectively swindle consumers while supposedly justifying the company’s actions in denying refunds to consumers who will not be using the company's travel promotions. Here is my experience:
I received a mail solicitation to attend a sales pitch for Island Trader Vacations. My husband and I went to the Hilton Garden Inn in Athens, Georgia for the sales pitch on Saturday, October 26, 2013. There I received coupons for two travel promotions: (1) Two free round-trip plane tickets on US Air to anywhere in the continental U.S. and (2) Two free nights at any Marriott hotel in the U.S.
During November 2013, I paid $120 total to activate these promotions by mailing checks to Oracle Travel Promotions.
Each time I mailed money to Oracle Travel Promotions or faxed in my acceptance of a travel promotion, the company responded with "updated" information and restrictions about the hotel and air fare packages that did not jibe with previous information given and that were, in each case, increasingly prohibitive. These changes included more and more black-out dates, fewer and fewer locations for hotel and air destinations, and more fees to pay.
The certificates and flyers that were mailed to me after I activated the promotions listed nearly one hundred rules and stipulations (not an exaggeration). It is my feeling that these rules serve to confuse, frustrate, and intimidate their recipients—doing so by stating that if any of the rules is broken by the consumer, the promotion is null and void and no refund will be given. As one reads through it all, one feels overwhelmed, and it seems like the only thing that makes sense to do at first is to fill in one's name & address—the only task one can handle before reading through the long list of rules for the third time.
Finally, I determined that, because of the many new restrictions and extra surprise costs involved, I could not actually use the promotions, and I decided to get a refund of my activation money. I mailed back my unused certificates in December 2013, well within the company’s time limit for refunds. However, because I had written my name on the forms, the company refused to give me a refund. I exchanged multiple emails with the vice-president of the company, who is responsible for refunds, to no avail.
On the Oracle Travel Promotions website FAQs, it says that to receive a refund for the activation fees, the forms "cannot be torn, folded or written on." Conversely, the form itself states that the promotion is invalid unless the issue date is "completed by sponsor." Oracle Travel Promotions writes on the forms an expiration date that is approximately twelve months from the date of original activation. Therefore, their stipulation of the sheets being pristine in order to receive a refund is (a) impossible and (b) arbitrary. In fact, Oracle Travel Promotions could not use those same forms again because the expiration date—which their company wrote upon the forms—would not apply to the next person for whom they supposedly want to reuse the forms.
The promotion numbers on the certificates, however, could be reused. It would be simple enough for Oracle Travel Promotions to deactivate the certificate numbers and reassign them to someone else. This policy about writing on the paper forms is meant to inhibit people from asking for a refund and then to supposedly justify Oracle Travel Promotions in not giving refunds to people who cannot and will not be using the promotions. Also, requiring refund seekers to mail in the unused forms—along with requiring copies of the checks that Oracle Travel Promotions cashed—seems intended to make the refund process more intimidating and difficult, thereby reducing the number of requests for refunds.
Adding to the sense of mistrust and confusion, consumers are given different information by the various employees who answer phone calls and emails. I spoke on the phone @ 1-800-991-6482 with several employees, including Dan, Michael, and two women.
Employees said things to me that did not corroborate what the others said and that were meant to lead me to believe things that were untrue. For example, Dan, an employee, said of Colvin Lemley: "All he does is deal with refunds" and "He only works Fridays after 12:30"—both of which are not true, as it turns out Colvin Lemley is the company's vice president (not just the "refund guy") and he works every day of the week, including Saturdays.
I corresponded via email with Colvin Lemley, the company’s vice president, from 11/29/13 through 12/18/13. His email address is: [email protected]. When I first emailed “Chuck” (Colvin Lemley) about a refund, Mr. Lemley responded as if he had no control over the process and he was just a cog in the machine—until I found out that it was his company. I politely asked Mr. Lemley to explain why they could not just deactivate and reassign the certificate numbers when they clearly would be unable to use the physical forms again because of the expiration date that was written upon them. Mr. Lemley had no wish to discuss the practical flaws in his company’s policies, but stuck firmly to saying that the consumer cannot have a refund if he/she filled in their address on the form. In my view, while Oracle Travel Promotions has the right to set its own policies for their company, in this case the policy is meant to deny all of the recipients their refunds and is completely untenable.
A quick Web search of this company reveals scores of dissatisfied consumers in several states who call the business a scam and who have registered complaints with multiple Web services and state consumer protection organizations. One man wrote that he had finally gotten a refund after filing a complaint with the state of Virginia. I am sorry to have to add my name to the long list of swindled consumers, and I appreciate any help that you might be able to give me in getting my $120 in activation fees back from Oracle Travel Promotions. It is also my hope that Oracle Travel Promotions will be banned from doing business in the future with the residents of Georgia and with any other state. Thank you.