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I TOO WAS A VICTUM, BY TIME COMPANY ANS WAS PRESURRED TO MAKE A DECISION

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thank you for posting this. my wife and i were to attend a "free" give away of a car or holidays March 1st in Etobicoke. we would have had to attend a 90 minute presentation with no obligations.
Yeah right! thanks again, you may have saved us alot of trouble.

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Thank you. I was trying to decide wether I would drive 1.5hrs out of town to take the 1 in 15 odds of winning a mercedes with the consolation prize of a free vacation offered by GEO Holiday Service. My instinct to search out some info proved my suspicions and I appreciate your posts. BTW these guys are getting very crafty. I filled out a ballot at a Sushi resturant in TO -- as a result it took me 3 days since "the call" to verify authenticity as I was willing to believe it was all on the board because I was not cold called/telemarketed.

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also... adding to my post above... check out the discussion thread offered by the first post on this page. If I was still wavering about whether to go, I am certainly sure now that there is NO WAY IN HELL it's worth the "free" vacation they are offering.

Thanks, Michele

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My husband and I purchased with Geo Holidays and although the pressure was there for us to buy, they repeatedly mentioned as we signed the contract that we would have to ensure that this was of no financial hardship for us.

The accomodations are in very nice places and accurately described as being all over the world. They are only providing the accomodations not anything else in a holiday. I thought it was mostly well explained to us and our purchase will allow us to have one vacation every 2 years if we go at peek times and book far in advance.

Please don't spread that this is a scam. You were not scammed by this, you just made a bad decision.

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My wife and I attended one of these presentations just this past weekend.

The post above this is likely by one of their sales reps or someone otherwise associated with the company.

First of all, their "1 in 15 chance of winning a Mercedes" is completely a scam. It is not a 1 in 15 chance. What they do is have you pick an envelope out of a drawer. The envelope contains a key. If the key fits in a lock they have there, then you supposedly win a 2 year lease on the car. There were well over 100 envelopes in the drawer and I have little doubt that none of them actually contained a winning key.

Secondly, the free vacation you can win comes from picking a little card out of a giant barrel which must contain hundreds of thousands of such cards. There may even be cards in there for the top two prizes but the odds of drawing one are obviously miniscule. You will almost surely win one of their nearly worthless 3rd or 4th prizes consisting of free accomodations at some location likely to cost you a lot of money to take advantage of, such as Florida or Las Vegas.

Finally, after going through the presentation we were intrigued at the possibilities. As mentioned above, they make the whole thing sound very enticing. You'd have to be a complete idiot though to commit to spending that much money on ANYTHING without doing some sort of further research. After telling the sales rep that I was definitely interested in pursuing a membership but wanted to look into the details and arrange outside financing first, we were quickly ushered out. They refused to give us any documentation on the program. Not even a business card to use to get in touch with them afterwards.

If the deal was worth buying, then they wouldn't mind having you look into competing companies or researching the details. Would you buy a car without ever so much as looking at another brand or test driving the one you're being sold?

They obviously know that if you look further into it, you will never buy and are not worth their time.

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you all have valid complaints and I hope that they get resolved. I myself have been an owner of time shares and vacation ownerships for nearly 15 years and absolutly love it. No one forced you to purchase your ownership, and if you think you got scammed I would probably assume that you just have no idea how to use your ownership. It really is a great thing. so,... you should grab a box of tissues, quit your crying and move on. how about this one,... instead of bitching about not knowing what you bought, why dont you take the time to figure out how it works and take go on vacation.

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This is to inform people interested in knowing the outcome of sending my letter (poseted here Dec14/2004) to GEO Holiday.
They called me after mailing and faxing the letter to them on the third day of contract and insulted me about my background and called the letter the most redicules one they had ever read (of course they didn't like it !!!). But the next day they they probably found out this would not be an easy case for them and agreed to refund my money less the processing fee ($375).
I returned their package to them with "all free vacation and resturant certificates" and felt so much relieved.
I got my downpayment back in 2 weeks.
I will be glad if this would help even a sinle person.
Thanks all.
Hossein Najmi
Toronto - Canada

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This is a test

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It was quite interesting to read your messages about Geo Holidays and how some of you feel that they were not treated properly.

Let me give you our experience and perhaps you can judge for yourselves.

We signed up with Geo Holidays about twelve years ago. I must admit they were quite keen for our business but I didn't mind because I have seen too many dead beat salespeople in my lifetime who would rather be somewhere else and could not care less whether or not you bought their vacuum cleaner. their used car or whatever. At least Geo want your business and go out of their way to get it.

I did not mind their "sign up now" approach but obviously some of you did. How many of you have their in-baskets filled with things to do but never quite get around to doing them because you have other more pressing things to do and there is no deadline set. So you never do them !

Almost all of the negative remarks seem to come from people who stalled on the sales tactics and "smelly armpits" stage and did not progress to the understandind/evaluating of what is really being sold part.

We did buy in and both my wife and I are very very glad that we did. When you buy a car and start driving it you very quickly forget the face of the salesman that sold it to you. What is important is whether the car drives well or not so you have to see past the sales routine.

And boy does the Geo "car" drive well. Over the last few years we have been to Europe for weeks at a time (London, England) , several islands in the Caribbean and Florida (twice). In almost all cases we checked alternate acommodations and almost always Geo offered better value. Their booking people are true professionals and at least a couple of times bent over backwards to find us the acommodation we wanted, including once a Christmas/New Year week at short notice in Florida.

There are no miracles and no free lunches. Geo has given us good acommodations at significantly reduced cost. I find it amusing that some thought they were going to get a free car or thousands of dollars worth of free perks. I guess we sometimes hear what we want to hear and get disappointed if it does not happen.

Anyway, it is your time and your money and you do with it whatever you want. I very rarely write in these forums but reading some of the comments would make one think that any day now the special forces squad will descend on Geo's headquaters and haul everyone to jail. I found some of your comments very unfair and venomous and I think you are just venting your own built up frustations.

In the meantime we thank Geo for their services and we will continue using their product.


Traveller

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My wife and I went to the presentation knowing exactly what they will be offering and exactly what type of tactics they would be using. I was not dissappointed, I got free coffee and baked goods and a two night stay at one of their Ramada's Hotel.

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If this Geo Holiday thing is not a scam - then why do they go to such efforts like having their number show up on your caller ID as "Unavailable Number" -- for months now I have been ignoring this call and I finally got sick of it -- they called everyday twice a day for two months straight - never left a message - so finally I picked-up the phone and -- what a surprice -- this stupid company.

All the red flags are there people -- free Mercedes or $10K -- come on -- wake up this is all BULLSHIT -- NOTHING I repeat NOTHING IS EVER FREE!!!!!!!! and if something sounds to good to be true -- THEN IT IS!!!!! As for the people who booked or signed on for a membership -- you like great - you obviously havn't had the luxury of going to a certified travel agent and letting them do all the leg work and find me a great place for a great price -- it's worth the extra $50. - 1-1/2 to 4 hours of my time spent at some stupid seminar is worth more than that anyways. Oh and as for the free Golden Griddle coupon -- come over to my place I'll charge you $20 for two eggs and toast!!!

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I FEEL VERY STUPID BECAUSE MY HUSBAND AND I JUST PURCHASED A GEO VACATION CLUB A MONTH AGO. NOW WE COME TO FIND OUT THAT EVERYTHING THEY SAID TO SELL THE CLUB WAS A LIE. WE ARE TRYING TO GET OUR MONEY BACK AS THEY MISREPRESENTED IT TO USE BUT I THINK WE HAVE A FIGHT ON OUR HANDS. IF ANY ONE WOULD LIKE TO JOIN AND FILE A CLASS ACTION SUITE LET ME KNOW. I WANT TO MAKE SURE THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN TO ANYONE ELSE IT HAS BEEN SO STRESSFUL AND UPSETTING THAT ANYONE CAN SELL A BOGUS PRODUCT JUST TO MAKE A BUCK.

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GEO Holidays

Thank you for posting your comments. You've saved me wasting 90 minutes of my Sunday on this scam!! If it wasn't a scam then why not just ask me if I'm interested in buying into a time-share. Why give me all the bs about a mercedes!!

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Viral marketing baby, got to love it.
I got my call from them today. I don't think I'll be attending. Here is an indisputable fact:

They claim I entered a ballot. However, they didn't know my first name.

Now, every ballet I've even seen asks for a first name. A last name is not enough, especially to find out who in a household entered.

So, right off the bat they are lying. You don't need any other information then that.

You want to give $45000 to someone who's lying to you?

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I am generallly a cautious person but I do have an open mind like the Geoholidays people ask me to have and here are my thoughts after going to their presentation this afternoon. (Saturday, April 30 2005 at Richmond Hill).

1) They don't hide the fact that its a sales pitch, and I figured that if they really want my business, I could come back later after hearing what they had to say. But it is quite funny that they would spend the 90 minutes showing you how great their service is, and then give you 15-20 mins to find out the details on the $45,000 investment they want you to make right there, right then. Any reputable company will give you time to consider such an investment.

2) Every couple is paired with a salesperson who is there to put pressure on you. Some of these salespeople were very pushy with their "clients", and I had pity for those people. To be fair, the guy we were paired with wasn't too bad but all the various "managers" who he called over were quite pushy.

3) Some of the stunts they pulled were quite entertaining. Like clapping whenever the presenter paused...this was quite cult - like. Then there was the very happy announcement that a new couple had joined...followed by of course, clapping by all. I did a sociology course in university on cults and we covered high pressure advertising/sales in another course and it was uncanny!

4) My favourite, the free gifts. You have no chance of winning anything except the lowest rated prize. You pick your prize from a huge drum. We looked in the drum (the "prize consultant" didn't pay much attention to us) and saw no other prizes except for the worst one. I figured that at the worst we would have something free from this. We also had no luck with the Mercedes / $10,000 prize.
We "won" the "Ramada Plaza Resorts" "Platinum Getaway Vacation". This is NOT the Ramada Inn company that most of us have heard of, but a knock-off company. A quick search around Google will tell you that this free gift is offered by many a spam company. The "Ramada Plaza Resorts" company has been plagued by many lawsuits, and is the subject of lots of websites for all the wrong reasons (ie. people showing up with no reservations, poor service, etc.) Also, it seems that this free vacation will include being subjected to several hours of timeshare sales pitches, and lots of hidden fees that make this far from a free vacation.

In short, this is what we got today:
- high pressure sales pitch with NO time to evaluate. They give you sugar and lots of simple carbs to get you feeling good, followed by a long presentation to tire you, with your own personal salesperson to keep you going. They even play fast paced music to keep you going! All classic high pressure sales stunts!
- cult like tactics like over-enthused salespeople who nod and clap like they were hypnotized by a TV evangelist...actually quite funny to watch and worth the trip! Just when you start to get tired, someone will sign up and the clapping and cheers will start again. Classic!
- a prize that will cost money, that you can probably get for "free" anyways by replying to a spam email or a bogus website. You don't even have to go to the 90-120 minute presentation!

In all, an educational experience. I went with an open mind and thankfully some knowledge on how this stuff works. I actually had hoped that this was legit but about 15-20 mins in I was disappointed. If you aren't a patient person or are easily tired/confused then I would not go, as you may get yourself duped. Otherwise, if you (and your spouse....two of you have to go...its easier to pressure if one person in a couple gets duped) have a couple of free hours, it can be quite entertaining...but leave your wallet home...all you will need is a sense of humour and your wits!

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* When we first registered at the Wigamog Inn, they told us that our presentation would be Sunday at 1:00 pm, and if we missed our presentation, they would debit our credit card $250.00. This should have put us on our guard to begin with.

* They informed us that it would be a relaxing, low-pressure presentation to see if their Vacation packages met our needs. It was anything but relaxing and low pressure.

* During the six-hour high-pressure presentation, there was loud music played continually. When we asked to have the music turned down, the sales people said they had to keep it loud to protect the privacy of the other parties in the room. It was giving my wife a headache, and seemed to add to our confusion.

* We received so much information, with so many different numbers that we could not fully absorb all the facts until later that night in the quiet of our room.

* The quoted price for yearly maintenance fees was in American funds. The sales people did not give us the actual amount until we had agreed to purchase. ($288 US / $420 CAD)

* The Business Manager read the membership Understanding and Acknowledgement section rapidly and had us initial each section, but we never had the opportunity to study it until we were back in our room. At no time did he inform us of what was at the top section that gave us our five-day grace period for rescission. We found this out a few days later from a previous employee of Geo holidays. Both the manager and Betty Eisenstadt CEO told us that there was no way out because this is Ontario. The contract does not state that this grace period does not apply in Ontario. By the time we had discovered this, we had missed the grace period by one day.

* We were never allowed to take the contract to our room and read it over ourselves

* When they took our down payment, I was surprised that they already had our credit card, neither my wife nor myself remember giving the card to them, I am concerned that they did not return our card when we checked in to the Wigamog on Saturday, and that they brought it out at the presentation

* The day we returned home (April 18) after being told by the manager that we could not cancel, I phoned the head office of Geo holidays and spoke to Betty Eisenstadt, the president of Club Services, who said, “Why did you sign if you did not want it? This is not the holocaust, no one held a gun to your head.” When I sent a registered letter to head office to cancel the contract, as it says in the Understanding and Acknowledgements section of the contract, I received a phone call at my business from Ms. Eisenstadt. She informed me that she had read my letter and said her family was in the holocaust, and that the letter I had sent was terrible. She then replied, “Wait until the judge reads this disgusting letter!” When I tried to explain that they were her words, not mine, she hung the phone up one me. From the time we tried to cancel the contract, they spoke to us as if we were stupid. Both Betty and Victor kept repeating, “Why did you sign if you did not want it?” They also phoned me continuously at my place of business to say they were moving ahead with legal action. They phoned every day, sometimes twice a day, for the first ten days following the presentation. The phoned both our home and my place of business.

* After we told them that we were intending to cancel our contract with Geo Holidays, they kept sending us e-mails to encourage us to try their last minute specials. Victor told us that we could not cancel but that he would give us free week long vacation.

If this was a thousand dollar vacuum cleaner, I would grin and bear it, but it is a $12,800 initial investment (which we had to borrow from the bank), plus $420.00 a year for the next 45 years. Considering the large investment required, we feel that they should have allowed us to take the information back to our room to consider fully. They should never have forced us to make a decision on the spot. There were three different people pressuring us and juggling figures and different deals. Some how we caved in and signed. This was not fair and honest business practice. We would appreciate any help you can offer to us, as Geo Holidays keeps insisting that they can do nothing.

Bewarned!

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I must thank the posts on this forum which
saved me two thigs:

- Agony of wasted 90 minutes on a saturday even though the presentation site was within 4 kms of where we live

- Pressure tactics emplyed by desperate sales men and women to force you in to siging on the dotted line only to repent later

I saw this post 5 minutes before we headed out of the door and we decided to call it off.

Thanks.

DN

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My family has been members of Geo for nearly 15 years and I can certainly attest that it is not a scam. We have enjoyed many fabulous family vacations all over the world in very comfortable accomodations at a fraction of the actual cost. In fact, I originally bought vacation ownership from a company that was poorly managed and eventually went under. The management at Geo made an offer to all members of the failed company on very favourable terms, which I accepted. In all my years as a Geo member. they have been very professional and easy to deal with. When it comes to planning a vacation (whether last minute or long term), the Geo staff are extremely helpful and accomodating.
Over the years, our friends cannot believe the types of vacations that we have taken and the cost of such trips. Needless to say, many of our friends have joined Geo and are happy with their purchase.
The sense I get from the complaints posted, are these people are looking for freebies from Geo in return for sitting through a seminar and/or buying the product. Well, you are buying vacation ownership from Geo and this purchase does not entitle you to a free car, a free trip, or anything else. As part of its marketing strategy, Geo, and many similar companies in the industry, offer such incentives to come and listen to a sales seminar. Obviously, everyone who attends cannot win the prize.
If you are looking to win a huge prize or a windfall, you should buy a lottery ticket every week and wait for your numbers to come in. If you are looking for free things, you are "living in a dream world".
My advice to those of you who are complaining, is to use the product that you purchased and enjoy it for many years like I have. You have an opportunity to travel almost anywhere that you wish. Take advantage of it. You are better off spending your time and energy on your vacation plans. For those of you that did not purchase, but attended seminars in the hopes of receiving free prizes and gifts. Get a life and better luck with your next lottery ticket purchase!

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Thanks!!

Thank you all for your info on Geo Holidays!! I was about to miss work to listen to that sales crap!! A free lease for a year for a Mercedes sounds to good to be true anyway. Someone needs to file a lawsuit for false information given on the phone "you can pick a key and out of the 5 keys one will open the door...."meanwhile none of the keys will open the door!! Someone who experienced the sales stuff should go to the Better Business Bureal.
Thanks again,
Chrissy from Kitchener,Ontario

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WARNING

The person that posted the reply in favour of Geo Holidays is an EMPLOYEE of Geo Holidays not a member!!!

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Registered: May 2005
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Our group members (Primarily located in Greater Toronto Area - GTA and 5/6 members from other parts of Ontario) has similar bad experiences like others (described on the above threads). Our group members tried to get out of the contract within the 5 day period and after. They are unsuccessful because they have not contacted lawyer in the early stage. Unfortunately there is no specific law in Ontario deals with Timeshares. The good news is Ontario Govt. has passed 10 days cool off period law on timeshares and will come in force effective July 31st, 2005. This law doesn't cover retroactive cases, only on going forward.

The members who stuck with contracts, maintenance fees, the only option to get out from obligations is to fight in the court. Our group approached few lawyers (We all have good cases) and in next few days we will finalize one. It is safe and cheap to fight in the court as a group. This keeps legal costs to very minimum and very high chances to get back the money paid, cancelling the contract plus legals cost and may be possible damages. If any one is thinking of cancelling the contracts please reply & we can provide the lawyer details. You can take it from there.

Our Group motto is: - “No more Timeshare Victims”

Don’t get me wrong this timeshare could be great for some people who fully understand and know 100% what they are getting into. There are many other companies genuinely sell very good travel/timeshare products. Unfortunately there are some bad apples. We are only concerned about poor people who trapped by misrepresentation, signed contracts by unethical/high pressure sales practices.

Thanks

Ontraio Timeshare Victims

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Thank You for the warning

Got a call from them today - same deal: Mercedes Benze 2005 M Class or 10K plus a guaranteed vacation. I was really excited, until my husband and I started arguing about him working on the same day (I was to report to Richmond Hill on Saturday at 10:45 a.m. sharp!). Boy, wa that a sign from God or what!

Good think I googled it!

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You have under the law a grace period. It is called a cool down time. it is 7 days in all of Canada. Ontario included! My sister got that call for the Mercedes, on Friday and with the help of the internet she is not going to "try her luck" with 14 others at the Mercedes. Also if they are calling you and threatening legal action, they are in violation of the collections act. They are not allowed to do this period! Do some research on the net for your rights as a consumer. Its not hard to find. Also call the Better Business Burea and report them. If they continue to harass you with phone calls get a tape recorder hook it up and when they call inform them you are recording the conversation "required by law" trust me they will stop cold! What they are doing is just this side of the law.
They are praying on peoples weakness of something for nothing and it is disgraceful.
To all that have bought it and want out, stop paying. Let em take you to court, trust me they wont go that far. Also don't be bullied by them, they won't affect your credit cause that would require too much on their end, IE... providing documents and such. Just tell them to go take a flying leap. Remember it is your money, you worked hard to get it. Don't part with it that easily.

Hope you all find some peace and good luck.

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We too just got the phone call saying the same thing. Mercedez, a trip and a chance to trade in for a thousand dollars.

My gut told me to get on the internet and check it out. So i did.
This is what i fould. A great bunch of honest people that are not just looking for themselves.

Thanks eveyone for taking the time to tell us what is going on. We were so excited that my husband huged me so tight as to
break my back!!!!

WHO EVER READS THIS, BEWARE of the BULLSHIT!!!

Think of all the people that have had the exact situation happen to them. This is for real.

Thanks alot to the people that created this site!!!!


The Portchops out in Brampton, Ontario
(portuguese folks)

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