My wife and I just returned to Canada after our trip in Mazatlan. I began my due-diligence and researched La Jolla. I am incredibly upset to find message boards like this!
We paid a deposit of $5125 USD in exchange for 4 weeks per year that we signed over to La Jolla as "marketing weeks." We were told we would be paid $1700 USD per week in exchange for allowing the resort to use the time for marketing purposes, for a total of $6800 USD per year.
We set up a payment plan to pay the remainder of the fee of $3125 USD that will begin on October 1st, 2010.
We were informed that La Jolla earns a significant amount of money from the marketing weeks by bringing in "high-earning" selected clients that in turn purchase significant plans in comparison to ours. That way, even though they are paying us money for the weeks, they earn that back ten-fold. It sounded like good reasoning to us.
In the meantime, we are "expecting" a cheque for $6800 USD that is supposed to arrive in mid-September for the marketing weeks for 2010. On the 45th day of every subsequent year (Feb. 14th) we will receive the marketing money for that year's 4 weeks. This was negotiated to occur for the next five years, after that, the fees would be re-negotiated and the marketing fee could be higher or lower. We would also have an opportunity to sell back the weeks to the company minus 5% at this time.
After being told that the marketing weeks would be paid for by a company called Premier Vacations, we were given their contact information and were told we would be contacted by them the day after we returned from Mazatlan.
When I returned home, I received a call, but not from anyone at Premier Vacations, but from Alfredo Marcq, the manager who supervised our sale. He notified me that the cheque would be coming shortly and that I will be contacted by Premier Vacations within 10-15 days. No such contact has occurred.
I checked the website supplied (
www.premier-vacations.com) and found that the website domain is for sale, meaning that there is no active website there! I phoned the number provided (1-925-954-5466) and left a message, but I do not expect a phone call back.
So my wife and I, who are young and newly married, are at a complete loss as to what to do next. I have already emailed PROFECO per some of the posts on boards I have read, and I am awaiting contact from them. I have also contacted VISA and begun the process of reporting a fraudulent purchase. I do not know if they can do anything for me, but I figure I should do anything and everything that I can to recover my money. In the meantime, I will continue to post on as many message boards as I can find, as well as posting on Trip Advisor to warn others of this scam! Please, if anybody has further advice for me, please post! Thank you.
Joshua G.