Meet Mercedes Gaudier-an educated, articulate, well-traveled art teacher and mother of two small children. And the victim of a travel scam.
That she has been taken in a travel fraud scheme is not unusual;
thousands of Americans are every day, to the tune of a billion dollars a year, according to some estimates. But individual losses rarely run over a few hundred dollars, and for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is embarrassment, most victims are unwilling to talk about it.
Some slick and unscrupulous operations easily can rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars in a few weeks, and often operate a step ahead of the law for months. Shut one down in Florida, and it moves to Georgia and reopens, or just changes its name and phone number every few months and stays in the same place.
Why don`t the victims prosecute? Beyond the humiliation of being duped is the common-sense knowledge that it almost inevitably would cost far more to hire a lawyer and seek restitution in the courts than simply to absorb the loss. It doesn`t help, either, that in almost all these cases the victim lives in one state, and the fraudulent company is operating in another.
That`s the case with Gaudier, who lives in Lake George, N.Y., and was swindled by a company operating in Boca Raton, Fla. But Gaudier is determined to get her money back, and, she says, she also wants to warn others of how easy it is to fall prey to these phone and mail operations.
”Somebody suggested I got what I deserved for being greedy, but I resent that,” Gaudier said. ”I wasn`t being greedy; I was being a shrewd buyer-at least I thought I was. I`ve traveled elsewhere-Hong Kong, Japan-on good deals like this. It`s just that this time I got scammed.”
Gaudier`s problems began early last October, when she received a
”certificate of award guarantee” in the mail from a Boca Raton company calling itself National Consumer Research. The ”guarantee” touted a seven-day ”fabulous luxury vacation” for two in Florida and the Bahamas. It included round trip air fare to Orlando, a hotel there for four days and three nights, a rental car for seven days; a ”luxury cruise” to Freeport in the Bahamas and a four-night hotel stay there. Those who called the toll-free number quickly also were promised two free tickets to Disney World.
A `promotion`
”I thought, `What the heck, why not call,` ” Gaudier says. ”It was the 800 number that did it. So I called and I got a very lovely girl, very intelligent and helpful. She said her name was Samantha and she said the package cost $399 for two and it was a special deal because they were promoting a shopping channel, one of those home shopping clubs.
”I was already suspicious. So I said to her, `Ah, gee, this sounds too good to be true. How could any company afford to do this?` And she was really good. She just said it was a special deal, a one-time promotion. So I asked for some more information in writing, and three or four days later I got some photocopied sheets in the mail. It wasn`t as specific as I wanted, but what they promised was there, and it also said I`d get a platinum card-a lifetime membership in the shopping channel, with 50 percent off on everything they sell. I thought it sounded pretty good.”
Gaudier, still suspicious, tracked down the ”shopping channel” to a toll-free number in Florida, which she called. They told her, she says, that the company was upstanding. Still not satisfied, she called the Better Business Bureau in the Boca Raton area. No complaints, they told her.
In all her calling, she also discovered that a company on the Gulf Coast, Shore Travel Inc., of Holiday, Fla., was the ”fulfillment” agency, marketing these vacation packages at the wholesale and retail levels. She called Shore, she says, and was told that the company sells wholesale packages to many firms, and if she had any doubts about its legitimacy, she should put the purchase on a major credit card.
So Gaudier called National Consumer Research back, ready to buy, she says, and they told her, ”Sorry, we don`t take credit cards, but we`ll be happy to send a messenger to pick up your $399 check.”
”That should have been my cue to back out right there,” Gaudier says.
So on Oct. 25 a messenger came to the school where Gaudier teaches and picked up her check for $399, payable to the company.
When she had received nothing in the mail by Nov. 22, she called the toll-free number. Somehow, she says, it was no great surprise to find that the number was no longer in operation.
But, Gaudier says, in a phone call to Shore Travel, she was assured she`d get her vacation, and in early December, a ”very impressive” package finally did arrive-brochures, booklets, a videotape. But when she called Shore Travel, she says, she was told there would be an additional cost of $280 to cover
”processing and service fees,” plus another $120 in departure and port taxes.
As for the Holiday Inn near the Disney World gate that she had been promised, that hotel was an upgrade at additional cost, she then discovered.
(The package hotel was 30 miles from the gate.) And, too bad, same thing with the Bahamas hotel-an upgrade, if you want it. When asked if children were still free, as promised, Shore Travel had never heard of such a thing, nor of the two free tickets to Disney World, she says.
Since that time, Gaudier has been on the phone to the Federal Trade Commission, to state and local law-enforcement officials in Florida and New York and to Shore Travel, all to no avail. The ”home shopping channel” has changed its name and its toll-free phone number. Meanwhile, another company, Orion Promotions, operating from the same building in Boca Raton as National Consumer Research, mailed a reservation form to Gaudier for her Orlando-Bahamas vacation and promised to ”look into” her complaint.
The reservation form had Shore Travel`s name on it, but Jerry Humphrey, sales director and general manager of Shore Travel, says he never has heard of National Consumer Research or Orion Promotions. Shore Travel runs an entirely legitimate operation, he says, but can`t be responsible if other companies misrepresent Shore`s vacation packages when they retail them. Anyone who wants his or her money back gets it back promptly from Shore Travel, Humphrey says. Humphrey, like Orion, promised to ”look into” the situation.
As for Gaudier, she`s still waiting for the $399.
