It Will End Soon

We received confirmation from PROFECO that they have analyzed our complaint documents and will hold a hearing date soon.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Your complaint has been analyzed and we hope that this or next week we can get your file number and meetings date.

Thank you for your patience

Sincerely,

Laura Mejía
Department of Conciliation
Services for Foreign Residents

Welcome Call Agent?

Over the past week, I was out of town but was contacted by a "Welcome Call Agent" at ResortCom.

Hi,
My name is Rita and I have been trying to reach you. If you could please call me at 1-866-891-4579 Ext 1675

Thank you,

Rita Barron
Welcome Call Agent

ResortCom International
404 Camino del Rio South
Suite 400
San Diego, CA 92108
Phone: (619) 683 2470 ext 1675
Fax: (619) 683 2077
Email: ritab@resortcom.com

I replied back:

Dear Rita,

Thank you for contacting me. I have received a bill from ResortCom, however I will not be paying the balance as the contract is still in dispute. I have been in contact with Dulce Calleros from Playa Grande as well as Diane Wilson from ResortCom and they are familiar with the case. We canceled the contract on February 8, 2009 yet Dulce claims that our right to rescission ended on February 6, 2009. We have contacted and filed a complaint with PROFECO, the Mexican consumer protection agency. PROFECO confirmed with us that our right to cancel ends on February 9, 2009 as you can see from the attached email. PROFECO has received and analyzed our documentation and will have a hearing soon. In sumary, PROFECO agrees that we canceled the contract within the 5 business days allowed by Mexican law.

Regards,
X and Y

PROFECO Agrees

While we're still waiting for our first hearing date, we decided that we should get a written confirmation from PROFECO that our right to rescission ended on February 9, 2009. Previously, we only had verbal confirmation. This is what they write:

Dear Sir & Madam,

According to the following article, there is a term of 5 working days to cancel the contract without penalization.

Article 56 of the Federal Consumer Protection Law states: "The contract will be perfected within five working days from the delivery of, or the signature of the contract, which ever occurs the latest. During this period, the consumer will have the right to revoke his consent without any responsibility. The revocation will have to be by means of warning or delivery of notice, in person, by registered mail, or another method of average reliability. The revocation according to this article, will terminate the contract. In this case, the costs of shipping and insurance will be the responsibility of the consumer. If the contract is for services, this article will not be applicable if the date of receipt of the service is less than ten working days from the date of the order of purchase."

It means that if your purchase was on February 2nd, the last day to request the cancellation on time was on February 9th, 2009.

Thank you

Sincerely,

Laura Mejía
Department of Conciliation
Services for Foreign Residents

More Stalling

We agree to disagree.

Dear X,

I thank you for responding my email and as you mentioned that Profeco is already reviewing your complain we will wait to hear from them because, as I mentioned to you on my email of March 6 Mexican law allows thec onsumers to have a 5 day period to cancel your ownership purchase and in accordance to that law, your right to cancel expired on February 6th, 2009.

As of today after responding your concern in regards to the iceweeks I still do not understand the reason for requesting the cancellation, and if there is something that I may do for you in order to make you a happy owner with us please do not hesitate to let me know. Solmar Group is a great property and our services are of great quality, I think that if you remained as an owner with us, you will see that the money you invested it well worth it.

Warm Regards from Cabo San Lucas,

Dulce Calleros
Sales Owner Services
Playa Grande Resort
pgrsales@prodigy.net.mx

Again, as I stated in my previous posts, the business days do not include the day of signing. Furthermore, the day of signing was a holiday in Mexico, so it doesn't count as a business day even if you did count the day of signing. We also confirmed with PROFECO that we have until February 9, 2009 to cancel. Her email makes it sound like she conceded already, "if you remained as an owner"...
We shall wait and see. Seems to me that we'll win this battle since we have taken all the right steps.

Stall Tactics

Timeshare companies love to stall so that you don't have enough time to cancel, or so that they hold onto your money as long as possible. If you take a look at my second post, you'll see how Mr. Salesperson was conveniently out sick and how he didn't call me back. Well, it also applies to representatives of Playa Grande as well. I received the following from Dulce:

Dear X,

I have read the letters that you provided to Diane Wilson at Resortcom and I see that your reason for canceling the membership at Playa Grande Resort arethe Ice Weeks. Please allow me to explain to you that Ice Gallery Membership is a benefit that you purchased and paid for on top of your actual membership at the Grand Solmar Resort. Your actual agreement to Grand Solmar is for Membership #XXXX which is for a Floating Platinum Membership in a Studio Unit for Winter Season.
Ice Gallery Membership was sold to you as an additional program that you could acquire for just $399 usd and I am sure it was an atractive program to buy as it allows to buy additional weeks and those weeks are not part ofyour ownership and you have no mandatory yearly maintenance fee to pay for them.
I just contacted Patty in Ice in order to be provided with further information in regards to this additional weeks, she informed to me that once you access their website, if you click on the last minute deals you will see Resort Weeks that go anywhere from $199 usd to $399 usd. She also explained to me that you may also find Resort Vacations for $149, $179 but that they were usually 3 or 4 days stays. Something that I believe is very important for me to mention is the following: Ice Gallery promotes Resort Vacations and when they are 90 days or less (last minute vacations) they guarantee the $199-$399 pricing but, that their website also allows diverse Resorts to promote their own Resort Vacations and that Ice does not have anycontrol as far as the requested pricing. Patty also mentioned that their pricing are subject to changing from time to time without notice so if todaythey are $199-$399 or $149, $179 as mentioned before, maybe in 5 years they will be different.
I would be more than happy to assist you with further information but, please feel free to contact Patty at 1-888-320-4234 at ext. 4307

Regards,
Dulce Calleros
Sales Owner
Services
Playa Grande Resort
pgrsales@prodigy.net.mx

Okay thanks, but so what? I canceled and you're changing the subject. Dulce only re-affirmed that Mr. Salesperson wasn't upfront about all the details. We replied back:

Hi Dulce,

Thank you for your response. However, this does not change our decision to cancel. As you are aware, a reason for cancellation is not required when exercising our right to cancel within the 5 business day window. As I stated in our previous correspondence, we signed thec ontract on February 2, 2009, and canceled on February 8, 2009. We contacted PROFECO and verified that we have until the end of the business day on February 9, 2009 to cancel. Let me reiterate what Mexican law says:

Article 56 of the Federal Consumer Protection Law states: "The contract will be perfected within five working days from the delivery of, or the signature of the contract, which ever occurs the latest. During this period, the consumer will have the right to revoke his consent without any responsibility. The revocation will have to be by means of warning or delivery of notice, in person, by registered mail, or another method of average reliability. The revocation according to this article, will terminate the contract. In this case, the costs of shipping and insurance will be the responsibility of the consumer. If the contract is for services, this article will not be applicable if the date of receipt of the service is less than ten working days from the date of the order of purchase."

We have already submitted a formal complaint letter to PROFECO and they have confirmed that they are in the process of reviewing the complaint.

I have also started a blog to document our cancellation process: http://mexisham-timeshare.blogspot.com/

Please do your part and honor our right to cancel for a full refund.

Regards,
X and Y

Document Review

We called PROFECO (011 52 1 55 5568 8722) over the past few days and verified that they received our complaint letter. They told me to contact them again in a few weeks after they have some time to look over the documents. They only asked some simple questions, like:

Did you send mail to the company?
How much did you pay?

Afterwards, they also followed up by e-mail:

Dear Sir & Madam,

Just to confirm that we have received your paperwork.
Your complaint will be analyzed, please wait for new.

Sincerely,

Laura Mejía
Department of Conciliation
Services for Foreign Residents