Tracking Too-Good-To-Be-True 'Free Vacation' Mail Offer

if the promise of free airplane tickets arrived at your doorstep tomorrow you might think it was a holiday miracle or proof you are definitely on the nice list this year when it happened to us we were skeptical and decided to track down this free vacation guess what happened here's ABC's chief business and economics correspondent Rebecca Jarvis tis the season for giving and traveling so in to free airline tickets anywhere in the country plus two nights at a hotel show up in the mailbox it may seem like holiday cheer just gonna go in and ask them a couple of questions tonight we're on a mission tracking the anatomy of a free vacation run around so where's our dresses our story starts here a couple of months ago so almond got this note where our then executive producer received a letter congratulating him on a dream vacation that says in addition you will receive two nights at any one of our over 1,000 Marriott hotel locations the retail value of this award is up to one thousand three hundred and ninety eight dollars sounds pretty good there was just one problem when we googled the phone number we were supposed to call we got this complaints and lots of them from people who received letters just like this one and it all goes back to that phone number that we're about to call right now so we decided to schedule an appointment with this mystery company I received a letter in the mail telling me to call this number about some free tickets to claim our free trip it sounds like you're telling me if I come I stay for the 90-minute presentation I get two tickets sounds like a good deal on the day we sent to ABC news producers wearing hidden cameras but you tuned to attend the seminar and pick up those free tickets if you look at this inside it's actually a camera the location in Brooklyn New York well good afternoon everybody doing the seminar kicks off with James congratulating the group on being invited whatever gifts will promise to you for coming out today you're all going to receive it whether you join here today at that because this is a presentation of Bob vacation and travel what we find is a relentless sales pitch that lasts more than 90 minutes one nickel not suggested you don't buy but everybody in this room sounds like you've done a little travel so you will be very impressed with what I'm here with you at the conclusion of the seminar James's associates come in to close the sale for vacation packages that cost thousands of dollars you know we think we're just gonna not sign up I'm sorry but that doesn't seem to make a difference as it becomes apparent our producers are not willing to sign up they're moved to three different locations with three different salespeople each trying to get us to sign up over two hours after we walk in the door were still empty-handed we're eventually given these vouchers for a free trip so far our free trip has only cost us the two hours we spent at the seminar but there's more to get the actual vouchers we have to send in money that's not a trip well it's an activation form can be sent in 150 dollars only to get more offers asking for more money an activation form that's right 15 days after sending in our activation form we didn't get tickets in the mail but instead a solicitation for more money it's been about two months now since we first but PPV travel in Long Island now we've tracked them down in New Jersey and we're gonna go meet them at one of those 90-minute presentations so we can ask them a few questions we understand that they're in the basement right now preparing to give one of these presentations that we've already visited we know basically what happens inside and we're just gonna go in and ask them a couple of questions when we first walked in we saw some of the same familiar faces from that first seminar how are you I'm Rebecca Jarvis with ABC News but they quickly left leaving us with this guy who calls himself thorne I'm just gonna ask a couple of quick questions at the presentation we were told again that we had qualified for this complimentary travel right and then we were asked to pay a hundred and fifty dollars for that travel we did pay the money but instead of getting any kind of complimentary travel instead we were sent these is this is this a ticket these are the certificates from the third party marketing company so does that is that a ticket is that my complimentary travel over the next 20 minutes thorne dodges question after question and can't seem to explain why that free trip costs so much money but again I'm not seeing any free tickets nothing complimentary here where the complimentary tickets I'll be forward with we give a 90-minute presentation if you attended a presentation then this forum was signed the company claims that the free gifts are fulfilled by an outside company and they're not responsible for fulfilling the trip okay I'll be frank with you again that's what this says you were promised gifts my third party provider the New York Attorney General says third party companies can be a sign of trouble these companies managed to evade prosecution and make it harder for officers like mine to track them down by changing their names of changing the descriptions we sent in the money we got these then we were told if you want the ticket you have to pay an activation fee for $59 a person which was identified that's a lot of injury yeah it was the form that you were promised become yeah if you read the small print on the back thorn admits that you have to jump through hoops you have to jump through hoops or complementary you jump through for us how many hoops did you jump through just an estimation to put in fact like you now these in follow the instructions provided all instructions are followed for instance you've got these as long as you follow these individual instructions you will receive two round-trip airline tickets anywhere in the contents United States as promised Thorne requested a second interview in his offices but neither he nor anyone else from PPV travel ever got back to us thanks so we still don't have that complimentary hotel stay or those complimentary tickets that we were promised and now we've been offered a new deal but that's what we've got in front of us right now a new opportunity to do more business with this company but still no tickets no hotel none of the complimentary stuff that we were promised up front if someone is calling you up or emailing you or writing you a letter with something that seems too good to be true it probably is not true for Nightline I'm Rebecca Jarvis in New York

Channel: undefined

Views: 5,534,042

Rating: 4.8165951 out of 5

Keywords: vacation, to good to be true, allegedly, mail offer vacation, business, travel, vacation alert, holiday travel, abc, abcnews

Id: x6yr8W3mc38

Length: 7min 6sec (426 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 20 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/Frostrich]

says "I'll be frank with you..." 30 times. Is not Frank.

[u/Promethieus]

Scumbags

[u/joeltb]

All the dudes casually leave the room when the reporter walks in... LOL

[u/NotJohnMccain]

This guy looks like he used to steal kids lunch money.

[u/N64GC]

The dude is named Thorn in my fucking ass. What a prick

[u/DIA13OLICAL]

Can someone explain something about US TV to me? Why do some shows need people to sign consent forms to appear while others (like this) don't seem to need to?

[u/awsm-Girl]

Late 90s, went to a timeshare presentation at Shawnee in the Poconos, where the rep had sent me an email offering a FREE weekend at the resort in return. Sat thru the dog-and-pony show, declined, and asked for my Free weekend. First the rep and then his supervisor told me that it wasn't part of the deal, told me there would be not-inconsiderable charges. Showed them the printed email i brought along. Then the supervisor gave me a raft of hooey about how my insistence would cause the rep to have to bear the expense and would likely be fired. Said "gee that's rough, but if he makes such egregious mistakes, this job isn't a good fit for him anyway." They left to confer and left us sitting for an hour. i finally went to the reception area and began asking -- not yelling, calmly, but loud enough for the sizable number of other potential customers to hear -- "where is my rep? i have this document promising a free weekend, he's refusing to honor it and has disappeared, should i just call... i dunno, the police? my attorney?" Well dontcha know, here he comes, with a senior manager, and in the end i not only got my free weekend, but also free dinners, free passes for several activities, a bunch of extra swag... Stand yer ground, yall. We still, some 20 years later joke about scammy things being "Shawnee Free"

[u/Scoob_IV]

tO pUt iT fRaNkLy

[u/Fairazz]

I learned a long time ago... Any time anyone( a job offering, a Flier, random person, etc) talks about how much you’ll make or save instead of talking about the subject you’re actually interested or there for... it’s a scam in some way. I was offered a sales job once. Selling home security systems. There was a week of “training” at the beginning, where they talked about how rich I’d become. They didn’t offer any tips or sales techniques, but talked about how much money I’d make. So it basically worked like this: I didn’t have to sell a system, I was selling the monthly monitoring of the alarm. I was giving away the actual systems. If you signed up, you got a real system(they were real good in all fairness), but it was very basic. The one keypad and a window and door sensor or two. I got $600 for every system sold. But, in order to make the system actually protect the house completely, it needed several more window sensors, door sensors, fire and smoke detector, and other sensors. I had to sell those, or it came out of my commission.Homeowners can add cameras, WiFi capability, remote door locks and light switches, etc. those had to be sold, but that was an easier sell. So basically, you never made the $600 as promised. You only ever made about $150-200 per sale. Once the homeowners signed the agreement, a technician would come install the system usually the same day. The homeowner did get a real quality security system, with a real good monitoring company. But they were paying $60 to $100 a month on a 5 year agreement. I hated the fact that they would teach me and new recruits to lie to help sell the systems. I didn’t use their technique. I just went door to door with the truth. There’s crime in the area, here’s your chance to get a real home security system for free if you sign up for the monitoring. I had a clean conscious knowing I wasn’t tricking anyone into signing up. I found people who were interested in improving their peace of mind at home, but just never took the steps to do so. I brought it to them.