Over the past year, whenever I hear or read about Mexico, I think about Cancun. Whenever I think about my vacation in Cancun (3/4/2010), I think about HSI. Whenever I think about HSI, my blood pressure rises; I am in pain. Not only did the HSI salespeople lie to me and I lost $3, 000, but the feeling of being fooled and not being able to do anything about it have been haunting me. I don’t need to repeat the same story as everyone else; the cash exchange program and burn week deals are all lies (those are the main reasons I bought the "Taste of Paradise" package). A warning for all of you: I consider myself a smart person, but the salespeople in the Mayan Resorts are professional trained liars. I wonder… who can protect the innocent tourists like me and who is going to punish the fraud businesses like HSI?

If you are considering investing any money with HSI, RUN, DON'T WALK, as fas as you can in the other direction. They are no better than snake-oil peddlers. Their guarantee means NOTHING. It is just part of their fraudulent sales pitch. I have attempted to use my membership benefits and had no success. For a recent trip I was able to book a hotel on line and in my preferred location much cheaper than anything they had to offer. Many of the resorts listed in their Vacation Guide are not available through them. I was told, "We do not do enough business with them to offer wholesale rates." This is certainly not what we were lead to believe. THIS IS THE FIRST COMPLAINT ABOUT ANYONE I HAVE EVER POSTED ON THE INTERNET. I am not easily disgruntled, but I thought everyone should be warned about HSI .

I continue to be harrassed by this company because we were coerced into a time share agreement, lied to by RCI, now their agent, Holiday Systems International, continues to try to get us to pay a yearly membership fee. This is the letter I wrote back to them:

Holiday Systems International
7690 West Cheyenne Avenue
Suite 200
Las Vegas, Nevada 89129

ATTN: Ms. Katherine Weinberg

SUBJ: Right to Terminate

Dear Ms. Weinberg:

We have read your rather lengthy letter that was totally unnecessary to send to us. You get paid on your job to write and send letters, but this takes valuable time away from me to make a reply for which I do not get paid to do. But I will take the time because I totally do not trust HSI to have any good faith or reputable business practice and I want to make sure that we are never bothered by HSI again!

You can be certain that we never intended to have a membership with such a disreputable organization who would employ such underhanded business tactics to make sales. Your representatives in Puerta Vallarta Mexico not only used coercive tactics, but actually lied and made false promises to make a sale. We were guaranteed that our existing timeshare with Interval International would be sold in order to buy a time share from you. We should have known this was a false promise and would not be carried out. I think we were just so worn down by the coercive tactics that we caved in just to get away. Believe me, we talked with many other people who vacationed there who were accosted with the same tactics. It got so that people wanted to talk with us and we just said, “No Timeshares Please, ” wherever we went. This was such an unpleasant experience that it actually detracted from the enjoyment of our vacation.

Then RCI, your affiliate, actually hounded us to pay using more underhanded and coercive tactics. It got so we had to complain to the American consulate in Mexico to get them to cease and desist. Now we have to tolerate letters from you? What does it take to let your organization and affiliates know that we want nothing to do with you?

Your time would be better spent in Quality Assurance making certain that your business practices are legal and respectful of others, that your organization has sound ethics for doing business, that your representatives don’t lie and coerce potential customers and that you don’t further irritate and alienate the public by sending such annoying letters that cause even more stress. What is it about “TAKE US OFF YOUR LIST, ” that behooves you to make a reply and even state that it is our obligation to send you something in writing? That we already did. If I ever receiving anything in the mail with Holiday Systems International again, I will go to the Attorney General again! In fact, I will make certain that the head of your company knows about this and that everyone I know tells everyone they know about our very unpleasant experience – which continues to this day – with your organization!

Don’t buy, or refund ASAP. Holiday Systems International is a high pressure sales outfit that then SLAMS the door closed if you have second thoughts. We purchased a 15 year lease with 25 weeks for $4075 in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. We were staying at the The Reef Playacar, in the Mexican Riviera. We own a timeshare at The Grandview Las Vegas, and maintain a membership with RCI.

I understand that buying a timeshare can be a scary prospect, and the industry has resorted to sales tactics that border on kidnapping, but we have fully enjoyed our RCI timeshare. My wife doesn’t like to camp, so I like to compare costs as equivalent to owning an RV. The cost of gas to haul, insure, store, and maintain an RV is actually higher than the annual fees on our timeshare. And the good news is a timeshare is real property that generally doesn’t depreciate like an RV.

Now Holiday Systems International (HSI) is a different story. After we bought, I did a lot of internet research. My overall impression is it is “timeshare-lite” without the equity. It’s a privately owned company without stock traded in any stock exchange that I could find. On the side, how does a company offer its employees a stock option without publicly traded stock? Origin 1993. Joined BBB of Nevada in 1995. Has A- rating last I checked, but has accumulated complaints. $6.6 million in annual sales per a business website. Employ about 100 to 200 people. Not that big a company in my opinion. HSI has sponsored ARDA events and a bicycle racing team, Team Pro Cyclery. A little unsettling to think that its possible they’d close their doors tomorrow. The bicycle thing also warrants discussion because it sheds light on the guy that operates the company, Craig Morganson (The CEO).

I think the CEO is a PETA member and has used HSI as leverage against a veterinarian university in St. Kitts. See http://www.peta.org/mc/NewsItem.asp?id=11296&pf=true or others. In a letter to PETA, HSI President and CEO Craig Morganson wrote the following:

“[T]he apparent willingness of the St. Kitts government to allow Ross University to needlessly harm animals when the island's animal protection law prohibits "unnecessary suffering" of animals is unacceptable. Please be assured that HSI � will no longer allow our more than 300, 000 clients the option of booking St. Kitts through HSI until such time [as] their government demonstrates a more civilized respect for animal welfare, and Ross University builds a veterinary teaching hospital and adopts the recommendations outlined by PETA.”

Now I love animals, too. They taste great. Problem is I’m an NRA member and hunter. That means I enjoy shooting and eating deer and other game. I don’t agree to someone using their company and my membership as leverage on a government in the name of a cause I don’t share. Would Mr. Morganson like to ban other destinations if they have relaxed gun control, strict immigration policies, or lack of vegetarian cuisine? What other causes would the CEO like to use his 300, 000+ membership company for? Did the members consent to such action? I certainly wouldn’t. Smacks of extraordinary narcissism.

Many posts on web discussion sites comment on Mr. Morganson’s “potty-mouth” when dealing with employees. There are references to him screaming swear-words at employees during explosive temper-tantrums. These are unconfirmed accusations, but there seems to be a lot of circumstantial evidence. Okay, we’ve got a problem when animal rights are held in higher regard than human rights. That should never be the case!

The specifics of our case reads much like others. When we called HSI in Nevada, we were directed back to the resort. Numerous phone calls later, I was able to reach a sales representative once. The “front-man” of the operation told me to call back (the office was closed, which was true), but he claimed he didn’t know the fax number there. How lame. Further calls were made the next day, messages left at least four to five total, but no call backs. A total joke of an operation. Nevertheless, we have now disputed the charges with the credit card company. The contract was illegal. Did not allow 5 business days to rescind as stipulated by Mexican law and PROFECO. This is a right that can not be waived. Our attempts to cancel were on the fourth and fifth business days. Very unfair and HSI will not be allowed to do this to us, and shouldn't be allowed to do it to anyone else!

The reality of the IT Department is this. The department is run by the VP of Operations of the company. There are only 3 people in charge at HSI. Craig Morganson (known as The CEO), Laura Johnston (Craig's sister), and Neil Snyder (Craig's Partner). Next in line is Joe Roller (brown-noser) and Harvey Wasser (2nd brown-noser).

Laura will tout to you that she was a CIO for top fortune 500 companies for 29 years. Yeah, right! For someone to have been a CIO, she knows nothing about project planning. Her way of handing out projects is to tell you a deadline which is unspeakably unrealistic and then tell you it has to be done. She'll also tell you that the same project was done with less staff the year before and you'll just have to make sure the work is done. Her concept of making sure the work gets done is to trust no one and micro-manage everyone. She micro-manages to the point where she is standing over you watching you do the work. And then she has the gall to tout about how long she stays at the office. If she would take some of that time she wastes standing over people she might be able to do real work.

To make matters worse, she has no concept of processes to make deployments to production. Deployments are written on a white-board and hopefully nothing will go wrong. Well, of course, something always goes wrong because there are no checks and balances to confirm if the production move is going to affect something else in production. Gee!

Good luck trying to find Americans working there. We have more common sense and know we don't have to put up with how they treat you there. I can count the number of Americans on one hand. Everyone else is foreigners. Most of them are contractors on VISAs and this is their first job in the states or was convinced to go to work here. Everyone in IT is put on salary so you aren't paid overtime for the ungodly hours they are forced to put in on a daily basis. And you can't plan your life because you are always being told you have to expect to work late. Even if you work late, you're expected to be there by 8:30 a.m. the next day. These people are threatened with their VISAs if they don't agree to work and come in on the weekends. These people are bullies and they have the staff fearful to take any action against them.

And if you're smarter than Laura, forget about making it there. She will tell you the options you presented to her are unacceptable and will always have a reason why things need to be done her way. Their website is so outdated and the code is a piece of crap. You will spend more time trying to dig your way through the layers of code before you can update something.

The people working in the IT department are bright, intelligent people. But they can't take the time to code properly because they are under such time demands. So naturally they leave it as it is just to get the work done. I'm surprised someone hasn't tried to leave a worm or virus on the site considering how crappy they are treated.

All the complaints you read on this site in regards to HSI are true. People are not regarded as actual human beings there. From the moment you enter orientation, you are being brain-washed to think think the way they do. They will call you a loser and they also want you to tell on other people if they are seen doing something against their policies, such as answer your cell phone.

You are not allowed to have a personal life at work. No calls from anyone on the outside, no mail, nothing.

Managers are required to punch the time clock just like hourly employees. In fact, anyone salaried is required to punch in and out. They do this so they can keep track of whether or not you show up late. And then they use it against you if you're there long enough for your 90-day evaluation. You are not allowed to be late, be sick, take any time off, or to stay there long enough to get benefits. There are a few that have managed to survive this company's idiot policies. Don't even try to figure out why they're still there.

Well, there is always more. What little time I spent there was enough. This company is poison and is a hostile working environment. Believe everything you read regarding HSI's policies and the infamous Craig, The CEO!!!