My husband and I Honeymooned in Cancun, August 18 -August 24, 1997. For several days we were approached at our hotel about attending a no pressure, very quick seminar. It would only last about 90 minutes; they wanted to see what we thought of their resorts Sunset Lagoon and Royal Sunset Lagoon. Finally on August 21, it was rainy day and we thought, why not go; you received a free food voucher. It would only take an hour and a half and maybe the rain would be moved out by then.
From the moment we walked in the sales office of the Sunset Lagoon, we did not feel comfortable. We ended up in a very high pressured sales office, for about 7 hours and about 30 tables of other sales people pressuring other customers to purchase the timeshares just like us. It was very, very loud and confusing; they kept throwing all sorts of numbers at us, starting at something like $30, 000.00. We kept saying we were not interested, and Mr. Marroquin kept saying that we could rent out our timeshare every year and make big money, or we could vacation ourselves. We were also told that Sunset Lagoon would at any time, take back our timeshare if we were unable to keep the commitment. He wanted us to know it was a great way to make extra income for one week a year, and that we could trade anywhere in the world with others that were members o RCI. We kept trying to leave and he kept at us, after 7 hours and we were tired we got up to leave and he came at us with a price of $6450.00, we could pay a down payment of half and pay the remaining out over a two year period. So we were stupid and signed the dotted line, knowing we had 5 days to cancel.
We returned to Nashville on the 24th of August and decided to go on to the computer and find out more information about the resort and the company. Yikes! I started reading about many, many fraud cases and broken promises, naming Sunset Lagoon. We were sick.
I immediately wrote a cancellation letter and put a call in to Mr. Marroquin, to also cancel. I had one day of my five days of cancellation back. I sent it registered to the Miami address on August 25, 1997.
A few days later we finally received a call back from Mr. Marroquin, I explained I had sent the cancellation letter on the 25th and that we wanted a refund as soon as possible. He asked that we send a copy of the contract to him with cancel written on it, so we did. He would get back to us in a few days.
After I did not hear from him for several days, after leaving repeated messages, he finally gave us a return call stating that the board of directors declined our cancellation, that we were legally bound because of the letter not arriving in the 5 days. I could go on and on about the phone calls and letters sent. In the end we sought an attorney's help here in the US and because this took place in Mexico we were told we could just not pay or ruin our credit and pay it.
I again spoke with Mr. Marroquin, that we felt like we had been taken and treated very unfairly. A few days later, he phoned and stated that the board of directors had agreed that we would be obligated to pay the remaining total due, however we were able to cancel the contract as long as we paid the balance and that Sunset Lagoon would take it back from there and we would be relieved of our contract once paid the remaining balance of $3223.00. Well, not wanting to hurt our credit, plus I just gave up and so tired of dealing with it. We paid our full commitment, then in 1999, when we made our last payment wrote another letter, stating their agreement. I have never heard another word from them, not a! Then on February 19, 2009, ten years later, we received a threatening letter from a company called RMI. They are stating we have a balance of $5421.56, for dues. Guess I have to get an attorney again. Please people, be cautious.