It seems that hundreds of people have been scammed by Grand Miramar. Like many others agents of the company (in this case John Montalvo, Reme Coja and Alain Patino) promised that the company would sell my existing timeshares for an agreed upon price and that rental income for unused weeks would be paid. This was guaranteed in writing with an addendum to the main contract referenced by contract number. Three months later when we were not receiving the promised money we paid a return visit to the resort and learned that the above three no longer worked there and were being charged with fraud by the company. The new employees then proceeded to attempt a second fraud by saying they could not honor the conditions of the old contract unless we paid five years of maintenance fees in advance! I did not get sucked in a second time.

The company seems to have a record of hiring people who scam tourists. But the tourist protection agency PROFECO is toothless and I wasted about two years attempting to go through them. When I consulted two separate Mexican lawyers, I was told we could not get our money back. One said I would need two of Montalvo, Coja or Patino to testify on my behalf. It is like Mexico is set up to scam tourists.

I am Canadian and have been in contact with a Canadian member of parliament about this issue. If there are a number of Canadian tourists similarly scammed he is willing to take our case forward. If you are interested in joining this action please contact me at [email protected]. Thank you.