Victim Location 44077
Type of a scam Travel/Vacations
I was contacted by phone by Colorado One Real Estate LLC. They said they had a buyer that was looking to purchase timeshares from Vidante in Mexico. I began correspondence by email. I sent documentation of my timeshare ownership and received an appraised value ten times more than I paid for this timeshare and an offer that was out of this world good. Before signing the purchase agreement that included a fee for RFC registration number that would be reimbursed by buyer, I decided to do some investigation. I could not find this company registered in Colorado. There was nothing on the Mexican websites indicating an RFC was needed in a timeshare sale. I also checked on Escrow Corp of Georgia and found information pertaining to this scam. I am glad that I did not send any money. I am worried now about ID theft.
Victim Location 55045
Total money lost $14,000
Type of a scam Other
I received a phone call asking if I was interested in selling my timeshare in Mexico. I said yes. I received a contract to sign to retain Colorado One Real Estate as my agent in the sale. I signed it. I received an offer for just under $41,000. I signed the offer to accept it. Apparently, there was already a buyer from the United Arab Emirates. Then I received a call from the Colorado One agent (Robert Palazola) that Mexico had required me to obtain a 90-day temporary Mexican citizenship in order to do business in Mexico. The fee for this temporary citizenship was about $3,900.00. I received wiring instructions to wire these funds to their representative in Mexico, one "Alma Delia Kantun Canche" via Banco Nacional de Mexico, S.A. I was told the buyer would reimburse me these funds at closing. I wired the funds from my U.S. bank account. Then I received a call from my Colorado One agent with "bad news." Now the Mexican state of Jalisco was imposing a sales tax on the transaction of about $6,100.00. Again, I was told the buyer would reimburse me these funds at closing. I did not have the funds needed, so I obtained a personal line of credit from my bank to cover the amount. Then I wired the funds from my U.S. bank account to the same recipient via the same Mexican bank. Then Colorado One had more bad news. The federal agent in Mexico handling this transaction was charging legal fees of about $4,100.00. Once more, I was told the buyer would reimburse me these funds at closing.I remembered I had just enough money in a Roth IRA to cover this amount. I withdrew it and wired it to the same party in Mexico through the same bank. This was supposed to be the last step before disbursement of my funds, which by now totaled nearly $55,000.00, including the reimbursements from the buyer. The disbursement was supposedly issued, but it never appeared in my bank account. The new agent from Colorado One, David Harris (supposedly Robert Palazola’s manager), called to tell me U.S. Customs had blocked the disbursement of funds to me, because the reimbursements from the buyer had not been previously reported, so Customs viewed this as some type of "money laundering." In order to remedy this, I was told I needed to wire another $13,000.00. I went ballistic, saying I not only did not have that money, but could not come up with it either. I also (finally) became very suspicious. It was then and only then that I found a ScamPulse.com warning on Google that described scams perpetrated specifically by Colorado One Real Estate, LLC. I have attempted to discontinue all contact with Colorado One Real Estate, LLC, although they continuing trying to contact me. These are professional criminals and scam artists. DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THEM!
Type of a scam Other
We received an email offering to purchase our Timeshare in Mexico for an exaggerated amount of money. Attached is the original email and offer.
Victim Location 53083
Type of a scam Travel/Vacations
My husband received a call inquiring whether we would like to sell or rent a timeshare we had purchased through Vidante in Mexico in December 2016. While we recognize that the timeshare was a very poor investment, we did indicate that we would be willing to receive a bid to sell/rent the unit. When we rec’d the email response it became exceedingly clear that this offer was a scam. We chose to stop correspondence with the company, but felt an obligation to make contact with the Division of Real Estate in Colorado. A call to the Division of Real Estate was made this morning and I am also following up with a notification to the BBB.
While we have not responded, we have not paid any money or experienced a loss. However, it appears clear that this company has ulterior motives to conduct such business.
I have additional correspondence (email and rental agreement if that would be helpful as well.)
Victim Location 84015
Type of a scam Rental
I got a call from Colorado One Real Estate LLC (also from Golden Asia Realty and Halicon Brokerage Group). The offers for my Vidanta membership were $33,750, $61,350 and $53,690, respectively. After calling the Colorado Secretary of state and the Dept of Regulatory Agencies, I found out that the business license was delinquent and the business was identified with a time share scam at DORA.
Victim Location 14001
Type of a scam Travel/Vacations
TIMESHARE SALE: phone call to offer $30,000 for a vacation package we purchased in 2016. We purchased it for $10,000. faxed them copy of original purchase. then they contacted me with another company in Georgia, to set up an escrow account for the funds to be handled thru. Data as follows: CitiBanaMex: fax- 404-3939153.
Colorado One: via email "[email protected]", sent 7 page contract to review and sign. In it were $10,685.00 in fees without closing costs or foreign exchange costs.
I contacted our timeshare home office @ 1-800-292-9446 as previous communications warned of third party scammers, and Vidanta does not do business with third party.
without doing the research on what my timeshare offered and what I actually paid for, with some pieces missing, like the trade of SFX, Vida Life Styles and Vida dollar accounts – I would have been duped.
Victim Location 56586
Type of a scam Travel/Vacations
We were contacted by phone to inquire about our interest in selling our timeshare in Mexico. We had been searching online for options to do this, so our hunch is that they have a way of finding leads based on internet searches. They indicated we needed to produce paperwork showing proof of our ownership. The attached email was sent to us while my husband was searching our files for the exact "bill of sale" they were requesting. Thankfully we did not have that paperwork and calls to the resort were not helpful in acquiring it either. We decided just to drop it when we saw this email and it looked "too good to be true" and sent up the red flags. We have not heard anything further from them at this point.
Victim Location 33192
Type of a scam Travel/Vacations
About 2 weeks ago, my husband and I received an unsolicited call from a company called COLORADO ONE REAL ESTATE, LLC, claiming they were representing a prestigious buyer who is interested in purchasing about 40 vacation club memberships with Grupo Vidanta, in Mexico. We were asked if we were using the membership, and name of the property we had purchased into.
We were then told the vacation club property would be appraised and we would be notified of the alleged buyer’s offer to purchase the membership from us. On March 15, 2018, we did receive an email from this company signed by " Broker agent" L V. H, with the buyer’s offered amount.
We have found out that the company’s alleged address is actually a construction site. We did a Google search for the broker agent’s name in Colorado and in the entire US and did not find a person with this name and middle initial.
The web site for this company does not list this person or show his picture.
We have not proceeded with this due to major concerns that this is a scam and truly too good to be true.