Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Not About Travel

Montana’s

Now for something completely different.

Is it too much to expect that restaurants actually deliver what they order or that their employees understand what you are talking about when you complain..... Take our lunch today at the Montana’s in the AMC Plaza in Whitby, Ontario.

Things started off well, we gave our order, noting that the one meal was a “15".$15.00, including entree, soft drink and tax (my bold and italics). The service and the meal were both good, the problem happened with the bill....and the application of the tax, The server brought our bill and when checking it over (how many people check over their bill...you should?) noticed that the HST had been applied to the entire bill including the $15.00 meal which already included the tax.

When our server returned we asked her about this and the gist of her reply was that she just worked there and was following the rules. She was not even aware of their menu and its wording, nor did she seem to understand what it meant when it was pointed out to her.

At this point cue for the manager who although he never came to talk and let us explain our concern did bring us a revised bill. It was obvious that he didn’t really understand the issue as the revised bill took into account the entree inclusion in the deal but not the soft drink. In the end we did get some of the tax included in the $15.00, through a reduction of the entree price (keyed into the cash differently) However, after investing 10 or 15 minutes already in trying to figure out our bill it didn’t seem to be worth it for the remaining few cents of tax.

I wonder the following: how many $15.00 meal deals does Montana’s sell every day; how much extra tax is collected; is this issue limited to Montana’s; will there be a response to my request for a response on Montana’s online survey site?

Monday, February 7, 2011

Resort One Travel

Resort One Travel

To Clarify - This is a about Resort One, not Fun For Life Club International, these are two different and unrelated companies.


Further research on Resort One Travel:

The phone number is 702-873-5425, a Las Vegas, Nevada number. A reverse look up of this number using the website
http://www.whitepages.com/

generated the following

a company called Tls
(702) 873-5425

and an individual Tony Leo
(702) 873-5425

A Whois search using Karen Kenworthy’s program Karen’s WhoIs for the domain name http://www.resortonetravel.com/

identifies the Registrant as Tony Leo


A Whois search using Karen Kenworthy’s program Karen’s WhoIs for the domain name
http://www.travellogicservices.com/directory.php

also identifies the Registrant as Tony Leo

This shows that Tony Leo is a successful entrepreneur.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Not Fun for Life but Resort One Travel

Why FFL Today?

The answer is simple, the offer on WagJag today. --94% Off a Travel Club Membership-
The company not Fun For Life Club International but Resort One Travel, specifically,$300 ($200 Initiation Fee & $99 Yearly Fee) for a Lifetime Resort One Travel Membership (A $4,995 Value). The website for Resort One Travel is

http://www.resortonetravel.com/

The phone number is 702-873-5425, a Las Vegas, Nevada number.

A Google search for this number, returns several interesting possibilities:

http://www.travellogicservices.com/directory.php
http://www.showmelocal.com/profile.aspx?bid=1531254
http://www.womenfightingback.com/
http://www.lvol.com/lvlc/media/media-web.html

and others, a versatile phone number.

The Resort One Travel website does not provide an address, however the Travel Logic Service website is identified as Resort One Vacations in the Google Search, although Resort One does not seem to be mentioned on any of the Travel Logic Website pages. They do share the telephone number however.

The fact that Resort One is a member of the US Chamber of Commerce might be nice, however it should provide little comfort to the consumer as to quote from the Commerce’s FAQ

“Is [COMPANY NAME] a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?

Membership in the U.S. Chamber is open to any company, and does not imply our endorsement of the organization. We will not confirm the membership status of organizations. To find out if a specific company is a member, you will have to contact the company directly.

If the purpose of your request is to determine the validity of a company, we suggest that you contact the Better Business Bureau or your state and local consumer protection agencies, many of which can be found here. The Federal Trade Commission also has a useful website for consumers.”

A search of the Better Business Bureau is somewhat useful but at the same time puzzling,

Search Results
Sort Results By
Search limited to reports from this BBB and business Headquarters reports.
Click Here to expand your search to all BBB reports.

- Ask the BBB to Develop a Report for this Business/Charity
Business Name / Address Type of Business BBB Accreditation
Resort One Vacation Rentals No
2758 Broadway Center Blvd
Brandon, FL 33510-2583
View Report | File Complaint

Resort One International Travel Clubs Yes
1558 Coshocton Ave, Ste 301The Gateway Center
Mount Vernon, OH 43050
View Report | File Complaint

Resort One/The Heartland Resorts No
PO Box 28RTS 08.01.07 UTF
Howard, OH 43028-0028
View Report | File Complaint


The puzzling part is the original phone number is a Nevada phone number, however two of these three businesses are in Ohio and one is in Florida. The one in Mount Vernon, Ohio is accredited and does have an A+ rating.

Clicking on The VIP Members link on the Resort One Website takes you to the following website,
http://www.resortoneweeks.com/

When you click on the Mount Vernon, Ohio Resort One Website link on the BBB website it takes you to this website,
http://www.resortoneclub.com/

You are invited to enter the site and when you follow the link, you and up at
http://www.resortoneweeks.com/

The two non accredited Resort Ones do not have a website link on the BBB website.

The question that needs to be answered is what is the connection between the Nevada, Florida, and Ohio Resort One’s?

The other question I would pose is the Resort One advertised on WagJag a local company (ie, Ontario or even Canada) and if it is why is there no local contact information available?

Fun For Life - Revisited

Fun For Life Club 2010?

As a senior, living in Canada, there has been the time to do some research on a company called Fun For Life Club. Approximately five years ago, my wife and I at some cost joined this travel company which was at the time based in the Toronto area. This company has since disappeared from the Toronto area, but does have a presence in the Las Vegas area

Fun For Life Club International LLC
P.O. Box 27740
Las Vegas, NV 89126

They also maintain a web presence

https://www.funforlifeclub.com/Default.aspx

In December, 2010 we received a call from a Carl Williams calling us from Las Vegas (he was kind enough to go in to his office at 5:30 am to call us in Toronto at 9:30 am). He indicated that his company Global Direct Savings had taken/over obtained our name and information from/for Fun For Life and wanted to make things right for us. There were the usual incentives and "free" offers which would allow us to reinstate our web access for the original fee ($99.00).

Before committing any new money to try and salvage something out of old money I started trying to track down as much information about this new (at least to me) entity,

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The phone number that Carl provided was 888-808-4892, the number our call display provided was 702-499-5939 (a Las Vegas cell number). The local company number is 702-990-3909.

The website for Global is

http://www.globaldirectsavings.com/
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To thank us for talking with him and considering his offer, he sent us an e-mail link for a certificate for a 4 night hotel stay,
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"Thank you for your time. This is just a reminder to update your personal profile with funforlifeclub.com to receive our services. Please do not hesitate to contact our office if you have any additional questions or concerns.
FFLC Admin" -------an interesting Fun for Life Reference--------

Global Direct Savings
www.globaldirectsavings.ca

Expiration Date: 01/14/11 We already given up on this certificate. It had interesting fine print.

the certificate is available at this link

https://www.funrewardsforyou.com/?ecode=2c63b9e77ed8f056a0c9337da9e579f9
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My research into the company funrewardsforyou led me to a company called Creative Marketing Incentive Group Inc
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website

http://www.creativemarketingincentives.biz/

and also the company CMItravel

website

http://www.cmitravel.com/ ---- almost the same website--------
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A google search for CMI travel took me to this website

http://www.hotfrog.com/Companies/CMI-Travel-Certificates

and provided the following information
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CMI Travel Certificates

Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89109

p: 702-421-3509 f: 866-902-8952

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and the website

www.cmitravelcerts.com which seemingly does not exist.
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The information on CMI etc came from the following story posted at



http://www.prlog.org/11138875-complimentary-vacation-and-restaurant-marketing-incentives.html

Complimentary Vacation and Restaurant Marketing Incentives
Our complimentary vacation & restaurant marketing incentives will Boost your Biz by offering you clients quality family vacations and restaurant certificates saving 90% off retail pricing with NO Timeshare and Sales Presentations to 4-5 Star Resorts.



CMIG Logo UPDATED and RESIZED - 09-08-10

CMIG Logo UPDATED and RESIZED - 09-08-10

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRLog (Press Release) – Dec 09, 2010 – First & foremost we're a marketing company, and we help businesses make more money from their existing advertising and from their REPEAT and REFERRAL BUSINESS. We do this through the use of our All-Inclusive Vacation, 3-5 Star Hotel & Resort, Luxury Cruise and Restaurant Gift Certificates. We created an incentive program where we give your business access to all of our certificates for just $99 per month. So whether you need 100 or even 100, 000 certificates, you will never pay more than $99 per month.

We offer:

1-7 Night 3-5 Star Hotel & Resort Stays, Airfare Plus Hotel Packages, All-Inclusive Vacation & Cruise Getaways, $25 & $300 Restaurant Gift Certificates and much more! Our vacations retail anywhere from $200 all the way up to $2000 retail value.

Most of the time when businesses are thinking about using these type of promotional incentives they usually think of one use and only give them away to PAYING customers to reward the purchase...

With our program, since you get an Unlimited Supply of certificates for just a low monthly fee we teach all of our businesses at least 4 different ways to use our incentives.

FOR EXAMPLE:

Lead Generation- Imagine if you can add just one extra tag line to all your existing ads...something like "call for a free quote and receive a 2 Night Hotel Stay." (Smaller Value Incentive, stay away from offering something that might seem to good to be true)

Gift For A Purchase- After you generate the lead use one of our more expensive offers to entice buyers to buy today VS next week with Airfare Plus 2 Nights in a hotel in Puerto Vallarta or Cancun Mexico.

Reward Referrals- Give people reasons to send you referrals by offering them a 4 Night Hotel Stay in Honolulu, HI.

Customer Loyalty- Reward long time and loyal customers on their birthday with an exciting 7 Night Resort In One of 3500 Available Resorts Worldwide.

With all of our certificates combined we have over 700 of the most popular vacation destinations that you can cater your marketing and promotions to.

Now it's really important that you understand how we're able to do this...Because these are all quality vacations and there are never any TIMESHARE presentations, hidden fees or strings attached.


CMI has contracted directly with the largest Hotel Chains, Cruise Lines, Resorts & Airlines to fill otherwise unoccupied space. We help fill their excess inventory through our promotional incentives. Hotels, resorts and cruise lines rarely experience full occupancy, yet they are still open, they still have their fixed costs. So although they have missed out on the room fee, they now have a paying customer in their bars, restaurants, room service, etc. And for the same reason why you as a business are going to be using these incentives, for your REPEAT & REFERRAL BUSINESS; That is why these properties have agreed to this in the first place, they know if they show your customers a good time while they're there, they're going to go home and tell their friends and family about the great time they had and maybe even come back as a paying customer in the future. They also make their money when your customers rebook with them down to road.

Now like I said we are a marketing company, and true to our form, we protect the integrity of your promotions. Every other incentive company out there brands THEIR Company's logo and all THEIR contact information all over the certificates that you hand out to your customers. This does two things that we don't agree with. First off, they are using you to promote THEIR services through YOUR own promotions. Plus, now your customers can pretty easily find out exactly where you are getting these great vacation offers from and worst of all they will know exactly how much you are paying to run your promotions which could devalue your promotion all together and obviously that is not the point of your promotions.

Over here at CMI we actually keep those two processes completely separated. See, there are two sides to our business. You will know us as CMI, but your customers know us as our redemption company www.FunRewardsForYour.com We do not advertise anything about CMI anywhere on FunRewardsForYour.com nor on the actual certificates you hand out to your customers. As a matter of fact you have the ability to brand the "Compliments of" area on the certificates with YOUR logo and YOUR contact information.

Not only do you print the certificates as you need them right from your computer, but we also provide you with artwork along with customer appreciation and referral letters that you can customize with your letterhead to print on the back of the certificates. We provide a Customer Contact Manager to track your customers you have given certificates too. You can even eliminate your ink and paper costs and email the certificates right from our control panel. If you have a website, you can place one of our E-Certificate Web banners on your website so when your customer clicks on it, they can enter their email and our system will automatically email your customer a certificate on your behalf 100% AUTOMATION FOR WEBSITE BUSINESSES.

We make it very easy for your customers to redeem the certificates, 95% of all our redemption's on conducted right over our secure server on our master redemption website www.FunRewardsForYou.com Your customers can also redeem their certificate by fax, email or even the old fashion way, by regular mail.

Now because we are completely automated, you can start using these promotions in your business today. Go to http://www.cmitravel.com to sign up now or call us directly at the phone number listed below.

P.S. We are currently offering all new customers a "Risk-Free 30 Day Trial". We understand that most businesses want to make sure the incentive program they want to utilize is going to work properly and not cause unnecessary customer service issues. We are so confident in our product we are willing to put our money where our mouth is. Sign up today and redeem your own certificate. If you are not completely satisfied with the redemption process or the fulfillment of any of our certificates, we will refund your money. Call me at your earliest convenience and I can have your account up and running within 5 minutes.

Vincenzo Santangelo
National Director of Marketing and Business Development

619-663-0045
Info@CMITravel.com
http://www.cmitravel.com

Affiliations:
Association of Retail Travel Agents*
Cruise Lines International Association
Travel Retailers Universal Enumeration
Outside Sales Support Network
Dunn & Bradstreet
SD Regional Chamber of Commerce
Web Trust Security

* Registered Seller Of Travel CST # 2091925-40
* TRUE IATAN # 52-4 5888 4

# # #

Vacation and Restaurant Marketing Incentives Guaranteed to Boost your Biz!
Worldwide Vacations to over 3500 Destinations. Pay the Daily Room Taxes and/or Port Taxes, NO Timeshare or Sales Presentations.
Month to Month Contracts, 30 Day Risk Free Trail


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As you will note three roads, FFLC; Global Direct Savings; and CMI Travel Certificates seem to lead to Las Vegas. The only piece that doesn't is Vincenzo Santangelo, he seems to be based in El Cajon, California. A lot of coincidences, hopefully the phrase Buy Beware rings true.

Since the first call we have received others wanting to further review our status with Fun For Life ( no mention of Global Direct). I decided to do some more follow up and called the cell phone number but it wasn't Carl who answered, nor was it a business. I did not speak to the individual so I'm not sure who it was. I then called the local number for Global Direct (the non 888 number) and got a message to leave a message or if it was an emergency call 308-380-9477. A reverse lookup indicates this number is in Grand Island Nebraska. I was unable to find a connection to any of the companies I have been able to identify.