Consumers Say They've Been Scammed By Vacation Offer

For more than 100 years, the sand, the sun, and the surf have brought tourists to Hawaii. An ad in Denver and Colorado Springs newspapers late last summer made the trip even more attractive. Vacation Properties International promised five days plus air fare and rental car for just under $1,500.

Tammy Craven wanted to go to Hawaii, so this seemed like a sweet deal.

"Oct. 15 is when we were supposed to leave," Craven said.

All she had to do was bring her husband to a time-share sales pitch in Honolulu. The Cravens sent in a check for $702.18 -- half the payment for the trip.

Just three days before they were scheduled to go, they received a notice of cancellation.

"I knew there was no way we were ever going to get our money back," Craven said.

Margie and her husband Don McGill were also victims.

"They've got it down good. I mean these people were extremely good at reading the human condition," said Margie McGill.

"It's not one of those deals where if it seems too good to be true, it's not. Because of the price," said Don McGill.

Like Craven, when they found troubling discrepancies in the sales pitch, they called their contact at Vacation Properties, a man identified in all the documents as Mark Spencer."

"He explained it away perfectly, just the way I would do if I were trying to con somebody," said Don McGill.

The postal box in Oakland, Calif. where Craven and the Mc Gills sent their checks is in a UPS store where P.O. boxes rent for a few dollars a month and very few questions are asked.

Vacation Properties' toll-free phone number could be run out of nearly any telephone anywhere. It has now been disconnected.

Craven's letter to the company's address in Honolulu was returned, marked addressee unknown. And the bank where her check was cashed?

"They told me that no one went on a vacation, that most of the money was for personal use," Craven said.

Craven and the McGills accept that they'll probably never get back a dime but they came to us because they think Mark Spencer will strike again somewhere else.

"You know he's gonna have his day. Bad karma is not a good thing," Craven said.

But he may not have his day anytime soon. Local police told Craven to call the prosecutor's office. But authorities in Oakland say there's nothing they can do. And postal inspectors in Colorado told the McGills that unless Spencer first contacted them by U.S. mail, the Postal Service not interested.

Check out the Denver-Boulder Better Business Bureau's Web site when you need to check out any vacation offer.