The promise is a free cruise. The truth: something that appears too good to be true, absolutely is too good to be true. Welcome to the latest cruise scam.
It’s a scheme heavily promoted on social media. As the scheme has become more and more widespread, many cruisers and travellers have reported their experiences online. Not one has ended in receiving a free cruise.
How does the scam work?
The scam
It will start with you being mailed a free cruise, or handed a flyer while out-and-about, essentially you’ll have a piece of paper in your hands telling you that you’re entitled to a free cruise. However, only if you come to see a presentation first.
At this presentation you will be very aggressively sold on a timeshare. Guests have reported everything from threatening and aggressive behaviour from salespeople, right up to ending up actually being pressured into purchasing a timeshare despite having no intention of doing so.
If you do make it through the presentation without leaving, being kicked out or buying a timeshare, you’re ‘technically’ still entitled to your free cruise. But if you continue pursuing this, you’ll see just how many hoops you have to jump through.
You’ll find yourself being asked to mail across a significant sum in ‘fees and taxes’, that will come out essentially to the price of a cruise anyway, with no guarantee that this company will come through for you.
Next you’ll need to contact a range of different ‘travel agents’ to organise your ship, and it will be months before you even know what cruise line, ship or itinerary you might have, if any. Expect a range of dates to black out and unavailable, as well as a range of particular conditions that you may or may not be able to meet.
Essentially, companies profit off this scam by aggressively selling people on timeshares and putting up enough hoops and hurdles that no one will actually claim their free cruise, even if it even existed in the first place.
Cruiser takes on the scam
Reddit user ExMorgMD was already aware of this scam, and decided to take it on anyway, with the goal of seeing if he could eventually get his cruise at the end of it. He talks about how it started.
“I got this card in the mail. “Free 7 day cruise” in exchange for a meeting. I knew it was a pitch for a timeshare but for a free cruise, I was curious to check it out so I called the number, made an appointment, and went to the meeting. I should say that my wife and I aren’t dupes and we knew that this was going to be high pressure sales. The fine print said that we need to sit for a 2 hour meeting to qualify.
“We went to a sales office in a little strip mall. We filled out a few “get to know you” forms which I left mostly blank and I started a timer. Then they sat in a 45 minute sales presentation with Esprit Vacation Club where a guy went through slides and showed how their club membership would give us cheaper rates to any hotel, condo, flight, etc.”
The cruiser continues on how the presentation went.
“They swore up and down about how it was definitely not a timeshare. Talked about how expensive vacation is and how much money we would save over the course of our life. The membership fee was quoted at $29.99 per month.
“We said ‘we are here for the free cruise. We are absolutely not interested in buying anything. I’m willing to sit for your pitch for another 52 minutes, but I will say ‘no’ at the end’.
“He said “excuse me for just a minute.” He came back after a minute or two and said we could get our prize at the front desk.”
Next the user describes the process of attempting to redeem the free cruise.
“They gave us a certificate with a code on it. We went to a website and put in the code. It gave us the option to select whether we wanted a western Caribbean or Mexican cruise. It also gave us the option to decide where to cruise out of.
“We have to mail in the fees and taxes (about USD$900) and wait for that to get processed. Which is where we are now.
“We mailed in the check for the fees. When it showed up as cashed on our bank statement I returned to the website and clicked the link for setting up our cruise dates. It gave me a number to call, which I did, and spoke to an operator who offered me 4 weeks between September and November. We selected the date that worked best for our schedule and we were told that we would be contacted by a travel agent a few months away to confirm the room and travel plans.”
It perhaps says it all that the post was updated months later to confirm he was still waiting for finalisation of the sailing dates, and then ever again, despite the user still being active.
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