Paul Begley Blog

Well they did sell my timeshare and i was every please. so they are a good company.

I assume the comment above was posted by someone from RCI Financial Title.

The name and e-mail address are fake – I tried to send a reply to “angie lopez” at Yahoo! and it bounced.

Also, the IP address they used to post the comment is from Melbourne, FL. This is about 10 miles from Orlando where (wait for it…) – RCI Financial Title is located.

Well, “angie” aside from the fact that you ignore punctuation and grammar rules, you’re an obvious fraud.

If anyone has anything good or bad to say about RCI Financial Title, document your experience and send it to me at nospam (at) paulbegley (dot) com and I will post it.

Well, I fell for it! When we got the call from a “Robert Bishop” [either (407) 244-6254 or (407) 418-8609], the offer was reasonable & the website was actually up – although just as minimal as you observed. (Wish I’d had the presence-of-mind to get a screen-shot of the home page!) Now, of course, the url for the site goes to a “Your domain is pointing to Yola! Now you just need to publish your site and you’re done!” screen. Anyway, we executed a contract ( e-mailed from “Alex Whitman”, rcititleco@yahoo.com) & overnighted it with a cashiers check for nearly $ 2,000.00 that I know I’ll have to write-off. Although the phone numbers no longer work, we do have a USPS Certified Mail receipt & I have a saved voice mail on my cel phone from “Robert Bishp” stating that he received the mailing. I’m going to contact a private investigator here in Pasadena, TX, as well as a recommended firm in Orlando. I’ll also be looking online to see who (Federal, State, etc.) will accept a report of this fraud. Thank you for your posts. If only I’d found anything negative about them when first I Googled them!

We are making progress. E-Mail below from the FL Attorney General’s office:

Sent: Wed, March 23, 2011 6:01:10 PM
Subject: From Attorney General Pam Bondi

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi received your email regarding the sale
of your mother’s timeshare by RCIJB Worldwide Enterprise, doing business
as RCI Title & Marketing. Attorney General Bondi asked that I respond.

The Attorney General’s Office has made timeshare resales one of our top
consumer priorities, and we are actively investigating multiple businesses
pursuant to Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, Chapter
501, Part II, Florida Statutes. We use complaints such as yours to
identify patterns of questionable business activity which may indicate the
need for formal investigation or action by our office to protect the broad
public interest. I am retaining your correspondence in our consumer files
for future reference.

I invite you to visit the Attorney General’s comprehensive website about
the timeshare resales industry in Florida. This website provides
information on the Attorney General’s investigations of particular
businesses, along with the consumer tips about resolving timeshare resale
issues:

http://www.myfloridalegal.com/timeshares

The Attorney General and Federal Trade Commission have also issued
important consumer alerts about so-called “recovery rooms,” and
“reloading,” scams which target consumers who previously fell prey to
telemarketing and other schemes:

http://myfloridalegal.com/pages.nsf/main/c6bb5f8d20910af785256cc9005e72d3!OpenDocument

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/telemarketing/tel09.shtm (posted
March 2011)
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/telemarketing/tel10.shtm

Our office does not generally mediate individual complaints. If you are
seeking mediation of your individual complaint, please contact the Florida
Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of Consumer
Services (DACS). The DACS serves as the state clearinghouse for consumer
complaints and has a voluntary mediation program to assist individual
consumers. The contact information is:

Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
Division of Consumer Services
2005 Apalachee Parkway
Tallahassee, Florida 32399
Telephone: (850) 488-2221
Toll-free within Florida: (800) 435-7352
Website: http://www.800helpfla.com/

In addition to the Better Business Bureau, you may wish to contact the
following consumer agency for further assistance:

Orange County Consumer Fraud Unit
Post Office Box 1673
Orlando, Florida 32802
Telephone: (407) 836-2490
Email: fraudhelp@sao9.org
Websites: http://www.orangecountyfl.net/
http://www.orangecountyfl.net/YourLocalGovernment/CountyDepartments/CountyAdministration/OfficeofPublicEngagementandCitizenAdvocacy/ConsumerFraudUnit/tabid/370/Default.aspx

Printable complaint form:
http://www.orangecountyfl.net/Portals/0/Resources/Internet/DEPARTMENTS/Consumer%20Fraud/docs/ComplaintForm.pdf

Finally, Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act provides
individuals with a private remedy to bring an action for damages,
attorney’s fees and court costs. Please consult a private attorney if you
need legal advice. An attorney can provide the legal guidance which we
are not at liberty to provide to individual timeshare owners. The Florida
Bar offers a Lawyer Referral Service toll-free at (800) 342-8060.

Thank you for contacting Attorney General Bondi’s Office. I hope this
proves helpful.

Sincerely,

Carmen James
Office of Citizen Services

I gave RCI Financial Title $1,850.oo to sell my Timeshare on 2/14/11 and now I cannot get in touch with them. They gave me a Contract saying they had sold my timeshare and would give me the closing date between March 20th and March 30th. Is there any recouse I can take?

RCI Financial indicated that had a buyer for my timeshare in Mexico and that the buyer had agreed to the sell price of $24,850.00. The buyer was NIVEA Corporation.I was instructed to send a cashiers check on March 14, 2011, in the amount of $2,450.00 via USPS Express Mail and RCI would then send out the documents for me to sign to complete the sale. I received a call that the check was received on March 16, 2011 and the documents would be sent out in three days. When I completed the documents and returned them, I was assured that I would receive a check in the amount of $27,300. When the documents failed to arrive, I began calling them to let them know. I have called RCI Financial Title numerous times and have not received a return call from anyone at RCI.

We were contacted by Sara Welch who claimed she is with Vacation Ownership International (302 449 9326). She said that she had buyers for our time share. She took our price demand and returned to tell us that she had prequalified buyers who would pay our price and that they were serious (they would put 20% down). After some repeated attempts to secure documentation for the transaction, we were told that we would have to advance the closing costs. This seemed very odd to me so I pushed to find out more. We were eventually told that the company doing the work is RCI Title, 4630 S. Kirkman Road, Suite 103, Orlando Florida, 32811, 321-721-3559.

I guess I’m not as smart as I thought. If it’s too good to be true, it usually is. We were also contacted by a Sarah Welch (302) 449-9326 and the story is the same. When she called us she had all the information about our timeshare at Summer Bay Resort in Florida (and seemed to know more about it than we did!). Sadly, we used electronic checking so we are now in the process of changing our account numbers, etc. We are interested in pursuing any avenue for retribution. These are the people that have changed the course of humanity and should be punished. Is there anything we can do at this point?

Looks like they are now operating under the name of Itt Professionals LLC. If you look up the company at Sunbiz.com, guess who the agent is? Good ol LISA GRANSKIE