BOSTON (Legal Newsline) - Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley announced Tuesday a $50,000 settlement with an Illinois-based travel company and its principals, resolving allegations they used high-pressure sales tactics to sell vacation club memberships.
Travel Services Inc., formerly known as Funseekers Vacations Inc. and doing business as Outrigger Vacation Club, allegedly sold overpriced memberships by using high-pressure sales tactics and misrepresenting the value and benefit of its memberships.
The travel company allegedly conspired to lure consumers to sales presentations using deceptive mail and telephone solicitations before subjecting them to high-pressure sales pitches that included misrepresentations and omissions.
Travel Services; Christy Spensberger, the company's president; and William Bailey, the company's vice president; allegedly facilitated unfair and deceptive sales operations at the Methuen-based Fantasia Travel and the Plymouth-based Only Way 2 Go Travel.
"Through this scheme, the defendants used bait and switch marketing tactics to trick consumers into paying thousands of dollars for vacation club memberships worth a fraction of that price," Coakley said.
"We are pleased that this judgment will permanently prohibit this company from conducting its deceptive vacation club business in Massachusetts."
Under the terms of the consent judgment, Travel Services must pay $50,000 in restitution to consumers. Travel Services, Bailey and Spensberger also are permanently prohibited from marketing or selling travel services and vacation club memberships in Massachusetts.