The Mexican Association of Tourist Developers (Amdetur), of which the Association of Tourist Developers and Promoters of Puerto Vallarta and Bahía de Banderas (Adeprotur) is a part, launched an alert message because fraud in timeshares and vacation clubs have increased after the coronavirus pandemic.

The agency, which representz 90% of timeshares in Mexico, announced that another serious problem that has been detected is the hacking of the websites of timeshare companies.

Amdetur indicated that out of every 100 clients, at least 5 have been victims or have received calls from criminals who tried to defraud them.

The most common practices are to tempt them with very attractive offers, such as not charging them the annual maintenance fee.

The sophistication of these individuals reaches the extreme that they use the logos of exchange companies such as RCI and Amdetur itself in such a way that it has become common for claims to be made against these organizations. That can affect their image, even if they are not the fraudsters.

Victims receive purchase offers through emails or calls from third parties who claim to have buyers ready. If offers are accepted, timeshare owners are required to pay fees and taxes in advance, supposedly to facilitate or expedite the sale with money-back guarantees at the closing of the sale. After making the multiple payments, the timeshare owners finally realize that the offers were fictitious, that there are no buyers, and that their money is gone.

Since the pandemic there has been an increase in demand for digital services, as almost all companies in this industry have relationships with clients through the internet.

It happens that companies must offer more services through third parties, since there is a significant number of startups that have important solutions to improve experiences or provide access to activities, such as gastronomy.

Tourism startups are newly created companies that tend to break paradigms and integrate innovative business models, operate with cutting-edge technological resources (unlike traditional companies), and manage to quickly connect with an audience through new marketing processes. Criminals try to blend in with these startups, but offer services that do not exist.