VP Sunrise Solutions

Victim Location 80447

Total money lost $4,544

Type of a scam Travel/Vacations

We were first contacted by Madison Adams from VP Sunrise Solutions on 08/23/18. She said that Jim Carollo is the project manager that will be contacting us about an offer for our time share in Mexico. They had a large company from California that were buying blocks of timeshare for a tax break. Jim contacted us a few days later and said he had a client that was buying 26 units at our time share in Mexico and would like to purchase our membership as well. He had an offer to us for a favorable amount plus reimbursement of the $4,499 transfer fees that our time share required.

They had to have 2 things to move forward. A clear title and the transfer fee our timeshare required to transfer ownership. According to Jim, the title was clear. And we would need to transfer the $4,499 to a Mexican bank prior to closing.

We received contracts that looked legitimate. Jim told us that a closing company the buyers selected will be contacting us in the next few days. We got a call from Jason Dougherty from D&W International Closings on 09/05/18. He emailed us preliminary closing documents stating a dollar amount plus the reimbursement for the transfer fees was in a trust account. We then proceeded to wire the transfer fees to a Mexican bank. We were set to close in a couple of weeks.

We were receiving update phone calls from Jim stating everything was still a go and we had our contracts and were waiting for the closing date to be set. We were expecting to close in a couple of days when we get a call from Jason from the closing company. He said he has been working with our Broker Jim and the buyers to work out a lien that was put on all the accounts of the units from the Mexican government (SAT) like our US IRS. Stating new regulations for time share were now classified as a luxury item and is subject to a 19% tax. Jason sent us an email with a Mexican SAT document stating we owed $9,728 US dollars for taxes. But not to worry, the buyer decided to reimburse for this too. We just had to wire the money to the same Mexican Bank and we would be able to move forward when the Lien is removed from our membership of timeshare. Red flags flew. We played along and said the buyer should take the money from the trust and pay the taxes. They said they could not do partial payouts from a trust. I asked Jim how the money was to get from the bank account to the SAT to remove our lien. He talked about the closer would transfer the money after the closing of the sale. At this point we knew we had been taken for a ride.