How to Avoid Contest Scams

I think that I can tell you that I used to work for a company called "Chateau World."

I don't know where Chateau World gets the money to pay for a booth. But if you don't know anything about Fairs and Trade Shows, each company that registers has to pay for a booth.

I also don't know how Chateau World decides what contests they are going to advertise. All I know is that their past contests were "Win a Car," "Win a Trip to Vegas," and "Win $25,000."

I don't know if someone wins those prizes from the shows. All I know is what happens to all the ballots once these events end.

But Chateau World did go to these Fairs and Trade shows to get people to enter these contests. After the weekend was over, they take those entries and gave them to the Data Entry people (That's me).

We then separated the lists into Qualified, Not Qualified, and Unknown. The way that we knew who is qualified is if they check that they are over the age of 18 and owns a home.

That's what my next job was: to enter the entries into the computer. Then all the entries get printed off.

The printed off ballots then go to the Telemarketers. They would call the people and ask if they would like to own a shotty Timeshare in Canmore, Alberta. Canmore is a small town just an hour away from Calgary. Chateau also once had some Timeshares in Banff that needed repair. But when I started there, it was all about the Canmore Timeshares.

This is what I have heard and read from former customers that were scammed by Chateau World. I also have read some of what the company does to get customers involved in these Timeshares.

When the Telemarketer calls and the customer agrees to the Timeshares, they are first invited to go to a presentation. They go to the presentation and were greeted by a representative. That representative talked more about the company, the Timeshares, and had people watch a video on RCI and all the vacation timeshares around the world that they can stay in (That are under the RCI banner). They were also introduced to the RCI point system. I do vaguely remember going through the Chateau World papers and reading something about their useless point system.

Chateau World and RCI also then promised these poor people special deals on "5 Star Resorts" and "First Class seats" on any airlines. These representatives gave quotes about how much a trip will cost with a RCI membership.

Then the victims are introduced to the Sales Manager of the company. The Sales Manager gave the customers interested in the properties "RCI Participation Agreements," a worksheet, and a Contract Agreement. Some people reading the Contract got confused with one thing. The acronym RCI really means "Resort Condominiums International" not "Royal Club International" (Hey, I didn't know that until I was researching this old scam company. Employee too thought that RCI meant Royal Club International.

One condition of the Contract Agreement was for the customer to sign a "promissory note' for the financing portion. People where told that it was for legal protection for the company. Otherwise, if a member takes a big trip and doesn't pay out of their membership type of note.

The Sales Manager the promises the victims that they would "bind" (I'm a pagan, and binding means that they are locked in and will not get out. But I digress) the contracts into a membership album (I've never seen the album myself).

The people being scammed were also told of a 10 Day Cancellation Policy.

There are customers that did cancel within the 10 day policy and were told by someone on the telephone to return all the information that was given during the presentation. Strange, because all of those were evidence to convict Andre Muran and send him to jail. Then either presentation representative mentioned something about "Flex Points" (Don't ask what it is, I just did Data Entry). When the customers called the company to ask for "Flex Points" other employees were clueless as to what they were.

Before I forget, there is one last thing that I have read about Chateau World. It's in the CTV link below for you to read further. But in 2010, the condos that the company was trying to sell in Canmore went into foreclosure. So there is some good news there.

Now that I mentioned how a Scam Job works, let me tell you the one thing that happens to employees who work at one.

I do remember that this happened to me a couple of times. I had a few of my paycheck bounced. The only thing that I gave my company was hell when this happened. No, I didn't threaten to expose them, I just gave them heck and they paid me for those bounced checks.

Some people did quit because of the paychecks: I didn't.

There were also lots of managerial changes. My own boss quit, and I had no boss after him. There were also a high turnover of Telemarketers.
As for Data Entry people; From September to June, I was the only one left.

There was about a couple of times during my employment that I saw a notice on the door from the renter threatening us that we will have to move if we don't pay the rent. I remember telling this to one of my managers and they said not to worry about it.

The company Christmas party was held at Canmore, Alberta (That's where the shotty Timeshares were). We didn't eat at the condos, we ate at a restaurant. But I remember my parents complaining why the Christmas party wasn't in my city of Calgary, Alberta. One of the manager also suggested that we stay at one of the Timeshares to which my parents and I refused. We drove back home early that night. Thank god we did not stay there overnight.

The last four months of that job, all I did was be on the Internet for eight hours. I hardly did any work that I was paid to do. I did complain about it to my manager and they tried to find something for me to do. During that time, I do remember going online and researching some of the complaints that "Chateau World" has gotten from people that they have scammed into buying Timeshares. Some of them are probably still in court to this day about it.

Then the day came when the company laid me and all the other people from that office off. That's when I was really angry.

I never bought a timeshare and I never will. I am the type of person that wants to go on a vacation to different cities and countries. I don't want to go to the same place all the time. And if you are like me, just avoid timeshares all together. But if you do fall in love with a vacation hotspot, then feel free to own one.