Fuel Surcharges and Other Scams in Cruise Travel

Description: Recent court rulings have resulted in warnings by legal authorities for cruise travel consumers to be more careful when booking their holidays. Nicole Chiu reports on the latest scams in cruise travel news.

Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and Celebrity Cruises have had to refund $21 million to their customers nationwide when Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum ruled in the consumers’ favour for misleading business practices. The issue was raised when McCollum’s Economic Crimes Division received hundreds of angry complaints concerning a fuel supplement charge after bookings and deposits had already been made.

McCollum has since emphasized the need for consumers to remain aware of improper disclosures, misleading advertising, as well as problems concerning timeshares. Timeshares allow consumers to purchase vacations to be taken within a specified time-frame. Consumers are often given the option of re-selling their timeshares under specific circumstances as well. Scams involving timeshares can occur during the initial sales and in the re-selling of the shares.  

McCollum expressed five major points for consumers to remember when purchasing or reselling timeshares: be careful with hard sales pitches; thoroughly reading contracts; be careful with any claims which seem ‘too good to be true’ (because they usually are); be careful with requirement of up-front fees; and careful consideration of other options before committing to the purchase.

Other tips on timeshares (found on Scambusters.org) include:       

1. Don’t ever call a 1-900 number – it’s very likely a scam.      
2.  Ask for references – and call them. Ask for folks who have been happy and unhappy with the previous service.      
3. Never give your credit card number over the phone unless you know that you’re dealing with a reputable company and you called them yourself.      
4. Always ask about what’s NOT included.      
5. If you are offered a travel deal by email, it’s almost certainly a scam.      
6. Consider a [travel] timeshare the same way you’d consider any other real estate investment. Do research and educate yourself on the market and the value.

Information relating to Florida travel scams can also be found and reported at MyFloridaLegal.com, where McCollum hosts an archive of scamming information relevant to the cruise travel industry.