Working on a budget, 60 Ball State students thought they had found the cheapest price for their Spring Break excitement. For $650 each, they could fly to Cancun and stay in a beach-front hotel for seven days and six nights. They had no idea their vacation would cause them to sleep on the streets of downtown Cancun and have a non-existing flight home.
Ball State alumna Kelly Clegg said she couldn't believe this happened to her and is still upset about it five years later.
Clegg and her friends are just one example of how students can be scammed by Spring Break vacation companies. While students make their final arrangements for their week in the sun, Muncie travel consultants warn about the potential dangers they could encounter.
Joe Sutherland, owner of Sutherland Travel Service, said a lot of the Spring Break companies are here today and gone tomorrow. For this reason, he tends to shy away from them and use companies that he trusts.
Clegg and her friends used a company they found on the Internet.
Clegg could not recall the name of the company they used, but said there was a man with whom they spoke while planning the vacation.
"It was the cheapest one we could find," Clegg said.
Clegg's trip started out fine.
"Our hotel was awesome," she said. "It was right on the beach and in the middle of everything."
However, after five days at the hotel, they were told their stay was up and had to leave. They tried to contact the company that had planned their trip.
"We couldn't get ahold of him and finally got ahold of one of his family members, who told us he was on vacation," Clegg said.
After several attempts, they finally reached the man they had worked with, who agreed to put them up in a hotel for the night.
"He gave us one room for 60 people," Clegg said.
The hotel was run down and was infested with cockroaches everywhere, she said.
The group took turns sleeping in the room, while some decided to sleep on the sidewalk outside the hotel.
"We used our suitcases as a bed," Clegg said.
When the group left for the airport the next morning, they discovered the plane they were supposed to take back to Indianapolis did not exist. They were eventually able to get a flight to Cincinnati the next morning, which they each paid for, and all 60 of them slept in the airport.
"None of us had any money for food," Clegg said. "We had to beg people for change."
The next day they had to pay for a charter bus to take them to Indianapolis from the airport.
The group did not get back to Muncie until Tuesday night.
While stuck in Mexico, Clegg learned that the man who had offered them this great deal had filed for bankruptcy.
"He had run his business under several different names," Clegg said.
With the company filing for bankruptcy, there was nothing Clegg and the other travelers could do to get their money back.
These kinds of scams are not uncommon to local tourism companies, who have heard numerous stories about students being stranded or put in a different hotel than the one originally offered.
Sutherland said if the price is too low, there is probably a catch somewhere.
James Moldane, president of Student Express, Inc., said his company uses charter planes, which can be 50 percent cheaper than a commercial flight. These charter flights do not have set departure dates, leaving a 72-hour window of when a group's flight will take off.
According to Springbreaktravel.com, it sends out flight information approximately seven days prior to departure.
Helen Dasher, travel consultant for Great Destinations, said it's good to pay more to know what you're actually going to get.
She suggests checking to see how long a company has been in business and calling the company.
"Make sure there is a live person there," Dasher said. "You never know who is running these Web sites."
The Better Business Bureau also lists information on Spring Break travel companies. The Web site compiles all complaints filed against the company and whether or not the complaints were resolved. Moldane's company, for example, had 101 complaints in the last 36 months.
Moldane said this was because TWA filed for bankruptcy three years ago.
"It was quite a blow to our business," Moldane said.
However, Susan Liehe, vice president of the Denver Better Business Bureau said Student Express averages 30 complaints every 12 months.
"Student Express has been a real concern of ours for years," Liehe said.
Moldane said his company, which began in 1993, has provided Spring Break trips for 70,000 people in the last three years.
"All the complaints we have had have been resolved," Moldane said.
Sutherland said sometimes with these discounted trips students might get what they want and save some money, but other times they end up spending more then they had hoped.
Clegg thought she was getting a great deal on her Spring Break, but ended up spending a total of $1,250, plus another $500 on collect calls to her parents to find a way home.
"The whole time we were there, we always hoped things would work out and turn out how they were planned, but they never did," Clegg said.
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