[5hank3r]

Originally Posted by GTO

But the timing could also be a coincidence.

This thread is on our homepage today

I've had a similar experience form TVS Renault dealership. I was contacted by Club Mahindra a couple of months after the purchase of my Duster. I went to their campaign in a nearby hotel and the stunt went on exactly as the OP has described it. However, I was repelled by their aggressive marketing and did not give in. If someone's forcing you that much, it's never good for you.

One of the first questions I asked them was how they got my contact number and the guy who was welcoming me was definitely new to this. He told me that they procure it from car dealerships. Mine came from the TSV Renault dealership.

In another unrelated instance, a spam caller has told me that they get the data from Offer coupons and lucky draw coupons we unassumingly fill out at malls.

[DieselWanderer]

I just posted about Club Resorto few months ago on this forum. Whats funny is that they still call me and I waste their time by taking it to stage 2 and ghosting them😂

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shift...ml#post5765227 (Fake / Fraud / Scam Calls)

[Briarean]

Recently, my wife had a minor procedure done at Fortis Hospital, Cunningham Road, Bangalore. We had my corporate Insurance, and the payment went through it.

However, after her discharge, I was bombarded with calls from StarHealth Insurance. Every day I will get at least 3-4 calls from them. Moreover, in Truecaller, it is a business account so it will not block it (or block it temporarily)

So the only option as of now is to enable DND.

[Boomerang]

Originally Posted by livealike

Background:

For anyone considering buying a car, especially during this festive season, be on guard...

Last week, I received a similar call saying they were from Hilton group of Hotels. I listened to the 'too good to be true' tale just to understand the modus operandi. In the end, I asked them to send an official email (from Hilton) to which she said, we can only send whatsapp.

I disconnected, blocked and reported.

Beware team. They're sure out there.

[Arikarin]

A few minutes ago I received a call but have forgotten the name of the so called club as I was in deep sleep. Straight away they tried to lure me by claiming that am a lucky winner and have been invited to a high tea and take home some assured gifts, so I confirmed what is this and what is the company's background. After listening to the same, I told them, am widowed and orphan (neither am married nor an orphan ��), so althought you claim me to be lucky but im unlucky as I can't be part of this( in a sadistic tone), for which she didn't have a script nurtured for this,. Her response post this was, uh, sir, okay, and that is when I decided to to back my dream land and complete my rest cycle. The irony is, soon after I woke up and started browsing TBhp, I stumbled upon this thread, call this an irony?

[livealike]

Originally Posted by hothatchaway

You seemed to know that this was a con all along, yet you chose to attend and that too with your family. How difficult was it for you to just disconnect and block these phone calls? It's a different matter though if you were interested and later realized that it was a con.

It's futile to expect that your personal data will not be leaked in a country where even the government sells personal data. You have to be vigilant

Looking back, it’s easy to say I should have just disconnected and blocked the calls. But at the time, there was a lot going on, especially with discussions around vacation trips in our newly purchased car, which piqued our interest. Frankly, my better half was more excited about the idea, and I didn’t want to disappoint.

To be clear, I didn’t make the full payment that these salespeople were aggressively pushing for (which was in the range of a few lakhs). Instead, I took a calculated risk and made a smaller payment to see how they operate. Fortunately, I didn’t budge under the pressure, but seeing the scale of the scam online, I realized how many others have lost large sums of money by falling for this.

What surprised me most was the lack of discussion about this on Team-BHP, which is why I felt it was important to raise awareness. Many people are still falling prey to these kinds of scams, and I wanted to sound the alarm for others.

I agree that we need to be vigilant, especially with our personal data, but I do believe that dealerships and businesses also have a responsibility to safeguard customer information. It’s not just about us blocking calls; it's about holding companies accountable when they mishandle personal data.

[livealike]

Originally Posted by Ays7

I like to think that I would never ever make a decision under threat of it being a limited time offer only or it being "too good to miss". But yes, that is where they lure you in, and this happens to the best of us.

Very true and thanks for your understanding.

[Samarth 619]

Do the guilty explain their innocence with a fiery zeal? I'll let you decide. Because when I searched online for "Clubresrto scam", they actively try to convince you its not a scam through the following links:-

https://www.clubresorto.com/club-resorto-fake-or-real (2 tribute videos)

https://www.clubresorto.com/reasons-...orto-complaint (They say 93% complaints are fake, and go as far as to quote actual customers and their responses, maybe taken from Google maps reviews. Special Note: A complaint by "Navaneeth Kamath" on this page, shares:- "Got the call after purchasing a car".)

https://www.clubresorto.com/club-res...-complaint-faq (An explanation as to how fake complaints waste their time and resources. 1 tribute video.)

https://www.thehindu.com/brandhub/pr...le67489569.ece (My God. The Hindu is a famous newspaper, and its article says ClubResrto is shielding you, & fighting against scams themselves. But apparently, its a promoted article.)

Only a reddit link exposes a complaint from an aggrieved customer.
What this means is, they really did some big SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to ensure their promoted content stays on the top, and might've spent a huge lot of money for this.
I suspect something really big in this, behind the scenes.. Is there any info on the ownership of this?

If you ask my opinion, it could be a few things:- it could be fraud people who wanted to create a big believable fraud for some quick buck, or it could be a business formed with genuine-intention which went wrong along the way due to greedy management or incapable management, costs going out of hand, having too much on their plate, etc. So, which one is it?

[Mystic]

All these scammers are experts in human psychology. They know the soft spots and take advantage ( in general we tend to not follow, “Donot say YES when you want to say NO” ). We can see such aberrations in our life even within close relationships and regret later.

For the scammers, it is a life and death problem as their salary at fake call centers is paid by the number of people they could scam. These scammers pretty well know that they could be exposed any time but still there is an unbelievable amount of money that is invested in this fake business. Recently, we all have seen news of opening a SBI fully functioning fake branch. Just imagine the confidence in people who invested a huge money in making that happen.

My personal experience is that such scammers succeed in western countries by sending free credit cards. This is just the beginning. Even big corporations believe in that formula and is done very professionally and it is very difficult to escape the trap. One can never win an argument with them on phone as they have a answer for every possible question and finally as a last resort their tone changes to threat if all other strategies fail in luring one to their trap.

We usually do a lot of transactions of high value and neglect to read the fine print and scammers take advantage. Sometime the fine print of legal documents says that they can share your personal info to their other businesses within the same group etc.

[scorpian]

Originally Posted by Briarean

Recently, my wife had a minor procedure done at Fortis Hospital, Cunningham Road, Bangalore. We had my corporate Insurance, and the payment went through it.

However, after her discharge, I was bombarded with calls from StarHealth Insurance. Every day I will get at least 3-4 calls from them. Moreover, in Truecaller, it is a business account so it will not block it (or block it temporarily)

So the only option as of now is to enable DND.

So I was also continuously being bombarded with calls and Truecaller was installed in my phone. I happened to meet a senior cyber security person and he asked me to uninstall Truecaller. Guess what all the freaking calls stopped.
As per my knowledge Truecaller itself shares data.

[SilverSmoke]

Originally Posted by scorpian

As per my knowledge Truecaller itself shares data.

It certainly does.

I saved my arbitrary name in True Caller profile as Hyu Fuigt, & guess what, I used to get spam messages by SAME name.
It's difficult to pronounce otherwise spam calls would have also started.

That was the last day I ever used True Caller.

[livealike]

Originally Posted by itspatra

Well I now remember around the year 2008-09 we got a call from some resort that we had won a luck draw. I was around 8- year old. I remember my father who is very alert of potential scams drove us to the resort. He clearly stated that as they invited us for a snack in a resort and no transaction of money has happened till now, there is no harm in going. They had presentations ready and brochures for resort trips at low prices. Thankfully my father smelled something fishy and even after repeated trials of convincing him to pay he backed off.

Watch this video from a decade agohttps://www.Youtube.com/watch?v=x6yr8W3mc38

Glad I wrote the post, and thanks for sharing the video—some interesting viewpoints there. I wouldn't be surprised if ClubResorto follows a similar path to the one mentioned in the video, given their deceptive practices. It seems like these types of operations all follow the same playbook.

[ashivas89]

John Oliver had done a piece on timeshares and their MO:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd2bbHoVQSM

[pcpranav]

this "holiday voucher" / "club membership" scam operates since so many years, each with some minor changes. Some of my relatives even have enjoyed those free holidays, with additional expenses for food & travels.

Few years back I was approached by one such company, they kept asking me to visit their office (bit far from my home) for a small presentation and get free holiday coupon. I always denied, giving vague excuses and even upfront told them "I'm not interested in doing any payment for membership". After few weeks, another guy called saying this time seminar was at a nearby venue. I was head-strong not to get lured, and agreed to visit along with wifey for an afternoon spend. They had booked a large banquet hall at a premium hotel, snacks counter, many round tables to interact with potential customers. I called that guy, who introduced to another sales rep and we sat for a quick session from a booklet. Enjoying some tea, I clearly told not going to buy the membership package. Finally, the guy gave me a printout of a 2 night hotel voucher, with list of hotels, explained some terms & conditions. I thanked and walked away, and practically didn't even bother to utilize that voucher.

Such hotel / club schemes are also available at malls, fuel bunks and departmental stores. I simply say "NO" to any such person, and resist to give any of my information. Many times I have argued with the bunk owner or the mall supervisor, but I get that eventually its all our money.

On similar notes, today there are numerous types of scams, quite hard for "regular" person to even know the tactics. This can be offline and even online (cyber) mechanisms, we need to utmost vigilant and cautious at each step of our lives. In most of the cases, the key reason to get trapped is human psychology and emotions, which is played well by the threat vectors against us.

Mods : is that possible to create a thread "scams & experiences" ?, maybe our readers are better enlightened and stay safe.

[livealike]

Originally Posted by Samarth 619

Do the guilty explain their innocence with a fiery zeal? I'll let you decide. Because when I searched online for "Clubresrto scam", they actively try to convince you its not a scam through the following links:-

https://www.clubresorto.com/club-resorto-fake-or-real (2 tribute videos)

https://www.clubresorto.com/reasons-...orto-complaint (They say 93% complaints are fake, and go as far as to quote actual customers and their responses, maybe taken from Google maps reviews. Special Note: A complaint by "Navaneeth Kamath" on this page, shares:- "Got the call after purchasing a car".)

https://www.clubresorto.com/club-res...-complaint-faq (An explanation as to how fake complaints waste their time and resources. 1 tribute video.)

https://www.thehindu.com/brandhub/pr...le67489569.ece (My God. The Hindu is a famous newspaper, and its article says ClubResrto is shielding you, & fighting against scams themselves. But apparently, its a promoted article.)

Only a reddit link exposes a complaint from an aggrieved customer.
What this means is, they really did some big SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to ensure their promoted content stays on the top, and might've spent a huge lot of money for this.
I suspect something really big in this, behind the scenes.. Is there any info on the ownership of this?

If you ask my opinion, it could be a few things:- it could be fraud people who wanted to create a big believable fraud for some quick buck, or it could be a business formed with genuine-intention which went wrong along the way due to greedy management or incapable management, costs going out of hand, having too much on their plate, etc. So, which one is it?

I noticed the same thing when I searched online—the genuine complaints and negative experiences are buried under polished content and SEO efforts. It’s clear ClubResorto has invested heavily in creating a protective shield around their brand image. These fake reviews and promoted articles pushed me to share my experience on TeamBHP to warn others who might fall victim to this scam.

When my refund was initially approved, I saw plenty of negative reviews on platforms like Quora. Now, those reviews have vanished, replaced by their self-promotion. It makes me wonder if some forums or review sites have been influenced by SEO money to erase negative feedback. I remember reading a review where a user mentioned that ClubResorto agreed to refund them only if their negative comments were removed—clear proof that they’re manipulating their image.

It’s obvious ClubResorto is spending big to maintain a fake reputation and not worrying about refunds, knowing that legal action takes time for these crimes. By then, they could easily rebrand or disappear entirely. It amazes me how people trust these holiday clubs with long-term memberships of 10, 15, or 25 years. What guarantees do they have that these companies won’t just vanish one day, leaving members high and dry, much like some financial institutions have done in the past?