WFSB Channel 3New Details Emerge In Travel Deal Scam

The Channel 3 Eyewitness News I-Team uncovered new information about a sham travel club that customers call a scam.

The I-Team first told viewers about TravelDeals last week, and the response was huge. The I-Team now knows the names of the two men who tried to physically throw them out of the TravelDeals office, and it's now known that they're accused of running a travel scam in Massachusetts, too.

It was clear that the staff at Traveldeals in Windsor didn't want the I-Team looking into their travel club, but they were all too happy to brag about the benefits to customers like one man who spoke to the I-Team after agreeing to keep his identity secret.

"During the seminar they showed us various resorts and cruise deals and the prices seemed very, very good to excellent. Nothing that I could get by myself," he said.

But the cost was high, and like all the TravelDeals customers the I-Team spoke to, the unidentified traveler wasn't given the chance to do any research on the company because they wanted full payment right then and there.

"(The cost was) $8,100 and change," he said. "And then you had to pay a $299 per year when you used this service, but you had to do it that night."

But when the customer got a password to the TravelDeals website, he said the offers weren't what he was expecting.

"The costs were not that great. It wasn't what we saw in the seminar," he said. "Basically it was like someone was sitting at a computer and when you called, they'd just look up and get the best deal that they can. Same thing that anybody else could do."

That's a similar story to the more than a dozen customers who called the I-Team after seeing the report last week.

Some had lost $1,000 and others many times more.

The $8,000 plus was the highest figure the I-Team had heard of, so then it starting looking into the men behind TravelDeals, it heard from several people, including one customer, who recognized one of the men as the man who tried to throw the I-Team out of the TravelDeals office.

His name is apparently Adam Armstrong. The I-Team found pictures on his Facebook page, and it's the same man who tried to hide his face from the I-Team's cameras.

Armstrong identified himself to many customers as the TravelDeals manager, though he would never give his last name and his signature certainly won't give it away.

The I-Team also heard from one caller who linked Armstrong to a travel club in Massachusetts called Fantasia. The caller said Armstrong was a manager there, too.

That club in Methuen, Mass., was one of several sued by Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley in 2010 for violating consumer protection laws in the Bay State.

Methuen police told the I-Team they were flooded with complaints about Fantasia that sound exactly like the complaints about TravelDeals, and they showed the I-Team's report to one of their victims and said they positively identified Adam Armstrong as the man who ripped them off, but back then he said his last name was "Plants."

Methuen police reopened their criminal investigation and the man who calls himself Adam Armstrong is only one of the major players.

A document from Coakley led the I-Team to another. It listed a regular salesman in the Massachusetts sham vacation club as Mandred Henry, who was identified through Facebook photos as the other Traveldeals staffer who decided it was better to push the I-Team out rather than risk answering even a single question.

The I-Team already tied TravelDeals to a scam being investigated in New Jersey -- it was those original complaints to the Better Business Bureau there to give Traveldeals its "F" rating.
So why hasn't anyone shut TravelDeals down?

The Department of Consumer Protection said they now have six complaints, and the attorney general's office has half a dozen too. Both groups are investigating, and said they hope to close the company and to get customers back their money -- but it may not be easy.

But the I-Team's unidentified customer, who lost $8,000 to TravelDeals, is also the only person it heard of who actually got into the TravelDeals password protected website, saw their less-than impressive offers, and still got the company to refund their money.

How'd he do it?

He said he went to Windsor police and filed a criminal complaint. He said a Windsor detective went to the TravelDeals office.

When Adam, Mandred and the others heard that police were involved and that this customer was preparing a complaint to the attorney general, they suddenly changed their tune.

"I had all these things in motion and we got a miraculous call saying they'll refund our money," he said.

Neither Armstrong or Henry returned our requests for comment.

The last time the I-Team spoke to a representative of TravelDeals was two weeks ago -- at that point they still insisted it was legitimate.

The attorney general, the Department of Consumer Protection, Windsor police and now Methuen, Mass. police all have open investigations and want to hear from you if you gave the company any money.

Copyright 2011 WFSB. All rights reserved.