By Steve Jordon, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Mar. 23--The weather was great, Cancun was lovely, and Hans Schroth, bless his heart and charming German accent,
had straightened out a reservations problem and arranged some airline trips for Clare and Mel Marsh, pool hall
owners from Bellevue.
So why wouldn't they believe Hans when he offered a great discount vacation for the Marshes and as many folks as
they could round up: $888 for a week at a resort in Cancun, Mexico, airfare included.
A year ago, Hans had sold them a time-share for Allegro Resorts, a widely known company, and they had stayed in
Allegro resorts three or four times in the past and had a great time. When Hans spoke, the hotel people in Cozumel
jumped.
"He seemed to have some authority," Clare Marsh said. Hans even sent Christmas cards, including photos
of his son.
So the Marshes believed Hans and, back home, talked about the bargain trip with some friends and relatives, who
told THEIR friends and relatives, who all looked out the window and saw winter coming and decided, heck, yes, let's
go!
By the time it was all arranged, 66 people from Omaha, Bellevue, Louisville, Council Bluffs, Papillion, La Vista
and Logan, Iowa, were arranging time away from work, buying suntan lotion and digging out their swimsuits and sandals.
Dwight Anderson, who owns the bowling alley in Ralston, organized a 10-person jaunt and handed his friends' money
over to Marsh. Postal worker Aiden Reed signed up his boss and some co-workers. "Next week we'll be leaving,"
one of them said excitedly.
Some of the would-be vacationers were checking Allegro's Web site, looking at pictures of their intended destination:
Jack Tar Village Cancun. "Rooms overlook lush tropical gardens, the famed turquoise waters of the Mexican
gulf and powder-white beaches," the electronic blurb said. "Sound spectacular? It is."
Clare Marsh collected more than $51,000 from the people and forwarded it to Hans via personal and cashier's checks.
"He acted all along like everything was fine and dandy, and he looked forward to seeing us in February,"
she said. "I was dealing with him at his office at the Allegro resorts, through e-mail. He said he was in
charge of that stuff. Obviously, that was my mistake."
In early January, she called to check on the reservations, but the Allegro people said Hans hadn't worked there
for more than a month. Worse, they had no record that the group was coming in February. No rooms reserved. No airline
tickets.
Dear Hans had quit responding to e-mail, and Marsh began frantically calling and e-mailing, trying to straighten
out what she thought was a mistake. She had receipts that seemed to show that Hans had paid for rooms with an American
Express card.
The Feb. 11 departure date was fast approaching.
"That was the first I had heard of it," said Luis Namnum, managing director of Allegro Vacation Club,
the time-share division of Allegro Travel of Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic.
"Hans something-or-other," Namnum said. "He was one of my sales agents in Cancun." The agents
get commissions for selling time-share contracts, which typically give buyers a week or two each year at an Allegro
resort.
But Hans and the other agents were never authorized to arrange ordinary vacation trips, Namnum said. "Somehow,
he convinced her that he had the ability of booking cheap flights and cheap hotel rooms, more or less as a travel
agent, I'm not sure what," Namnum said.
The key, he said, was where the money went. "Did you send me any of this money?" he asked Marsh. "She
had not. She says she paid Hans directly," and Hans never told anyone at Allegro -- before or after he worked
there -- about the group.
"We immediately tried to find this Hans and found that he was no longer in our company or even in the country,"
Namnum said. "We understand he went back to Germany, but we don't know for sure that's where he is. We put
out some feelers, but we couldn't find him."
Allegro warned other clients to send money to the company, not to individuals. "We said, 'If you get any nice
offers or something that seems fishy, give us a call before you send money,'" he said.
As for the $888 deal quoted by Hans? "Ridiculously cheap," Namnum said.
Back in Bellevue, the Marshes came to grips with the ugly truth and began calling and sending letters to the people
signed up for the trip.
Anderson, the bowling alley owner, gave his friends their money back. "They trusted me, so I felt obligated,"
he said. "We're just trying to get our money refunded to us. It was kind of a tough situation."
Reed, the Papillion postal worker, was caught in the middle because he was the one who knew the Marshes. "Everybody
was upset with it," he said. "Everybody was counting on it. That really put a bind on me. They started
thinking it was a scam."
He had taken the week off, so he decided to visit his brother in Utah. But the weather turned sour. "We never
even went, so I just drug around town all week."
Marsh contacted an attorney and the Nebraska Attorney General's Office, which took a consumer complaint. Marilyn
Bath, a consumer specialist for the attorney general, said her office followed its usual procedure and sent a copy
of the complaint to the company in Cancun, offering voluntary mediation to settle the issues.
No response.
"Hans may have chosen just not to respond," Bath said. "We had no idea where to reach him. The letters
were not returned. If it was intentional to defraud, probably he covered his tracks very well."
If a person thinks there may be criminal activity, Bath said, the best thing to do is contact an attorney and go
to the law enforcement agency where the incident happened. In this case, that may be Cancun. So far, no criminal
complaint is pending.
This week, the Attorney General's Office sent another copy of the complaint to Allegro's Miami office. Bath recommends
booking travel through a local agent, who can help if there's a problem.
"When you're dealing with somebody from another state or another country, for heaven's sakes, it's really
difficult to go back and get something straightened out," Bath said.
Marsh believes Allegro has some responsibility because Hans had worked for the company.
But Namnum, the Allegro executive, said he can't help. If the group had been smaller, he might have been able to
find some discount rooms or make some other accommodations. "But this is high season. It's not likely that
I would be able to find the units. Not at the tune of $50,000.
"It's terrible. If it were something reasonable, somebody who took a ticket from me or something I can cover
with whatever resources I have, giving up a few rooms, I'm more than willing. But you're talking about a 60-person
group in the middle of March or February."
Marsh has called a meeting for those who had planned to take the trip. She plans to answer questions and see how
the people want to be paid back. She has some savings and might offer to pay some people back right away and others
a month at a time. Some of her friends have forgiven her the money.
"This has just been a nightmare," she said. "I've considered selling my business to pay these people
back. I was going to refinance my house."
Marsh, a serious enough pool player that she has a special pool-shooting glove, said she has decided to get a real
estate license and let her husband run the pool hall.
"I will try to pay them back. I feel a responsibility to pay them back because I'm the one that ended up with
their money. I'm not really naive, but I really got taken on this one."
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(c) 2001, Omaha World-Herald, Neb. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.