This cruise ship passenger says he was scammed out of $9,897 in the Bahamas

A Florida couple came home from their last Royal Caribbean cruise with thousands of dollars in unplanned purchases. They say a dangerous scam is operating out of a beauty shop in Nassau, the Bahamas. The couple is hoping that by telling their story, they can prevent other cruise ship passengers from falling prey.

But is this just an extreme case of buyer’s remorse?

Could someone convince you to make an out-of-your-budget $9,897 purchase at a port stop during your next cruise? I would guess your answer is, “Definitely not!”

The elderly Royal Caribbean cruise ship passengers in this case were sure of the same. 

But during their last RCCL cruise, Floridians Harry and Cindy reboarded the ship with overflowing shopping bags after an excursion. They say they made those purchases under duress in a beauty shop along the main street in the port area. The bags were filled with products they definitely didn’t want, and the grand total came to just under $10,000. 

After the cruise was over and they returned home, they set out on a mission to reverse the expensive transaction. The couple desperately sought to return the plethora of creams and devices they bought and get their money back.

Unfortunately, for these cruise ship passengers, everything they bought was marked “final sale.” The merchant, who they believe to be a predatory scammer, rejected their refund request.

Next, the couple filed and lost a credit card dispute and then complained to various consumer watchdogs in Florida. As a last resort, they contacted Consumer Rescue almost a year after their disastrous visit to Nassau.

And they aren’t alone.

Cruise ship passengers suffering from extreme buyer’s remorse frequently contact our team hoping for a remedy. Invariably, these bewildered travelers report experiencing an unexplainable momentary lapse of reason that led to their giant purchases.

Harry and Cindy’s experience begins with a much anticipated RCCL cruise with their adult children and grandchildren. It ends with that super-sized credit card bill and a pile of creams and devices gathering dust in their home. 

Here’s their bizarre story.

Taking a Royal Caribbean cruise to the Bahamas

Early last year, Harry and Cindy planned the four-day RCCL cruise with their adult children and grandchildren.

The cruise aboard Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas would take the family from Miami, Florida to the Bahamas and back. 

The day the family boarded the cruise, they assumed nothing but good times were on the horizon. And for the first three days of the cruise, that proved true.

The group enjoyed their sea days and everything the Freedom of the Seas has to offer. Their beach day at CocoCay was sunny and relaxing. Royal Caribbean was delivering the fabulous experience they were looking for.

Then came Nassau and the cruise quickly morphed into a costly nightmare.

Free samples lead to a 4-hour $9,897 booze-fueled shopping disaster

Harry says when the cruise docked in Nassau he and his wife stayed behind on the ship. The rest of the family took an adventurous shore excursion.

“We told my son that we would meet them in town when their excursion was over,” Harry told me. “My wife and I left the ship a few hours later to do a little walking and sightseeing.”

That would be a decision that Harry and Cindy would deeply regret later. 

The couple didn’t get very far from the ship when a friendly lady popped out of a beauty shop. She offered Cindy some free skin cream samples and a short facial. Cindy told her husband that the offer sounded nice after all of the sun she’d had recently. It seemed like a harmless way to spend a little time. 

Unfortunately, this free facial invitation for unsuspecting cruise ship passengers is anything but harmless. It’s just a guise to get potential customers into the shop. Once inside, the well-practiced team will hit their targets with a barrage of sales tactics. 

Like the free bracelets offered outside various jewelry stores like Diamonds International, the facial was just a tool. The end goal was to sell high-priced items to the couple.

The lady told my wife the facial would take 10 minutes, but this was all a scam. They began applying the product and brought out champagne and rum. The facial took so long, and I just wanted to leave, so I agreed to pay $200 for the cream. The sales guy told us it would get rid of all the wrinkles on our faces.

Although Harry thought this purchase would end the hard sell, it only ignited the situation further. These salespeople knew they had their prey hooked, and they had no intentions of easily releasing their target.

A device that will grow hair on this cruise ship passenger’s bald head?

Suddenly, from a back room, came a new salesman. He brought more drinks and a special device that he was sure the bald-headed Harry would just love.

Carl was the heavy hitter. When we tried to leave, he poured us more champagne and another shot of rum. He then pulled out a wand that he said would grow my hair back. Carl introduced me to an employee with a full head of hair. They told me that the guy had previously been bald and showed me pictures of other success stories.

Not only that, but he said the thing was proven to cure cancer and that Mariah Carey owned the company.

Harry to Consumer Rescue

Admittedly intrigued, Harry asked the man how much the light wand cost.

That was a mistake. The question let Carl know he was rapidly reeling Harry into the purchase and that now they were just negotiating.

Things escalated very quickly from there and parts of what happened, Harry isn’t very clear about. 

But when all was said and done, Carl had sold the couple not just one home medical device but three! As a bonus, Harry says that Carl included “Two of every high-priced cream and serum for free.”

Since Harry didn’t have enough space on his credit card for the entire bill, Carl helped him to apply for an instant Affirm loan. This was a good deal, he said, as long as the couple paid the interest-free bill within one year.

In the end, this little beauty shop charged Harry’s Chase credit card $5,050. The balance was applied to his new Affirm account. 

Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas is preparing to sail away

Afraid that more champagne and more products were on the way, Harry glanced at his watch. It had been hours since they disembarked from the Freedom of the Seas. The couple had gone no further than this shop.

“I noticed it was getting close to the time Royal Caribbean told us to be back on the ship. I told them we had to leave,” Harry recalled. “Carl and his co-workers packed up everything into a few bags.”

Finally, the hours-long unexpected shopping spree was over.

Out in the daylight, Harry says he suddenly felt the effects of the alcohol. He began to suspect the salespeople had drugged them.

“I drink Bourbon, Scotch, and Vodka,” Harry told me. “I have never been put in that state after two flutes of sparkling wine and two shots of rum.”

Satellite images show they were quite close to a police station specifically for tourists in Nassau. Given their suspicions, it would have been prudent for the couple to stop there and report their experience. If they had, they certainly would have increased their chances of reversing their giant shopping excursion.

But Harry says they couldn’t take a detour to the police station. The salespeople had distracted them for so long that there was only enough time to walk straight to the ship. Instead of reporting the incident to any one, they carried their filled-to-the-brim bags onto the Freedom of the Seas and tucked them away in their cabin.

Soon, the Freedom of the Seas weighed anchor, and the couple was happy to watch Nassau fade into the distance. The couple kept their suspicions and mammoth shopping spree a secret for the rest of the cruise.

“I figured we would straighten this all out after we got home,” Harry explained. “I wanted to enjoy the rest of the trip.”

And they did enjoy the rest of the cruise. But bad news was waiting for them back in Florida. 

The cruise ship passengers learn: All sales are final

Looking over everything they bought in Nassau, Harry says it caused him and his wife a lot of anxiety. They had meant for the cruise to be a peaceful way to spend a few days. But it spiraled into something unimaginable.   

Reviewing the enormously long receipts back home, Harry says he first noticed the words “All sales final” stamped at the bottom. His heart sank.

We couldn’t figure out what made us have such a terrible lapse in judgment. Of course, all these things those people inside the shop told us aren’t true. My hair isn’t going to grow back… and these creams appear to be common skin care products we can buy over the counter. That’s when I started searching through the Internet and I found so many other cruise ship passengers reporting the same scam in the Bahamas. All of them suspect that there were drugs in those champagne flutes.

How else can this be explained?

Harry to Consumer Rescue

When I read through Harry’s request for help, nearly a year had passed since his Royal Caribbean cruise. The giant supply of products and devices still sat unopened on a shelf in their home. 

During the previous 12 months, it was clear that Harry had been on a determined mission. His goal was to expose what he believed to be a scam. Unfortunately, none of his efforts, including filing a complaint with the Florida attorney general’s office and a credit card dispute with Chase, resulted in what he had hoped for: to be able to return the nonrefundable items to the beauty shop in the Bahamas and get a refund.

There were multiple problems with Harry’s complaint as I saw it. 

• First, he still had all the items he purchased that day. That included two Revv by Elevar Skin “laser combs” described as “At-home medical devices for treating hair loss and thinning hair.” The list price for that appliance is $3,995. The other item, the Eneo Advanced light wand, an anti-aging device, retails for $7,950. The couple’s receipt shows that all the creams and serums were a free bonus for buying the costly devices.
• The attorney general of Florida and other U.S.-based consumer protection agencies have no authority to investigate, fine, or regulate merchants operating in other countries. 
• Although the couple had been served alcoholic drinks inside the shop, there was no evidence that those beverages contained drugs. Had the couple had proof that they had been drugged, an international investigation could have spun out of this incident. But since they didn’t report their suspicions until long after they left the shop, there was no way to prove that anything more than alcohol was served to them.

Cruise ship passengers beware: buyer’s remorse can ruin a vacation

I went through Harry’s entire, lengthy paper trail which included receipts stamped with “final sale,” letters to the Florida attorney general, requests to Chase to dispute the charge and all the photos of the products. 

Unfortunately, there was nothing in that folder that would indicate that this was anything more than a case of extreme buyer’s remorse. Of course, the alcohol likely impaired the couple’s decision-making ability, but tipsy travelers making impulsive big-ticket purchases like travel clubs, timeshares, jewelry, and art does not prove a scam, I’m afraid. 

The Fair Credit Billing Act allows credit card using consumers to dispute merchant charges that are fraudulent or billing errors. In this case, neither of these conditions were clear and that is why Harry lost his $5,050 credit card dispute with Chase. 

He refused to make any payments on the Affirm loan so the company wrote off the debt. This will likely impact his credit rating. 

The bad news: There’s no way to reverse this shopping spree

If you’re a regular reader of my column, you know that my favorite thing to do is to fix problems for the people who ask us for help. I especially like to take on the cases in which it appears a business is specifically trying to take advantage of a consumer.  I will go over the evidence with a fine-tooth comb looking for any way to prove the consumer is right and to expose the scheme. 

But in this case, I, unfortunately, came up empty-handed.

I don’t know what that wand will or won’t do. I’m sure it will not cause hair to grow back on Harry’s head.

However, across the Internet, it appears that people buy that device – and spend big money on it. If you are in the market for one of those light wands, the islands seem to be the place to get a discount on your purchase.

Surprisingly, Harry isn’t the first cruise ship passenger to contact me after coming home from a trip with one of those light wands. Last year, a beautician, I’ll call Gail, contacted me after spending $5,000 on that hair growth device. She had instant buyer’s remorse after disembarking from her cruise. Like Harry, there was no way for her to reverse her all-sales final purchase.

Ultimately, I explained to Harry why our team could not retrieve his $5,050. When he reboarded Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas without reporting his suspicions to the police or even to customer relations on the ship, he closed the door to that possibility. However, he may be able to recoup some of his money by listing the products for sale on eBay. That’s exactly what Gail did, and she got some of her cash back.

In this case, as well as Gail’s, that’s the best we could hope for.

How to avoid shopping fiascos and outright scams during cruise excursions

If you’re a cruise ship passenger hoping to avoid becoming a victim of aggressive salespeople or outright scams, here’s what to keep in mind. 

• Do not accept”free” gifts: Every cruise ship passenger’s unexpected shopping excursion begins with an offer of a free gift. The people standing outside the shops thrusting free products at tourists are being paid to get foot traffic into the store. They aren’t the salespeople. These are the wranglers — nice-looking greeters whose only purpose is to schmooze you so you’ll follow them inside. It’s best to resist these overtures. While strolling through tourist shopping areas, ignore offers of free trinkets, services, or drinks.
• Prepare for the hard sell: During your cruise, you will certainly meet up with hardened salespeople who have already practiced their spiel on thousands of others. If you know you are a soft target (a friendly, non-assuming traveler), please toughen up. Our case files are filled with distraught requests for help from cruise ship passengers (and other travelers) who came home from vacation with empty wallets, stuff they never wanted, and ruined vacations. (See: Here’s why you should not buy $10,000 in jewelry during your cruise.) If you don’t want to buy something, then give a firm “No.” If the salesperson won’t take no for an answer, leave. You’re not being rude. You are protecting yourself from people who want to extract as much money from you as possible before you reboard your ship and sail away.
• Do not accept alcoholic drinks: Many of these high-pressured sales operations will offer you a drink as soon as they get you across the threshold of their store. As a cruise ship passenger, you should be hypervigilant if a merchant invites you inside and presents you with an alcoholic drink immediately. It may seem like a cordial and welcoming gesture, but in most cases, it is anything but. It’s meant to knock you off kilter, lower your inhibitions, and impair your judgment.
• Report strange happenings immediately: If you think that you’ve been drugged or otherwise taken advantage of during your cruise port visit, you must report your suspicions immediately. You can’t remain silent and wait several weeks to reveal that you believe someone put drugs in your drink and forced you to spend vast sums of money on unwanted products. All evidence at that point will be gone, and there will be no way for you to prove what happened. Remember, most tourist areas have at least a small police annex. That’s especially true in cruise ports when ships are docked. In Nassau, the tourism police station is directly opposite the cruise ships. Always report crimes when they happen — minimally to the security onboard the cruise when you reboard.

The bottom line

There are salespeople in every cruise port you’ll visit. Some of them will be snake oil salesmen looking to prey on the insecurities of their victims. In this case, Harry’s bald head appears to have made him a target of these aggressive salesmen looking to offload their pricy machines.

Cruise ship passengers should always remember: friendly verbal promises made during a sales pitch won’t mean much later if your receipt has no such guarantee. And “all sales are final” stamped on a receipt from a store thousands of miles from your home in a foreign country will make fighting that charge impossible. Never buy expensive products you haven’t researched during a shore excursion because once you sail away, I promise that the merchant will have no motivation to return your money later.

Prepare yourself beforehand for your land-based shopping excursions during your cruise. If you don’t think you can handle the hard sell, you may want to consider staying onboard your ship. (Michelle Couch-Friedman, Consumer Rescue)

*Before you go: From our case files, here are all the ways passengers got banned from cruising.