The Secretary of Tourism for Nayarit, Enrique Suárez del Real Tostado, reported that the State Attorney General’s Office has not received any formal complaints regarding alleged fraud or scams related to timeshares in the Riviera Nayarit.
This comes after the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned and designated a resort located in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, in Bahía de Banderas, on February 19 for its alleged involvement in fraud schemes that reportedly affected U.S. citizens.
Given this context, the state official explained that they are working on new legislation to regulate timeshare activity, with the goal of preventing the leakage or irregular extraction of tourists’ personal and financial information, whether at unregulated physical locations or through forms on digital platforms that request sensitive data such as credit card information and personal data.
He also indicated that they are seeking to establish complaint and information booths for tourists in the main micro-destinations of the Riviera Nayarit tourist corridor, including Nuevo Vallarta, Bucerías, Punta de Mita, La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, and Sayulita, as well as in other areas of the municipality of Compostela.
These actions would be carried out in coordination with hotel associations and timeshare companies, with the aim of strengthening visitor confidence and providing clear channels for reporting issues.
He further stated that they plan to reinforce informational measures from the moment tourists arrive in the region, particularly at the Puerto Vallarta and Riviera Nayarit airports, where information centers would be set up to warn about potential scams and provide telephone numbers for reporting irregularities immediately.
The Secretary of Tourism emphasized that preventing these types of practices, which damage the destination’s image, is a joint effort requiring the participation of tourism service providers, transportation companies, hotels, and other stakeholders in the sector, in order to build a network for protecting visitors’ personal data.
It is worth noting that, according to information from the U.S. Treasury Department, some criminal organizations obtain information about U.S. timeshare owners in Mexico through inside accomplices within tourist resorts.
Once they access this data, these networks use call centers to contact victims by phone or email, posing as real estate agents, lawyers, or representatives of purported U.S.-based timeshare resale companies ostensibly linked to the tourism, real estate, or financial industries.
Source: tribunadelabahia
