New Jersey town Shutters Blue Water after State Lawsuit

Not in this town, you don’t.

The Township Committee of Egg Harbor, New Jersey officially ordered Blue Water Travel Club to cease operation, after the state of New Jersey announced the filing of a lawsuit against the company and its related businesses for alleged consumer fraud.

The town also denied Blue Water’s application for a mercantile license to operate in the area, and quashed its subsequent appeal. The business opened in February under owner Daryl Turner of Vacation Clubs, LLC, and had an address at 501 Scarborough Avenue. It offers memberships in a discount travel club, and promised free trips to consumers who attended its sales presentations.

Both Turner and Vacation Clubs were named in the state lawsuit, along with his other businesses: Dreamworks Vacation Club, Five Points Travel Company and Bentley Travel. The companies operated out of other towns in New Jersey; Parsippany, Sewell and Westampton (see previous story here).

According to Detective Sgt. Raymond Davis, Blue Water was operating without a mercantile license and was cited twice by the township before Turner finally applied for one.

Davis was assigned to investigate the company during the application, and to judge the business responsibility and moral character of Turner as part of the process. The detective unearthed a history of fraud, deception, and questionable business ethics.

“There just seems to be a common thread with the applicant Darryl Turner for fraud and deception regarding vacation-club-type business,” said Davis during the appeal hearing last June 9. “Based on that, I don’t find him to be free of fraud and I deny the application.”

In the course of his investigation, Davis also found that both the attorneys general of New Jersey and Pennsylvania have civil action pending against Turner for his involvement with travel companies like Blue Water.

Turner’s lawyers said the complaints behind the civil action were mere allegations of fraud, and have yet to be proven. They also said that most of the cases were caused by their mailed advertisement forms, and the company was working to make the advertisements more clear.

However, Davis presented three witnesses to testify during the hearing, all of whom encountered problems at Turner’s Blue Water business in Egg Harbor. Among them was Mary Francis Trabosh, who said she was lured to a Blue Water sales pitch with the promise of a free cruise.

Trabosh was impressed with the presentation and bought a membership in the vacation club for $3,000. But when she tried to redeem her free cruise, she was unable to. “I called the number for the free cruise five times, and all you get is an answering machine saying that they’ll call you back,” she said. “I never got a call back, so there’s really no cruise and no vacation club as far as I’m concerned.”

Norman Pendergrast claimed of similar frustrations after viewing the company’s sales presentation. The pitch painted Blue Water as vacation club able to give exclusive discounts on vacation properties to members. “They were the so-called Wal-Marts or Costcos of the vacation industry.”

Pendergrast and his wife availed of the membership, after being told the company could provide them with plenty of vacation properties in his favorite spot, Myrtle Beach. The couple shelled out $3,795, but when his wife attempted to book a vacation in Myrtle Beach, they were unsuccessful. The property ownerssaid they had never heard of Blue Water, and so could not give any sort of discount.

Another couple, Sidney and Angela Coleman, paid $2,400 for their membership, and an additional $100 to have their previously owned timeshare sold. However, but were unable to reach Blue Water or the resale company promised to sell their timeshare after buying in. “It was a separate company, and we haven’t heard from them since,” Coleman said. “We’ve made numerous attempts to try to contact Blue Water.”

Angela added “No one has a last name in that business. Something’s wrong. We got a card, nobody has a last name. What is that about?”

Turner’s lawyer said their company was not at fault for the poor phone communication Trabosh and the Colemans complained about. He said customers went through a service company recommended to Turner by the New Jersey Attorney General to book their travel plans.

Deputy Mayor Stanley “Jake” Glassey said he did not care if it was a third company handling the calls; Blue Water should be held responsible for ensuring customers satisfaction as the ultimate provider of the marketed services.

Glassey went on to say “Just hearing all this, to me, is disgusting. This is a waste of time.” He said even if Blue Water wasn’t being accused of fraud, the fact that Turner was operating without a mercantile license was enough to determine his character.

“You took these people’s money without even having a license to do it in this town, and that’s wrong and you know it’s wrong,” he said.

Turner and his lawyers insisted that the company was a legitimate operation. They claimed all the complaints against Turner’s various travel companies come from less than one half of a percent of his total customer base.

Turner told the Township Committee that he would like to resolve the situation, and offered all three witnesses full refunds at the close of the hearing.

Meanwhile, the three witnesses are left with the headache of disputing the payments made to Blue Water with their credit card companies.

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