Hawaii Rip-Off Alert: Top-10-Hawaii / Hawaii Travel Network Skips Town, Stiffs Everyone
Where: Oahu, Statewide || Grouped in: Oahu Any Kine, Statewide Any Kine, Statewide Culture, Statewide Nature, Statewide Hotels || Tagged:
Pacific Business News in Honolulu has a piece detailing the woes of a top-Google ranked listing, Top-10-Hawaii.com / Hawaii Travel Network. This was a popular online travel site and referral network that sold all sorts of stuff -- cruises on NCL boats, tickets to luaus, passages on whale watching cruises -- directly to customers. Apparently the commission checks from Top-10-Hawaii to these attraction providers have been bouncing for some time. Worse still, the company allegedly has been fobbing off worthless vouchers to unsuspecting vacationers. Top-10-Hawaii has been one of the biggest referral generators in the islands, due to its Google placement and the legitimacy derived from the high Google rankings. Anyone who bought anything through the company would do well to check twice to make sure they don't show up at the airport ready for a cruise and end up holding the bag for a botched Hawaii vacation.
The content on Top-10-Hawaii was always questionable and it points out a gaping hole in the Google rank system. Namely, if you search for information on Hawaii, most of the top listings returned to your query are from travel agencies or activities vendors passing themselves off as actual content providers and using massive link-farming and other techniques to maintain their high rankings. In other words, never trust Google for Hawaii travel information. It simply can't be relied upon to sift the good from the bad. Trust Hawaiirama instead! (Shameless plug). No, but seriously, trust sites that obviously provide content. Hawaii is fast-buck city when it comes to the Web.
Related Posts: The Trouble With Trip Advisor Rankings
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Comments
Aaron said:
I am one of those people that got taken by Hawaii Travel Network and now there phones and websites don’t work. I was promised a refund of my money and received an e-mail stating as such, but have not received any refund. Is there anyone out there who has a suggestion as to what to do from here.
—04/12/07
Anonymous said:
Contact your credit card company. I work for a competitor to HTN and I’ve been receiving calls like this all month. Just contact your credit card company and dispute the charges. There won’t be much of an issue considering that’s what everyone who booked through HTN is doing.
—04/12/07
Marlene said:
I was also taken by this company! I called my credit card company and was told most companies can dispute the charges only up to 90 days. After that you are SOL. Unfortunately I bought mine at the end of last year, so there is nothing the credit card company can do for me, however, fortunately I’m only out $110.00; nothing compared to a lot of other people. Guess it’s a case of Buyer be Aware!
—04/17/07
R. said:
i worked for HTN. till just about closing- if you got questions you all need to speak to me- straight up- im the man- i saw what he was doin and he wouldnt stop and i couldnt stop anyone- hah- id be glad to help anyone sue michaels(the ceo that pissed away a gold mine) ass. and a gold mine it was HTN made millions!!! and he pissed it all away
—04/17/07
Esly said:
I’ve also been had by the Hawaii Travel Network. I called my credit card company as well. But was only able to recieve 1/2 the money they owed me because I was only able to recieve the money back up to the day of the day I called. I was only half a week into my honeymoon, out of money & no booked tours.
I was only able to recieve $1025 back from my bank. But there’s still another $1200 I still haven’t been able to recieve back. :o(
To top it off… I’m no longer in the U.S. because I was moving to Australia and that was my half-way point. I’ve spent ALL of my money! Still can’t get ahold of anybody. I’m sure God will deal with those people accordingly.. the way they should be. I really hope this will stay on their conscience for a long time.
—04/20/07
Zig Graham said:
HTN owes us $9,000.00 in comissions for services rendered in 2006.They have bounced checkes ect.Up until they closed the saying was “check is in the mail”,but even if you got one it wasn’t any good.
—04/20/07
elle said:
R wrote: “if you got questions you all need to speak to me- straight up- im the man- i saw what he was doin and he wouldnt stop and i couldnt stop anyone- hah- id be glad to help anyone sue michaels”
Would love to talk to you. How do we reach you? Have also been taken.
Elle
—04/30/07
KAG said:
I too booked with these folks back in Dec 28, 2006 for an attraction Polynesian Cultural Center for July 07 and if I hadn’t gone in to cancel one person, would have never know, They have me for 2600 and more. I have info and have reported to State Agency Dept of Commerce which is investigating. I have name of Emily Kahooilihala who booked and addres of 1149 Bethel St Suite 600 Hon Hi 96813. They will be brouht to justice.
—05/14/07
Jan Peterson said:
I was ripped off of over $9,000!!! What can we do?
—05/29/07
Orlan said:
I booked a Luau with HTN for Paradise Cove on Oahu and of course it was a fake. I ended up having to pay another $370 for us to attend.
Try the following web site for help:
www.hawaii.gov/dcca/rico
—06/09/07
E.K. said:
Please, nobody contact the POSTER by the name of “R”. He was an agent who got fired for trying to downloading all the customer credit card numbers on his personal computer along with a bunch of other information about the company. He’s a young punk and nothing but trouble. I worked on his team and I know.
—06/18/07
D~ said:
DON’T LISTEN TO E.K.!!! Everying “R” said about Michael Bennie the owner of Hawaii Travel Network is true and more. I also am a former employee. Michael Bennie had his employees lie to his customers and tell them excusrsions were available and that we could book it for them, knowing that the vendors already were not excepting existing reservations. Knowing we could not actually book a reservation for the activity, we were ordered to still charge the credit card. Customers would call us when they showed up for their activitied because their vouchers were not being excepted. We were ordered by Michael Bennie to advise the customers that we would go ahead and refund their credit cards and to pay direct to the vendor; but that was just another lie to the customer…. Michael would not authorize the refund and would still hold on to the funds even though we told the customer to pay again and that we would refund them.
I just want to say I am ashamed I ever worked for this organization. Michael Bennie held our jobs over our heads if we did not lie to the customers. I am very sorry to all of the innocent customers and vendors that were victomized.
—06/22/07
Christa Honeycutt said:
This company is a joke! Because I worked for them, my paychecks bounced, along with many other employees. I too am sorry for the inconvience this has caused HTN customers.
—06/23/07
Anonymous said:
What R say is true ,but R not is not telling you that he stole all your information he knows, your address and credit card numbers and god only knows what he is going to do with those, He got fired from the company only a week before they close because he download all that information from the data base include all the employees social security numbers becarefull dont give him more information he already have enought
He can’t help you in anything nobody knows where Michael is we never got are last paycheck we only know that the FBI is looking for him
—06/28/07
Christa Honeycutt said:
i also want to back up what D said about Michael Bennie. Do’nt listen to EK! The owner of that company was completely lunatic!
—07/25/07
Kellie said:
I too was ripped of by HTN! My husabnd and I just got back from Hawaii. We were on our honeymoon. We were supposed to go on a shark encounter. When we showed up, they told us we were not booked - even though we had our tickets. We lost almost $300.
—08/22/07
Leato Savini said:
HAHAHA!!! Michael bennie is now the owner and operator of Axtora.com…I feel sorry for the people who is doing business with them now…lol…
But for Christa and all the other people who used to work there…thats the reason he let me go…he knew I knew too much and he would be in jeopardy…hes a weirdo and whoever backs him up is stupid too…lol…
—11/19/07