Watch out for People to People International

It is now 2011 and my daughter is in high school. It has been quite a few years since the fiasco trip to Washington DC. I am prompted to write, yet again on this blog regarding travel scams aimed at children. Just today my daughter received a letter in the mail stating she has been "chosen" to be a student ambassador to Scotland, Wales and England.

The letter has on it a list of all the past presidents as "honorary chairmen." That to me was a BIG tip off. My bet is that all of those presidents didn't even know that the company existed.  

It is nothing more than a glorified tour company trying to snag another sap with an expensive and poorly planned trip abroad.  After doing a Google search for "People to People International scam" I found lots of information on them..................none of it good.

The bottom line:
If you want your child to visit a different country to experience culture then just go on a family vacation there. It will probably cost the same in the long run as it would with the tour company for just your child.

Parents have started early this year (2010) to fund raise for their trips to DC

My own daughter is now in high school and it has been 2 years since that Washington DC trip that this blog was all about. The next batch of 8th graders have started to do fund raising even before the school year has started. From what I have heard so far, the parents lost money instead of getting money. That is not a good start. I don't know if they are using World Strides again this year but I hope they are not. They should give a local travel agency the opportunity to get them some great deals.

I never did get that $100 or so back from World Strides. Their claim of it being "just too small of an amount for them to refund" is such BS. I certainly hope that this blog and others like them have caused them to lose more than $100 over the last 2 years. Just to make sure they do get what they deserve I will up date the blog with any news on World Strides and their nasty business practices.

Headaches with Worldstrides

The time is getting closer for the parents to come up with the money for trip. In a few weeks all the money is due. I will be calling Worldstrides myself to see if they offer any financing options for the price of the trip. As a group we have been highly disappointed with Worldstrides as a company to deal with. They are constantly adding $15 late fees and $6 processing fees to each monthly statement we get from them. At those rates their monthly payment system is more expensive than using a credit card.

This is the first time that the Lebanon School district used Worldstrides and it will be their last. The school district had been using a local travel agency for years for the trips and had heard good stuff about Worldstrides (via Worldstrides own publicity no doubt) that they thought that they would give Worldstrides a try. The only problem with that is the fact that we are suffering because of it and it might put the kids trip into jeopardy.

In the last few weeks I have done some internet searching to see what I could dig up about Wordstrides. I have found out that they did have a bankruptcy (see updated blog post for the truth about Worldstrides in great detail - click here), not an official bankruptcy but failing to pay huge debts. Around 2005 and they were also investigated by the Federal Government for fraud concerning a group of high schoolers that purchased a trip from Worldsrtrides to see President Bush's inauguration. They never got to the inauguration.