Elim Garak
Veteran
Do you want these people to commit suicide?
Sell your house to live on a ship that doesn’t exist, crehs
- Thread starter Yinny
- Start date
Do you want these people to commit suicide?
TEXAS MANDINGO
I walk around a little edgy already
They should have hit pause after learning the company didn't have a ship yet
There are people who live on a cruise ship permanently, some cruise shops offer apartment for sales
The Prince of All Saiyans
Formerly Jisoo Stan & @Twitter
More than a month after a Turkish cruise company reneged on the promise of a lifetime — a three-year trip around the world in more than 140 countries — customers who spent millions in deposits are asking a U.S. attorney for help getting their money back.
More than a month after a Turkish cruise company reneged on the promise of a lifetime — a three-year trip around the world in more than 140 countries — customers who spent millions in deposits are asking a U.S. attorney for help getting their money back.
Travel better with news, tips and guides that make you feel like a local wherever you go. In your inbox, Thursdays.
In a saga seemingly destined to join the canon of Netflix scandal documentaries, Miray Cruises’ failure to launch the Life at Sea sailing has left dozens of passengers without homes, jobs, cars, retirement funds and life savings.
A letter sent to Markenzy Lapointe, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, identifies 78 of the passengers for the Life at Sea sailing as “Victims of Miray.” The letter, which was reviewed by The Washington Post, says passengers lost an estimated $16 million from Miray actions that amount to misrepresentation and fraud. The group includes citizens from the United States, Australia, England, Singapore and India, among other countries. The majority of the customers were people over 65.
“The failure of Miray to refund passenger money as promised has caused a significant number of residents to literally become homeless,” the letter says. “Many are living out of suitcases in motels or in spare rooms because of the generosity of friends.”
Miray said in a statement to passengers earlier this month that refunds are slow-rolling because of banking and credit card problems, according to the letter. Spokespeople for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. It’s unclear whether Lapointe’s office will take up an investigation. The passengers’ letter, which is intended to serve as a formal criminal complaint, says they suffered damages worse than victims of the botched Fyre Festival in the Bahamas; organizer Billy McFarland went to federal prison for wire fraud.
“They’ve not only dashed our hopes and dreams and upset the course of our lives, but they keep wasting our time,” passenger Shirene Thomas, a 58-year-old retired social services worker, told The Post. She said she moved out of the house she was renting, sold her car and condensed her life into five boxes for the trip. She’s now living with a friend in North Carolina.
Between June and August of 2023, Thomas said she made 27 individual transactions across eight credit cards to Miray, amounting to nearly $157,000 for the three-year trip. (Miray was offering slight discounts to customers who paid upfront for the three years.) “It took so much time and now, as you can imagine, it’s taking even more time to file disputes with 27 different transactions and provide them all the documentation.”
So far, only four passengers have seen any of their money returned to them, the letter says.
“One of the harder parts of it all was the lack of communication and being gaslit,” Thomas says. “It would have been much easier if they had just come out and said this was falling through, but that was not what they did.”
More than a month after a Turkish cruise company reneged on the promise of a lifetime — a three-year trip around the world in more than 140 countries — customers who spent millions in deposits are asking a U.S. attorney for help getting their money back.
Travel better with news, tips and guides that make you feel like a local wherever you go. In your inbox, Thursdays.
In a saga seemingly destined to join the canon of Netflix scandal documentaries, Miray Cruises’ failure to launch the Life at Sea sailing has left dozens of passengers without homes, jobs, cars, retirement funds and life savings.
A letter sent to Markenzy Lapointe, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, identifies 78 of the passengers for the Life at Sea sailing as “Victims of Miray.” The letter, which was reviewed by The Washington Post, says passengers lost an estimated $16 million from Miray actions that amount to misrepresentation and fraud. The group includes citizens from the United States, Australia, England, Singapore and India, among other countries. The majority of the customers were people over 65.
“The failure of Miray to refund passenger money as promised has caused a significant number of residents to literally become homeless,” the letter says. “Many are living out of suitcases in motels or in spare rooms because of the generosity of friends.”
Miray said in a statement to passengers earlier this month that refunds are slow-rolling because of banking and credit card problems, according to the letter. Spokespeople for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. It’s unclear whether Lapointe’s office will take up an investigation. The passengers’ letter, which is intended to serve as a formal criminal complaint, says they suffered damages worse than victims of the botched Fyre Festival in the Bahamas; organizer Billy McFarland went to federal prison for wire fraud.
“They’ve not only dashed our hopes and dreams and upset the course of our lives, but they keep wasting our time,” passenger Shirene Thomas, a 58-year-old retired social services worker, told The Post. She said she moved out of the house she was renting, sold her car and condensed her life into five boxes for the trip. She’s now living with a friend in North Carolina.
Between June and August of 2023, Thomas said she made 27 individual transactions across eight credit cards to Miray, amounting to nearly $157,000 for the three-year trip. (Miray was offering slight discounts to customers who paid upfront for the three years.) “It took so much time and now, as you can imagine, it’s taking even more time to file disputes with 27 different transactions and provide them all the documentation.”
So far, only four passengers have seen any of their money returned to them, the letter says.
“One of the harder parts of it all was the lack of communication and being gaslit,” Thomas says. “It would have been much easier if they had just come out and said this was falling through, but that was not what they did.”
