Attorney General Obtains Agreement From Travel Agency That Failed To Ship Goods To South America

Attorney General Spitzer announced today that he has submitted an agreement for court approval resolving an investigation of a travel agency which charged consumers advance fees for shipment of household goods to Ecuador and other locations in South America, but failed to deliver the goods.

The Attorney General began the investigation into the Jorge Marin Travel Corp. and its principal, Jorge Marin, in May, based upon complaints filed by consumers with his office’s Bureau of Consumer Frauds and Protection.

Under the settlement, the agency will pay restitution to consumers for shipping costs of goods that were never delivered as promised and compensate consumers for the value of any goods that are not returned to them. The agreement also provides for costs and penalties to the State of New York in the amount of $10,000.

"Businesses operating in New York will not be allowed to make false promises to induce consumers to use their services," said Spitzer. "The consumers paid the agency for door-to-door shipments, and that is the service they were entitled to receive."

The consumers claimed that they paid advance fees to Marin for door-to-door shipment of goods to relatives in South America, but the goods never reached their destinations.

Consumers have also complained that Marin and his agency have continually closed and reopened offices in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut and that when they called the offices to inquire about their packages, the telephones were either busy or not working.

The settlement agreement, which is in the form of a Consent Judgment, prohibits Marin and his agency from taking advance fees for door-to-door shipments if they do not perform the promised services. They are also prohibited from making any misleading statements to consumers to induce them to use the agency’s services.

The agreement also requires Marin and the agency to cooperate in securing the return to consumers of goods sitting in ports in New York and Ecuador.

In addition the Attorney General’s office has been working cooperatively with the shipping companies and freight forwarders to get the goods back to the consumers. Those companies were holding two containers of the consumers’ goods in ports in New York because the agency failed to pay their fees. The goods were in danger of being sold off.

The companies have recently agreed to waive their claimed liens and release the goods for return to the consumers. Inventories of the goods are now being prepared, and the Attorney General’s office will soon be asking consumers to pick up their goods at locations in Maspeth, New York and Linden, New Jersey.

Under the settlement, consumers who retrieve their goods will have to pay a nominal fee to pay third parties for preparing the inventories; however, Marin and his agency are obligated to pay those expenses back to the consumers as restitution.

The agreement covers consumers who have already filed complaints, as well as consumers who file complaints within 90 days of notice of the court’s approval of the settlement. Consumers who have complaints against Jorge Marin and/or Jorge Marin Travel Corp. should contact the Attorney General’s office by calling the Bureau of Consumer Frauds and Protection at 1-800-771-7755 or by writing to:

New York State Attorney General’s Office
Bureau of Consumer Frauds and Protection
120 Broadway, 3rd Floor
New York, New York 10271.

Under the settlement agreement, Marin and his agency did not admit to any wrongdoing. The case was handled by Assistant Attorneys General Joy Feigenbaum and Shari Rubin Brooks under the direction of Spitzer’s Consumer Frauds and Protection Bureau Chief Thomas G. Conway.

Jorge Marin Travel Corp. locations

191 Wyckoff Avenue
Brooklyn, NY

51-27 43rd Avenue
Woodside, NY

174 North Avenue
Plainfield, NJ

374 Lombard Street
New Haven, CT