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SCAMPULSE
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SCAMPULSE
If you know any contact information for Yacht, help other victims by adding it!
Scammer's address 190 Jaffrey Street West Haven, West Haven, CT 06516, USA
Scammer's email [email protected]
Victim Location VA 23608, USA
Total money lost $3,200
Type of a scam Travel/Vacation/Timeshare
My friend’s boat needed one more person for the boat and she thought I’d be interested. Looking through Yacht’Nik’s website and social media, I was convinced this was going to be a trip of a lifetime and an opportunity I didn’t want to miss.
The total price for my experience was $3000.
All that, for $3000. I just needed to secure my flight to Seychelles. I immediately said yes. She told me the initial deposit of $300 (10% of the total price) was due the next day. I sent over my first installment and confirmed my space on a Luxury Yacht.
Following that payment, we received an email with a rough outline of what the week would entail as well as a note that said The Yacht Week was involved in the planning of this event.
Spoiler alert: The Yacht Week group was not involved in any way in the Seychelles route hosted by Yacht’Nik. One of many lies that will come out during this journey.
Over the next few months, things were quiet, but in the spring of 2022, the event organizer created a GroupMe for all the participants of the Seychelles trip to connect and he began to relay information there. This was exciting because that meant this was real. I’m going to Africa for the first time and I’m spending the week on a yacht! The worse that could happen was I didn’t know the majority of the women on my boat and we may not get along. But boy was I wrong. I was very very wrong.
Late summer, less than two months from the trip, myself and other guests noticed we haven’t received much information from the event organizer to properly plan for the trip. By this time, we all had finished making payments as they were in 3 additional installments (due November 2021, January 2022, and August 2022). By August 2nd, I was paid in full, my flight was booked, and I was ready to go. However, simple things like the route and itinerary weren’t provided upon request and the event organizer appeared to have ghosted us without further communication around the trip.
At this point, my travel is September 17–24, and I leave for Africa on September 15. I need details. Not to mention I’m an event planner by trade, I know how this is supposed to work and this just feels sketchy.
It’s a week before labor day and we finally get information! Boat assignments and confirmations, details to submit travel authorization forms to the country of Seychelles, and other basic information to set my weary mind at ease. Or so I thought. When I took a closer look at the boat confirmations, I noticed in the corner written very small that it said these boats are on hold until 9/4. Hold to me does not mean confirmed. To me these confirmations read, these boats are reserved until payment is received and if payment wasn’t received the boats would be released back to the public. Boom, red flag. I start to wonder if we have a boat or if have I been scammed out of $3000.
I decided to call the charter company myself to see if they could tell me if my assumptions were correct (hoping they weren’t) and when I called, they confirmed my assumption, the boats were not confirmed yet and the event organizer could put boats on a 4-day hold. This is slightly confusing to me as I’d been paying on my boat for 10 months for them not to be confirmed. However, the charter company told me not to fear yet as the event organizer still had 2 days to pay and all could be okay. They said to call back on 9/4.
I called my best friend to notify her and see how we should proceed. I didn’t want to create panic over a possibility, but I was definitely in panic mode. I’m about to fly halfway across the world for a yacht experience and there is a chance there are no yachts. I decided to chill, enjoy my labor day weekend, and call back after the holiday, feeling positive and encouraged that surely, the event organizer didn’t provide 100+ travelers with falsified documents to entire a foreign country. Surely not.
So I called the charter company back after the holiday, less than 2 weeks from my trip, and they confirmed the boats were released to the public and there were no boats reserved under Yacht’Nik’s nor the event organizer’s name. I’m flabbergasted. I have no words, and I should add that I was technically participating in Week 2 of Yacht’Nik Seychelles. There was a week 1, September 10–17, as well and they were either on their way to Africa or used the holiday weekend to extend their vacation and were already in Africa. And per the charter company, they too did not have any confirmed boats.
I reached out to the event organizer and his assistant to figure out what was going on. I let them know that the charter company said the boats were not confirmed and expressed my concerns about the trip. At first, I was told everything was okay and the event organizer would get in touch with the charter company. He had no sense of urgency so I took this as a red flag that something may seriously be wrong with this trip.
I notified my yacht mates of what I found and we began to plan for plan B. We shared some of the information we knew to the others on the trip GroupMe and tried to encourage people to think of alternate plans, but that wasn’t well received, and we mobilized for ourselves. We found an Airbnb and a private chef just in case things went left, but we were hoping everything would be alright.
In the meantime, the event organizer began texting me a lot of details about his communications surrounding the trip with the charter company. He’s giving me all the skinny and I become a listening ear as he gets information off his chest. I imagine when you’re scamming people, it weights on you. Here’s the skinny he told me and eventually the entire group before we landed in the motherland:
1. The first thing he tells me is all the boats he originally “booked” were canceled because the yacht charter company made a mistake and they were racist. Reviewing some of the messages he shared, the charter company expressed payments were “very urgent” and “past due.” It’s evident he created the problem of no confirmed boats.
1a. He mentions having to take out a business loan to pay for Yacht’Nik Seychelles, specifically the boats, but again, there were no boats so if he did take out a loan, where did that money go?
1b. I dug into the charter company more and found out that to charter a boat around the dates was $12,500. Together, my boat paid together $24,000. I’m all for people getting paid for their services, but this man had over a quarter million dollars worth of money from all of the event attendees. There were no excuses that boats weren’t paid for. Where did the money go?
2. The event organizer shared in a screenshot was also scheduled to get 13% commission from the partnership with the charter company, plus up to an additional 20%, either commission or discount based on initial conversations with the charter company. So not only did he get 2x as much for boats, he was getting paid on the backend from the yacht charter company as well.
3. He eventually let me know he was able to secure boats, but in the screenshot he sent, I noticed the boat confirmations were for bareback boats, which means no skipper (the person who drives the boat) and no hostess (the person who cooks and cleans the boat). Also, with no hostess, that means the included breakfasts and lunches would no longer be provided. Which to me is a BFD. I bring this to his attention because as much as I love me some Megan, I wasn’t trying to drive the boat. He was able to contract skippers, but can you imagine?
4. We find out the event organizer has never stepped foot in Seychelles and has no idea how anything in the country works.
5. As communication wanes from the event organizer as he travels to Seychelles, he lets us know that he did not bring his laptop and only has his cell phone as a means to talk to us. As a business owner and event planner myself, this makes no sense to me. It’s obvious this is a free vacation to him and not a business event.
All this and I haven’t even gotten to the part of us getting on land yet. Stay tuned.
Land ho. So 7 of the 8 of my yacht arrive in Seychelles a day early. When we inquire about the airport transfers that are included as part of the package, we’re informed that transfers were only available to those individuals who arrive on the event day. That wasn’t explicitly clear on the “What’s Included” list and that became the first of many changes to the goal post for the rest of the trip and the new list of expenses that were unexpected by us travelers.
We’re able to secure a taxi through the hostess we hired for the trip (which was also supposed to be included in the original price for those keeping track) and we get settled into our place, still without having a clear direction on how the week would go and more importantly, what the details were for check in the next day. The Week 1 crew was wrapping up and it didn’t sound like a positive experience, but I assumed he would have things more figured out by week 2. He didn’t and this was just the beginning of his tomfoolery.
When making our travel arrangements, we were all told to fly into Mahe and that our boats would be available for check-in from 3–6 pm on Saturday, September 17th. Since the event organizer only secured boats and skippers days ago, the boats available were on another island in Seychelles, called Praslin, which was a 75-minute water taxi. He tells everyone in week 2 that they need to purchase tickets to Praslin, but we push back because again if you look on the list of “What’s Included” in the price of the trip, water taxis are listed, but he lets us know that this taxi is not the same as the one that was included in the price.
For those keeping track, so far, I’ve paid for my own airport transfer, hostess, and water taxi. And since the hostess is the individual who prepares meals, we also no longer had the 6 breakfasts and lunches plus 2 dinners. We were also supposed to get drinks and bottle packages with the hostess as well, but no hostess means no drank. All of these where supposed to be included in the original $3000 I paid to participate in this luxury trip.
Finally, we get to Day 1, the day we’d meet the event host, the others who will be sharing this experience, get on our boats, and meet our yacht crew! You think it went down like that, but it didn’t, it was an extremely chaotic experience. That morning, the event host tells us, we will be able to board in Mahe between 6–7 pm
So I’ve now paid out of pocket for a ticket, I didn’t use. Our 8th yachtmate arrives today and is taken to a restaurant near the marina and stranded with a majority of the other passengers. The restaurant became the meet-up spot and so near 6pm when we were expecting the yachts to arrive we head over to the restaurant. We quickly find out the restaurant had no idea that we would all be there with our luggage (60ish) people and told me they were upset that backpacks and duffle bags blocked their entrance and their main photo feature for their Saturday night patrons.
When we go further into the restaurant, there’s nothing that says Yacht’Nik, a greater, info stand, or anything. Just dozens of guests who had been sitting in this restaurant for hours with no idea what was going on and the event host was nowhere to be found.
Eventually, he messages us and lets us know boats have left Praslin and would arrive no later than 8:30 pm. My boat was 2nd to last to arrive and came at 10 pm. The event organizer decides, you know what would be great after stranding you for hours on end, let’s have the white party tonight, right now. I didn’t oblige. I went to find my yacht with the girls to get settled and meet our skipper, and maybe meet some of the other boats. Soon as we find our boat, we realize it’s not a yacht. It’s actually a catamaran (it was still lovely!), but the event is called Yacht’Nik. I paid for a Luxury Yacht, not a catamaran.
We dock in Mahe for the night, turn up some music (we notice all of our boat speakers don’t work and we couldn’t access our Spotify Playlists because there was no wifi, thank goodness for someone downloading them!), play some games, and curate our own kickoff event for the trip. Just two more items that I expected in my experience that was supposed to be included in my purchase that was not.
The event organizer never introduces himself, welcomes us to Yacht’Nik, or creates a community space for all the guests to connect. We’re just there.
The next morning before we set sail, I go shopping with our hostess and one of my mates for the food and liquor we’d need for the week since it was no longer being provided by the host as promised. Another cost. We also had to taxi to and from, so another cost there as well that shouldn’t have been incurred. We get back to the boat, unload, and finally are off to start the trip. Or at least try to. As we set sail, less than 5 minutes into the voyage, our boat’s steering wheel stops working, stranding us in the Atlantic Ocean for a bit while we wait for repair, which is the first of at least 3 repairs that our boat had to undergo throughout the entire trip.
The event organizer didn’t work with the islands to allow the 7 boats on our trip to dock so we were forced to anchor in the Indian Ocean every day to dinghy to land. In addition to that, he also didn’t know that technically Seychelles has laws around sailing after 6 pm. This man literally put no effort or due diligence into the planning of this trip.
We also quickly found out September was actually monsoon season for Seychelles and the skippers were quite confused about why we’d come during that time of year. All that to say, some rides on the dinghy were bumpy and choppy and if you’ve ever been to the beautiful country of Seychelles, it gets pitch black dark around 6:30 pm, and let me tell you dinghying in the dark is terrifying when you can’t see anything. It was just a strange, risky way to have attendees travel to land for events.
Speaking of, let’s talk about the “exclusive Yacht’Nik events.” There were none! Everything we did was open to the public. The activities we participated in for this trip included: visiting a tortoise sanctuary, 2 nature walks, a rum factory tour and tasting, and a night out at a local bar. Fun fact about these events. While they were officially part of the Yacht’Nik itinerary, transportation to and from those activities were not included. Who does that? Just weird, unprofessional behavior, and more expenses we as guests didn’t anticipate.
We did get a dinner hosted by the Seychelles Hospitality and Tourism Board and the Takamaka Rum Factory did provide 6 bottles of rum for each boat. Which was quite generous considering we were late to these events with our event organizer at the helm, having no courtesy for the people of Seychelles.
I guess we also had a raft party with a DJ, no headline DJ, and no plural (i.e. multiple DJs). I say, I guess because on that day, all the boats linked up and we chilled either on the boat or on our floaties. Our boat was on the far end and we couldn’t hear a DJ at all, we heard our neighbor boat’s speakers and their music. With an event naming itself after FreakNik, you’d think there would be parties planned every day. There were not. Disappointing.
We actually didn’t even follow the agenda shown above. Every night, attendees went into the event chat to ask “What the plan was for the next day?” because the event organizer wouldn’t give us any information on his own. It felt like he was just winging the entire trip.
We asked about the Brunch Event listed on the “What’s Included” image, but we’re told that was for the Croatia route only. Though nowhere is that donated so just another thing not provided.
If you’re with me this far, from the list of “What’s Included” on this Yacht’Nik experience, we haven’t received: hostess; 6 breakfasts and lunches, 2 dinners; brunch event; wifi; drinks & bottles package; exclusive Yacht’Nik events; headline DJs.
But we have received: luggage tags and Yacht’Nik bracelets to get us into the imaginary Yacht’Nik events (no actual gift bag though, so I’m being generous here); a professional skipper (Terrance was amazing! He really made the trip for us!); a Luxury catamaran (not yacht); towels & bed linen; GPS; a dinghy; fuel; cleaning; and equipment. The event organizer did also somehow have the funds for a local professional videographer and photographer on some days. However, I know I didn’t consent to my image being used so that’s a bridge to cross.
Something else we received that we didn’t ask for was negative energy. Everyone was upset about the piss poor planning, lack of communication, and money mismanagement and the mood permeated throughout the trip.
As I mentioned earlier, this man has made a quarter million dollars on this event, so how did we get here? Where did all that money go if not to provide the activities you as an event host created? Blows my mind.
We finally get to Friday, the second to last day of the trip. We dock in Praslin and find out we will not be taken back to Mahe and we need to secure our own ticket again on the water taxi for Saturday morning. Because of this change, our hostess needs to leave Friday night to get back to Mahe for another gig, potentially leaving us with no dinner for Friday night, leaving us stranded again. My boat decides to find a hotel in Mahe for Friday night and take the water taxi to ensure we get to the airport the following day, being forced to cut our trip to 6 nights instead of 7.
When we get on our water taxi, who do we see? The event organizer, he leaves the remaining event guests (20 people) on their yachts by themselves in Praslin, goes to Mahe, and flies to Abu Dubai. Mind you, Yacht’Nik, his event, actually doesn’t end until Saturday. Unprofessional until the end.
I paid $3000 for this trip and this is what I got:
Talking to our skipper, we found out that the event organizer had yet to pay him and possibly other skippers, as well as some of the establishments we visited, and the ones we didn’t visit who were probably expecting the revenue and hired staff to accommodate a group that never showed. Yacht’Nik was supposed to be about celebrating Black excellence and Black culture, and the event organizer robbed us of all of that.
That is the story of Scamnik. 0 stars. 0/10 do not recommend. No one should work with this man ever again, The Yacht Week, the charter company, and any breathing being.
And if you’re curious about the additional costs added up that were not provided that were part of the Yacht’Nik package, it’s looking at around another $4000–5000 spent.