L.A. Man Held in Newport in Bogus Timeshare Deal

Newport Beach police have arrested a Los Angeles man accused of operating a bogus timeshare plan that bilked would-be travelers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Spencer Bruce Cooper, 25, was arrested outside his Wilshire Boulevard condominium in Los Angeles Monday morning on an outstanding warrant alleging felony travel fraud, police said. Cooper posted $20,000 bail that afternoon and was released from the Newport Beach jail.

From July to October, 1986, Cooper placed advertisements in Southern California and East Coast newspapers offering four-day trips to the Carribbean, Mexico and Hawaii--including round-trip air fare and beachfront hotel accommodations--for a bargain price of $149, Newport Beach police investigator Mark Fisher said.

Skeptical callers to Cooper’s Vacations Unlimited company were told the offer was so low so they would be attracted to a timeshare marketing plan, said Fisher, who estimates that 250 people bought the trips, at least 12 from Orange County. He estimated their losses at $30,000.

Those who bought the trips received travel vouchers. The vouchers then had to be mailed with a $30 registration fee to a Texas firm, Marketing Advanced Research, that scheduled the trips, Fisher said. While Cooper sold the vouchers for $149, he bought them from the Texas firm for just $20 to $40 each, Fisher said.

After victims mailed the vouchers to Texas, Marketing Advanced Research would then say all the trips were booked on the days requested by the victim. “It was a perpetual runaround machine,” Fisher said.

In October 1986, Texas police, postal inspectors and FBI agents closed the firm. That is also when Cooper folded Vacations Unlimited.

Fisher said Cooper then set up another travel scam called Vacations Group International that police suspect defrauded 1,350 U.S. victims out of $200,000.

Cooper’s arrest on Monday, however, was related only to his Vacations Unlimited company, Fisher said, and is being prosecuted under a California travel fraud law passed only last year.

Cooper faces civil charges on allegations of the $200,000 fraud in Los Angeles Superior Court, filed by the state Department of Justice, Fisher said.