Action 9

Customers say group tricked them out of more than $10,000 each

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Phil Honeycutt said he had a timeshare in Mexico and he got tired of going there.

He told Action 9 that Sugar Creek Property Investments called him out of the blue and that a man named Eric Miller offered to buy his share for $21,000.

But Honeycutt said Miller told him he had to pay certain fees first and that Sugar Creek Property Investments would reimburse him. Honeycutt agreed, signed the contract and paid $12,000 in multiple installments.

Then, Honeycutt said he didn't hear anything so he decided to call Miller.  He said Miller never gave him his phone number so Honeycutt looked it up.

"Well, I call him up. He says, 'I don't know what you're talking about,'" Honeycutt said.

"I literally pulled over on the side of the road and just started taking notes and I was shaking," the real Eric Miller told Action 9.

He is a broker and the real estate license number on the Sugar Creek Property Investments website is his.  But he told Action 9 he had never heard of Sugar Creek Property Investments and had no idea Sugar Creek Property Investments was using his name.

"Oh, no, I've never even spoken to these people," he said. "I've been furious about it."

"It was like somebody had shot me because, all of a sudden, I knew everything I had done was for nothing. I had wasted all that money," Honeycutt said.

Action 9 got in touch with another broker on the website, John Adams. Again, he's a real broker and it's the right license number but he said he never heard of the company either.

A California customer, Nancy Cooper, told Action 9 that Sugar Creek Property Investments also promised to buy her timeshare. She said she paid more than $10,000 and never heard back.

"I'm angry but I feel really stupid. I should have figured this out sooner," she said.

Sugar Creek Property Investments' paperwork said its address is in a building uptown on the 18th floor, but it's not. The group's email and phone number didn't pan out either.

Cooper and Miller reported the company to North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein.

"We've heard of them and we're looking into them, but I'm like you. We're trying to dig in and find out exactly what's really going on," Stein told Action 9.

The North Carolina Secretary of State, which keeps records on all businesses in the state, has no record of Sugar Creek Property Investments and never did.

There are a Sugar Creek Properties in Charlotte, a Sugar Creek Capital in Atlanta and a Sugar Creek Investments in Eastman, Georgia, but they're not related.

If you have a timeshare and someone contacts you out of the blue about buying it, be skeptical. It could be legitimate, but don't take chances.

Click here for advice.

Plus, Sugar Creek Property Investments uses a middleman to handle the money called St. John's Escrow.

It has a Baltimore address.

Action 9 looked into that group too.

An email bounced back and no one returned phone calls.

The Maryland Attorney General said the business may have been open but isn't anymore. There is a St. John Properties in that city but that company told Action 9 it "has no affiliation with" St. John's Escrow and reported the group to law enforcement.