Tour & Activity Scams in Myrtle Beach, USA

How it works

Booths and kiosks throughout Broadway at the Beach and along Kings Highway offer free show tickets, gift cards worth $50–150, or complimentary hotel nights in exchange for attending a "90-minute vacation ownership presentation." In practice these presentations routinely run 3–4 hours and involve rotating teams of high-pressure salespeople using false urgency, isolation tactics, and a final "gifting table" stop that applies conditions — blackout dates, processing fees, or mandatory future stays — that make the promised gift difficult or impossible to redeem. Visitors report feeling trapped and coerced into signing contracts they later cannot exit.

How it works

Staffed booths positioned near the entrances of Broadway at the Beach and along the Kings Highway resort strip present themselves as visitor information centers or activity concierge desks. Staff offer free maps, attraction recommendations, and discounted show or water park tickets — and then pivot to soliciting attendance at a vacation ownership presentation as the condition for any deal. The booths are operated by timeshare companies including Capital Vacations and Wyndham-affiliated sales operations, and staff are trained to avoid explicitly naming the presentation as a timeshare pitch until visitors are already engaged.

How it works

Myrtle Beach is one of the largest golf destinations in the United States with over 80 courses along the Grand Strand, and a gray market of third-party golf package sellers operates around the city targeting visiting groups. Some operators advertise tee times at premium courses — Caledonia Golf & Fish Club, TPC Myrtle Beach, Heritage Club — at prices below what those courses officially offer, then switch bookings at the last minute to lower-tier alternatives. Others collect full payment upfront via websites that disappear seasonally. Groups traveling for golf weekends sometimes arrive to find their reserved tee times do not exist in the course's system.