Seniors Home Exchange
20795 Dalton Rd., Box 1448,
Sutton West, Ontario, L0E1R0, Canada
Phone: 905-722-3127
Web Address: http://seniorshomeexchange.com
This Canadian-based company that does business under various names might rip you off the way they did me. This is a true story. I dare them to file a law suit against me claiming libel. I’d love to have them in a USA court where truth is a perfect defense against libel.
On Oct 23, 2009, I paid SeniorsHomeExchange.Com their requested US$59.00 fee for a three year membership and access to their online database of contacting travelers for the purpose of arranging mutually convenient home exchanges. My debit card was charged. They sent me an email acknowledgment.
A few weeks later, when I went looking for an exchange partner, their web site – and all their other known web sites – went offline. They simply disappeared.
Because I build and host web sites, I know how to find the owners of web sites even when the sites are down. I emailed them, asking if they would be back online soon. No response.
I repeated it a week later. Still no response.
A month to the day after they accepted my money I wrote again. Still no response – and of course, the sites remained dead.
That last email was returned because even their email address were no longer working. Knowing what I know about how the Internet works, it told me that the company hosting the web sites had shut them off, something that is commonly done for failure to pay for hosting the web site(s) after sufficient forebearance and notice.
On Dec 17th, while I was on vacation (having used a different home exchange service to make the hookup) a person claiming to represent Seniors Home Exchange wrote and said their web site was online again.
The message tried to lie to me (again remember I have been hosting web sites for more than 16 years) claiming the reason their sites were down was because their hosting company had not configured the domain to work unless would-be visitors put the www in the URL
That’s b.s. because the site was offline because of the hosting company’s suspension, as established by the bounced email. And, anyway, if that is so, they had weeks of notice from at least one paying customer (me) and a fix of that really rare error takes all of 5 seconds.
When I returned home on Jan 16th I wrote to them and asked for a refund. Their response admitted they had been down for weeks and offered to upgrade my membership to a “lifetime” deal. I’m in pretty good health and expect to live a lot longer then they will be in business but still I declined that and repeated my request for a refund.
No response.
On January 22 I wrote and said I wanted a refund that same day or I would take action. I got back an immediate response, the same day, that promised a full refund, saying that my request was approved and had been passed it to their accounting depart and it would come “soon.”
On Feb 09, I wrote again asking for a prompt refund. No response.
On Feb 16, I wrote again and gave them until today at 6pm my time, for the charge against my debit card to be reversed and the funds put back or I would go public. No response.
Caveat Emptor. These people are crooks.And inept as well. They can’t even keep their own web site online because of failure to pay their own bills.
They are hiding from USA law on the other side of an otherwise friendly border.
We have joined this website and are troubled by what you experienced and as we have sent emails to various exchangeds and had no reply, we will try to get our money refunded as we paid through paypal we might have a chance, as you used another site which was ok can you let us know that site so that we won’t experience the same thing again. We thank you that you have posted this warning so that we can try to do something about it, it pays to do the research first, which we being first timers did not do. Regards, Doreen Rowlands
I tried to send you an email with the answer to your question, but it bounced back as undeliverable. Is there a typo in it?
THANKS FOR WARNING ME BEFORE IT WAS TOO LATE! I certainly won’t join NOW!
Good luck to all seniors!
I have been a member for a couple of years. I have done 3 great exchanges, met some wonderful people and never experienced any kind of problem.
Dont be put off by one persons experience. Its a fantastic way to travel.
Here’s an example of what a liar and fraud these people are. The comment comes from “Anita” whose name is linked back to seniors Home Exchange.
I’m so glad I stumbled on your warning. I had read through the site and was contemplating signing up. But I was concerned that so many of the postings seemed very old, many had not been updated in years. I sent them an email asking how many new subscribers have signed up this year and received an automated email that told me nothing. I don’t think I’ll be registering. It’s unfortunate because there is a need for this kind of service. Maybe with your experience you could start one?
Thanks Vivian. I’m glad you did not get cheated by them.
Your idea about starting a service is an nteresting one. I did give it serious thought. I even went so far as to register a few domain names. But, there already are some good – and honest – home exchange services around. I’m not sure how much market support there would be for yet one more exchange service. Maybe there is need for one geared specifically to seniors. It’s been my impression that seniors are the larger and more reliable market segment.
I will give the idea some thought.
Thank you for your warnings…..for some reason everytime I tried to register my home and give my credit card #….my information would just not take. No phone # listed….I emailed them but got no response except a computer generated EMAIL ! So now I’m looking for another RELIABLE exchange club.
I have had good experience with HomeLink. I have used them for exchanges to in the area around Manly Beach, a suburb of Sydney Australia. The properties are universally high quality and I have made many solid friends among other senior travelers in the area.
Good luck!
What is their email address, which does not require going through their website – in case their site goes down again for an extended period??
Would be much appreciated. Regards, Katy
I no longer have the email address she used but the phone number and postal address are shown in the registration records of the Domain Name.
Burrows, Caroline
WiredSeniors.com Inc
20795 Dalton Rd., Box 1448
Sutton West, ON L0E1R0
CA
905-722-3127
The codes in that address (ON and CA) stand for Ontario Canada. The L0E1R0 is a Canadian Zip Code.