- Life at Sea Cruises cancelled its 3-year expedition after failing to secure an appropriate ship.
- Some passengers spent their life savings and sold their homes to pay for the voyage, per NYT.
- Now, a group of passengers claim they still haven’t seen their money back.
A group of passengers who were supposed to go on a three-year voyage around the world with Life at Sea Cruises before it was canceled two weeks before its departure is now demanding a criminal probe into the company as customers claim they’re desperately trying to claw back $16 million in refunds.
A coalition of 78 passengers sent a letter to Markenzy Lapointe, the US attorney for the Southern District of Florida, on Tuesday asking his office to open a criminal fraud investigation into Miray Cruises, the parent company of Life at Sea, The New York Times reported.
According to the Times, the letter accuses Miray of taking about $16 million in customer funds and using the cash to buy a ship.
Miray Cruises ultimately did not purchase a vessel that could accommodate more than a thousand passengers for three years. The company abruptly canceled the trip in November just two weeks before the maiden voyage.
Passengers wrote in the letter to Lapointe that the company assured customers that their payments were not being used for upfront capital, The Times reported.
A spokesperson for Lapointe’s office and Miray Cruises did not immediately return a request for comment.
For many, Life at Sea Cruises initially proposed an alluring offer: Travel around the world for three years for as low as around $38,500 a year.
Some customers sold their homes or businesses to take advantage of a rare opportunity to travel on a cruise with a 140-city itinerary all the while potentially spending significantly less than what the average American household spends in a year.
Keri Whitman, a Cincinnati-based marketing executive, previously told Business Insider that she sold her home to go on the voyage. She said that the cruise offered her a chance to sail around the world without the burden of taking flights and that the ship’s internet connectivity would have allowed her to oversee her work remotely.
Those plans then fell apart however after Miray Cruises announced to passengers on November 17 that it failed to acquire an appropriate vessel for the trip.
“Miray is not such a big company to afford to pay 40-50 million for a ship,” Miray Cruises CEO Vedat Ugurlu said in a memo.
Weeks before the cruise’s maiden voyage, Ugurlu wrote in another memo to customers that the company was “facing challenges” to purchase a ship because investors were backing out of plans.
Management issues also plagued the company months before the voyage, culminating with Life at Sea and Miray Cruises severing ties in May. Some passengers including Kimberly Arizzi pulled out of plans in light of the internal company issues. Arizzi, who was one of the first to sign up for the trip, previously told BI that she received a refund for her $5,000 down payment on the fare.
But now, customers who are pushing for a criminal investigation into Miray Cruises claim that they’ve yet to see any refunds while some, including retired folks, say they are now homeless or left searching for work after putting so much money into the ill-fated cruise, according to The Times.
“Some people put in everything they had and now they are broke or homeless or wandering from cruise to cruise like tumbleweeds because they have no other place to go,” David Purcell, a 78-year-old retired lawyer who sold his house and car after his wife died to purchase a fare and heal from his loss, told the Times.
Adam Pers of Bristol, UK, told the Times he spent six figures and paid upfront to get a discount on the cruise fare. After the trip was canceled, he was diagnosed with cancer. Now, he’s trying to find work to pay for his mortgage and treatment, according to the report.
A GoFundMe page that appears to be organized by another Life at Sea passenger was set up for Pers.
“Unfortunately for Adam and many others this dream became a nightmare when the trip was canceled and refunds have not been paid,” the GoFundMe page said. “Adam made many sacrifices to go on this amazing once in a lifetime journey, including leaving his job and selling his possessions and renting out his home in order to cover costs.”
The organizer of the GoFundMe did not return a request for comment.
