Local seniors trying to get money back from a canceled trip to the shore

NEW JERSEY - A group of local seniors are trying to get their money back after their trip was canceled.

"I have family and friends and church members," said Charlotte Conway. She looks forward to a trip every year booked through a travel agency. The trips she’s taken are mostly to the Jersey shore. 

Last year in June she visited Wildwood with 42 others on her team. 

"They have an agenda for us, where we go, where we go for breakfast everyone morning and where we go to dinner," Charlotte said.

She adds the trip is an opportunity to make new friends.  

"I like to meet people from all over the world because it's a lot of seniors that do the senior trip so we have fun," she said.

This year, Charlotte says booking through the company "Festive Holidays " turned into a nightmare. She says in April she called to see if the trip she'd booked to Ocean City, Maryland for Memorial Day weekend was still happening in the midst of the coronavirus. 

"We kept making phone calls," says Charlotte but she says the woman who booked the trip for her wasn't calling back. Then one day she did, Charlotte says but from an unknown number. 

"She said since the governor shut the city down in NJ, they’re not allowed to be in the office but she said yes the trip is canceled and as soon as they are allowed back into the office we would get a refund."

Charlotte says after that, no calls from the company and the numbers they've always used to contact them are no longer working. FOX 29 also called and sent emails and got only a response back from the General Manager who says the owner is finalizing a resolution to the matter. FOX 29's Shawnette Wilson took a trip to the business office at "Court House Commons" in Cape May. She pulled in and found the parking lot empty and the door to the building locked. 

"When I got you involved I got a letter that read from the president of the company that because of the COVID virus and 42 years in business this is the first time this ever happened." Charlotte and her 33 friends who booked are still waiting for that refund. 

"Some seniors are on a fixed income, some seniors have it a little bit better than others but I don’t think people should start to take advantage of seniors," said Merion Thompson who also paid to go on the trip. 

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