A Pulaski County Circuit judge ordered an online travel agency and its owners to pay over $600,000 in civil penalties and restitution, according to the state attorney general’s office on Monday.
Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge filed a consumer-protection lawsuit against Fort Smith-based The Resort Place on Feb. 16, 2017 after receiving numerous consumer complaints.
A news release issued by Rutledge’s office on the day the lawsuit was initially filed accused the business of “over promising and under delivering, ruining many vacations in the process.”
Consumer complaints included paying for bookings the business never completed, being moved from the resort they paid for and being required to pay out-of-pocket for substitute accommodations. In one instance, a family with an infant and toddler reportedly drove 10 hours to a resort, only to be told The Resort Place had not paid for the promised accommodations, the attorney general's office said.
In her decision, Judge Alice S. Gray ordered the business to pay $162,614 in restitution to customers, the attorney general's office said Monday in a separate news release. Its owners, Jay Allen Edmonson and Dora Ann Edmonson, are also required to pay $10,000 in civil penalties for each affected consumer, totaling $470,000.
According to the release, Gray also ruled that The Resort Place’s business license be revoked, and that the Edmonsons be forbidden from owning an online travel agency or working as travel agents in the future.
“The Resort Place is being held responsible for its unacceptable business practices and causing 47 consumers to lose their hard-earned money," Rutledge said in the statement.