Failing on timeshare
exits draws penalties
The co-owner of a Bentonville timeshare-exit company must pay $500,000 in restitution and penalties for failing to deliver promised services, Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said Wednesday.
Bart Bowe, who with Brian Scroggs owns Real Travel LLC, "charged consumers exorbitant fees but did not deliver on their guarantees to help consumers transfer or cancel their timeshare property interests," Rutledge said in a news release.
Rutledge filed a lawsuit against Bowe, Scroggs and Real Travel in July 2019 under the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The suit claims Real Travel charged fees ranging from about $5,000 to $18,000 to liquidate, cancel or transfer unwanted timeshares, but didn't honor the agreements.
The attorney general's office found 83 such cases, Rutledge said.
Under the consent judgment, Bowe can no longer do business related to timeshares or timeshare-exit businesses in Arkansas. He must pay $50,000 in restitution and $450,000 in suspended civil penalties.
The state is still pursuing a judgment against Scroggs and Real Travel in Benton County Circuit Court.
-- Serenah McKay
Passenger declines
continue at airports
Almost 1 million fewer passengers have gone through the state's largest airport in the first nine months of 2020 compared with the same period last year as the coronavirus pandemic continues to put the brakes on air travel.
Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field, reported that 719,022 passengers departed and arrived through September, or 953,626 fewer passengers than the 1,672,648 passengers the Little Rock airport boasted in the first nine months of 2019, a 57% decline.
Last month's activity was similarly down at Clinton National. September saw 77,701 passengers at the airport, or nearly 58% fewer passengers than the 183,725 it saw in the same month in 2019.
Northwest Arkansas National Airport, the state's second-largest airport, saw its passenger traffic fall to 25,453 last month, an almost 67% decline from September 2019. For the year, passenger traffic at Northwest Arkansas National is down almost 60%, to 270,027, compared with the same period last year.
-- Noel Oman
Index increases 2.59
for finish of 434.56
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, closed Wednesday at 434.56, up 2.59.
"Equity markets closed modestly lower as the energy sector led the underperformance following the report of a weekly build in US crude oil inventories by the American Petroleum Institute," said Leon Lants, managing director at Stephens Inc.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.