Cruise Vacation Company Shoes Only Travel Defrauds Clients; Former Owner Begins Operations under Sensual Sojourns Name

    FORT WORTH, TX, November 04, 2014 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Jonathan and Lori Baltuch and their travel company, Shoes Only Travel, has folded, leaving customers who paid deposits for vacations in a lurch, according to a November 2, 2014 email sent by the company.

This isn't the first time Jonathan Baltuch has owned a travel or cruise company that went out of business without returning deposits to clients. Jonathan Baltuch owned Wine & Food Cruise, a firm that reportedly defrauded clients of millions when it went out of business a few years ago. Numerous reports of the fraud were reported to sites such as rip-off report and by the news.

A new web site disclosing the issues (http://www.ShoesOnlyTravel-SensualSojourns-FoodandWineCruise-TravelFraud.com) and allowing those cheated to communicate, and potentially work together to explore options, including legal action, has been put up. One interested party seemed to think because this was a repeat occurrence of fraud that finding a state or federal attorney general to investigate the parties accused of the fraud could also be a viable option. It does appear that the Baltuchs continued to take payments for the trip long after they knew they were going to cancel it, if they even intended to have it at all.

The Shoes Only Travel website now redirects visitors directly to another travel company, PassionSuiteClub.com. In a significant breach of protocol for travel companies, Shoes Only travel has shared client lists and client email addresses with PassionSuiteClub.com.

Passion Suite Club is owned by Kevin Hodges. In emails to former Shoes Only clients, he writes that he is just trying to help by offering to credit $1000 of the deposits paid to Shoes Only Travel toward the final payments for events sold by his firm. Essentially, he wants more money before any deposit is credited, according to an email Hodges sent out.

It appears that there is some business relationship between the parties, since Shoes Only Travel provided Mr. Hodges with the former client emails of Shoes' and redirected its website to Passion Suite Travel's site. The email that announced Shoes Only Travel was closing referred former clients to Passion Suite Travel for information about pending travel.

The events produced by Shoes Only Travel were also sold through other agents, and it is not clear how many of the clients also paid the additional $2500 second payment for a Shoe's Only Travel event that was due October 1. The event was also remarketed by other travel sites, and was still shown as being available on November 3, 2014.

The Who Is filings show that Shoes Only Travel website is owned by Jonathan Baltuch, 2960 Pharr Ct S, Atlanta, GA, 30305. The phone number is 404-668-0278. A non-working email is listed, [email protected]. The ownership information for Passion Suite Club.com is Kevin Hodges, 139 Moose Club Park Rd, Goffstown, New Hampshire, 03045, with a phone number 603-660-2104, and an email address of [email protected]. The Who is information for finefoodandwinecruise.com shows owner Lori Baltuch at the Pharr street address.

The record for Keven Hodge's domain was updated last on Nov 2, 2014, the same date clients were notified that Shoes Only had gone out of business. Kevin Hodges also owns the domains SuiteLifeClub.com, and TheSuiteLifeClub.com, according to Who is filings, though they are inactive. It appears that the owners of Passion Suite Club and Shoes Only Travel were apparently busy in the past few days, as they decided how to notify clients and co-operate on sharing client information.

The Baltuchs advertised Sensual Sojourns as a new subsidiary of Shoes Only Travel a few months ago. Its web site is still active and offers travel and events. It looks like the old owners of Shoes Only Travel have moved on and resumed operations under a new name.

Links to information used in this release:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/shoes-only-travel/atlanta-georgia-/shoes-only-travel-beware-of-their-business-practices-atlanta-georgia-992310
http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/fine-food-and-wine-cruises/atlanta-georgia-30305/fine-food-and-wine-cruises-out-right-theft-atlanta-georgia-998126
http://allthingscruise.com/forums/topic/finefoodandwinecruise-com-took-deposits-cancelled-cruise-and-wont-return-money/
http://www.private-complaints.com/item/cruise-cancelled-deposit-not-returned-finefoodandwinecruisecom-i1303935.html
http://www.katu.com/news/problemsolver/Couple-expected-Mediterranean-dream-cruise-not-losing-6000-188154581.html

Made in Fort Worth is a web development company in Fort Worth, TX. It helped to create http://www.ShoesOnlyTravel-SensualSojourns-FoodandWineCruise-TravelFraud.com.

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