Dear Harry: Back in April, my wife and I attended a meeting of a "travel club." Afterward, we received a card for a three-day, two-night trip to anywhere in the United States. In order to "validate" the trip, we had to send a $100 money order (no checks accepted) to the club's main office in Florida. A few weeks later, we got a "registration card" for free, round-trip airline tickets that we had to mail to another company. This company sent us a vacation-planning form that we were supposed to send back with another $50 deposit in the form of a money order. Needless to say, this was getting to be frustrating, so we decided to cancel. On the bottom of their form was a space to sign to request a refund. We did this in early June. After nothing happened for two weeks, we called on the telephone to inquire about the refund. They told us that it takes four to six weeks to process a refund. We have called at least a dozen times since, and got an answering machine every time and no return calls. What can we do?

What Harry says: I have bad vibes here. This sounds like a frequent type of scam in which you are promised something that looks free except for a small shipping or service charge. In your case they tried to get you twice with the second deposit. I don't hold out much hope, but you can try the Federal Trade Commission's hot line at 877-FTC-HELP. Please, dear readers, remember that these "free seminars" are frequently avenues for scams. I urge you all to be extremely wary of all of them.