Correction: This story has been updated to accurately reflect the location of Nags Head, North Carolina.

Better Business Bureau offices in Springfield and St. Louis issued a warning to the public Monday advising consumers to watch out when working with a company owned by Springfield-area businessman Travis Dibben.

According to a statement by the bureau, Escape Resolutions — one of several entities Dibben owns — has been subject to 32 Better Business Bureau complaints by members of the public based in 20 states, many of them coming since February.

The Bureau has rated Escape Resolutions with an "F," the lowest possible rating, the statement said.

In separate interviews Monday, Escape Resolutions clients in Florida, Illinois and Ohio told the News-Leader that they attended seminar-style meetings held by Escape Resolutions officials and signed contracts on the spot, paying Dibben's company thousands of dollars to help extract them from long-term vacation timeshare agreements requiring annual maintenance fees.

Echoing the multiple anonymous complaints recounted in the BBB warning, the clients said the contracts they signed stated that Dibben's company would absolve them of timeshare obligations within 12 months or they would receive a 100 percent refund.

But, the clients said, Escape Resolutions never followed through during the promised time frame — nor has it refunded their money.

Timeshares are real-estate arrangements in which several joint owners pay for the right to use a property as a vacation home. The owners split the time they spend at the home, thus the properties are called "timeshares."

The News-Leader reached Dibben on Monday afternoon and asked why Escape Resolutions had prompted the Better Business Bureau complaints and whether he planned to issue refunds to clients who had not seen their timeshares liquidated as promised.

"We're not playing your game either, buddy," Dibben told a News-Leader reporter, then hung up.

Sheila Daugherty of Kettering, Ohio told the News-Leader Monday that on Sept. 16, 2016, she and her husband, Paul, paid Escape Resolutions $3,650 — the equivalent of about five years' worth of timeshare maintenance fees — to unload their Ormond Beach, Florida timeshare.

"We checked it out," Sheila Daugherty told the News-Leader. "It seemed like it was pretty on the up-and-up, and there were people who had received good service, and (at that time) the Better Business Bureau was okay with them."

Escape Resolutions officials still have not extricated the Daughertys from their timeshare, she said.

"They said ours would be pretty much a piece of cake because (the timeshare mortgage) was already paid off," Daugherty said, "and we would have it taken care of before Christmas."

Christmas came and went, she said.

Daugherty said she and her husband have contacted Dibben's company "frequently."

"They say 'we're working on it, it's going to be closing,' and that's been since December a year ago," Daugherty said.

The Daughertys have requested a refund, she said, to no avail.

"'It's too far in the process, they've said,'" Daugherty told the News-Leader.

She last spoke to Escape Resolutions about 10 days ago, she said. She was to get another call back by the end of this month, which she hasn't received.

She said she plans to contact the office of Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley.

The News-Leader reached out to Hawley's office requesting information on any complaints about Escape Resolution received by the attorney general and asking whether the company was under investigation.

The newspaper has not yet received a response.

The News-Leader also interviewed Betty Abshire of Newport Richey, Florida. On July 18, 2016, she said she paid Dibben's company $3,900 in a bid to get out of her obligations on a Nags Head, North Carolina timeshare, which she had not used in 10 years.

The Escape Resolutions officials whom she met at the seminar meeting where she signed a contract "seemed very positive with their success," Abshire said.

Like the Daughertys, Abshire said she was told that because she had paid off her timeshare's mortgage, she could expect Escape Resolutions to close the deal by the end of 2016, which would mean that she'd avoid 2017 maintenance fees on the timeshare.

During last summer and fall, she received no progress updates from Dibben or his employees, Abshire said. She called Escape Resolutions in November of last year.

"At that point, I did talk with Travis," she said. "It went so-so. He said the file was looking great and it was in the closing department."

Someone might call her from the closing department, Abshire said she was told.

She did get a call, she said, and the caller asked her how old she was, whether she had issues with her health or finances and whether she had physical impairments that affected her mobility.

"Most of the conversations were testy from that point on," Abshire told the News-Leader.

Abshire described the same cycle of communication with Dibben and his company as her counterparts in Illinois and Ohio reported.

She called Escape Resolutions on its toll-free number and on its Springfield-based local number. She said it was difficult to get through.

Beginning in September, Abshire said Escape Resolutions answered with a recording indicating that the voicemail box was not set up, so she couldn't leave a message.

A staffer once contacted Abshire using a mobile phone, which Abshire captured on her caller ID.

But even that route of communication was spotty at best.

"(The staffer) swore on a stack of Bibles that she would get back to me in a week's time, and it did not happen," Abshire said.

Abshire told the News-Leader that Dibben called her Monday afternoon, in between interviews with the newspaper.

Dibben, she said, did not offer Abshire her $3,900 back, but offered to pay maintenance fees on her timeshare.

"They're a horrible company," Abshire said.

Sue and Allen Roberts in Vernon Hills, Illinois told the News-Leader that they paid Escape Resolutions $5,000 upon signing a contract with the company in April 2016.

"Escape Resolutions came into our life because we hadn't been using our timeshare," Allen Roberts said, referring to a vacation home near Orlando, Florida.

"We're in our 70s," Allen Roberts said, "and we didn't want to keep paying assessment and maintenance fees."

Six months later, the Robertses said Escape Resolutions contacted them again, wanting an additional $1,000 for closing costs.

"We've never closed," Sue Roberts told the News-Leader, nor have they received a refund.

She said that she and her husband have attempted to make contact with Escape Resolutions 12 to 18 times since they paid the additional money.

Sue Roberts said she reached Dibben once, who gave her a fax number where she could send some documentation that was supposed to help her case.

The fax number didn't work, she said. Roberts said she then sent text messages for three days asking Dibben for a functioning fax number, receiving no reply.

Sue Roberts said she finally heard from Dibben's company after she and her husband served Dibben with a summons to small claims court on Oct. 24.

"We had a little verbal altercation on the phone," Sue Roberts told the News-Leader. "They said, 'you violated the contract.'"

Sue Roberts said she replied, "We haven't violated the contract, we've done anything you asked us to do."

The Robertses have a date with Dibben in a Lake County, Illinois courtroom Nov. 30, online records show.

That's not the only legal trouble Dibben faces.

Online court records show that Dibben is currently being personally sued by Springfield Central Systems, Inc., an installer of lavish home-cinema setups. The case was filed Oct. 25.

The News-Leader asked Springfield Central Systems owner Larry Batson if Dibben had ordered home cinema equipment that he failed to pay for later.

"That's pretty much the gist," Batson said. Batson declined to comment further, citing pending litigation.

As of Monday afternoon, online court records indicate that Dibben personally owes unpaid Missouri taxes in excess of $50,000.

The records detail two tax liens entered against Dibben by the Missouri Department of Revenue. Records for both liens list dates of satisfaction as "not yet on file."

On Aug. 4, the department entered a lien against Dibben in the amount of $42,400. The records also show that on March 25, 2016, the department of revenue entered a lien against Dibben for $8,507.

Prior to operating Escape Resolutions, Dibben had plans to open a downtown Springfield comedy club in the space that was later occupied by Calgaro's Pizza and The Well church.

Travis Dibben received about half of a $95,000 city economic-development loan to help establish the comedy club. Then he was accused and convicted of selling cocaine to an undercover officer on March 3, 2010.

Dibben was sentenced to 120 days in jail followed by five years of probation as part of a plea agreement with Greene County prosecutors, the News-Leader reported on May 11, 2013.

In the wake of that case, the city increased its scrutiny of small business loan applicants.

After Dibben hung up on the News-Leader, his associate Keli Keeler contacted the newspaper.

She is listed as director of operations for The Dibben Organization on a LinkedIn page.

She said that the allegations made by the Better Business Bureau and the Escape Resolutions clients interviewed by the News-Leader were "not true."

"We don't take people's money and do nothing," Keeler said.

She said Escape Resolutions has been in contact with its attorneys regarding the Better Business Bureau's warning, but declined to elaborate on what they planned to ask the attorneys to do.

"We've been bounced around three different offices: Springfield, St. Louis and Atlanta," Keeler said, referring to the Better Business Bureau.

Keeler said that Escape Resolutions had replaced its phone system "about a month ago" and that its voicemail wasn't working.

She declined to say whether Escape Resolutions planned to issue refunds, nor would she comment on Dibben's pending litigation.

Escape Resolutions clients told the News-Leader that they hoped the Better Business Bureau warning would prompt increased awareness about the company.

"We would like people to be forewarned so that they don't make the same mistake that we did," said Sue Roberts, the client from Illinois.

As of Monday afternoon, the website of Escape Resolutions was functioning, telling potential customers, "there are many scams happening in the timeshare, vacation ownership industry. It's hard to tell who's trying to help you and who's just trying to get into your pocket. Escape Resolutions helps people avoid being scammed and will help those who have already been scammed recover their money."

The site also states, "We have a 100-percent success rate and a 100-percent money back guarantee."

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