| You might be surprised to hear it from us, but not all timeshare companies are bad. How do we know? Because we’ve come across plenty of examples of owners who INITIALLY didn’t have any complaints about their timeshares BUT THINGS CHANGED WHEN a company like Diamond Resorts took over… and started doing things differently. There are lots of stories about the CHANGES ONCE Diamond TOOK OVER among the 2,170 pages of complaints against Diamond in the Florida Attorney General’s office. As you might expect, they’re not good. One comes from Michael and Dora of Riverview, Florida. They had been satisfied owners at the Liki Tiki Village Resort in Kissimmee, Florida since 2005 while it was managed by Club Navigo. But after Diamond bought Liki Tiki, Michael and Dora discovered the company had a distinctively different take on what constitutes an “upgrade” for its timeshare owners. We’ll let them take it from here. “In July of 2015, we visited Liki Tiki and attended an owners update; there we learned that Diamond Resorts had bought Liki Tiki and was told that Diamond was a much more superior product. We were told as per protocol that we were required to Upgrade into the Diamond Program.” Required. That’s different already. “After signing the contract and putting down a large down payment and applying for a credit card, we became temporary ‘Silver’ owners.” “As a result we received a trip to anyplace we wanted to go.” “When we arrived in Hawaii, we were told that we were required to attend another Owners Update in order to receive the vacation incentives.” So soon after upgrading? What’s up with that? “They again talked us into upgrading to ‘Gold’ level and our ‘Silver’ would be replaced with a Hawaii Collection. Again we signed another contract along with another huge down payment.” Oh, now we get it. But this time Michael and Dora’s upgrade came with a twist. “We thought we made the right decision and done well until we received request for payments for Both the Silver and Gold memberships to include Two separate maintenance fees.” Ummm…that’s not how an upgrade works as the rest of the world understands the meaning of “upgrade.” “We called the Las Vegas office for an explanation and were told there was nothing we could do, that we did not upgrade (as we were under the impression) rather we bought a separate week and due to some date had already expired we could not change anything,” “We have a bill now for two separate properties, when we were told it was only one property...” Talking owners into an “upgrade” that’s really just another purchase? Now that IS different – and soooo Diamond. What makes Diamond behave so differently from a good timeshare company? Let’s ask Mark Wang. He’s the CEO of Hilton Grand Vacations, which purchased Diamond Resorts in 2021. Mark’s email is mark.wang@hgv.com. And let’s see what Jason Gamel thinks of the Diamond difference. He’s the President and CEO of the American Resort Development Association (ARDA), the national trade association of the timeshare industry. Diamond is one of ARDA’s most important members. Jason’s email is jgamel@arda.org. Is Diamond’s idea of an upgrade the same as your timeshare company’s? Use this list of ARDA VIPs to contact its leaders and find out Does your timeshare company do things as differently as Diamond (and not in a good way)? Tell us how bad it is by emailing info@timesharefacts.com. |
