| You really have to hand it to Westgate – they can be pretty clever. Spend some time looking over the 4256 pages of complaints against Westgate in the Florida Attorney General’s office and you begin to see how they cover ALL the angles… …so they get you coming AND going. Yes, there are the high pressure sales tactics to get you into a timeshare… …but what about when you want to get out? Westgate has THAT covered too. Charles and Carolyn from Saline, Michigan encountered Westgate’s cleverness the hard way when they wanted to sell their Florida timeshare near Disney World, so they wrote to the Attorney General to share their story. Their Westgate experience had a promising start. They “accepted a Westgate Villa’s promotional offer to spend 4 days/3 nights at the Westgate Villa, which included 2 free tickets to Disney. This promotional offer also required attendance at a Westgate Villa sales meeting so they could tell us about all the wonderful things they had to offer.” “We were shown a few very nice, new units and were told that our unit would be just like these.” That was the promise, anyway. So, Charles and Carolyn bought a timeshare. But when they showed up for their first stay, this is what they got: “The week we used our timeshare we were given an old dirty, moldy room that was located at the entrance of the property.” The opposite of promising! “This ordeal left a very bad impression on us as a first-time user. We decided that we did not want to continue our association with the property.” That’s when Charles and Carolyn found out just how clever Westgate can be. “We were told at the sales meeting that we would be able to sell our timeshare in the future if it was determined that we no longer had use of it.” But then… “We contacted Westgate Villa and told them that we no longer were interested in keeping the timeshare and would like to sell it. We were told that Westgate does not resell units that we would need to do that on our own”. “We were then forwarded to a company who lists timeshares for sale on their website…this was another scam Westgate was running.” “After speaking with this agent and he guaranteed our unit would be listed on their site at a fair market price for 1-year. He said that the normal turn around would be 30-45 days but if the unit didn’t sell within that year, they would advertise it for an additional year free. This was an $1800 out of pocket expense.” Carolyn and Charles told the Florida Attorney General, “…our timeshare property will not sell because the market is saturated with unwanted timeshares…we own it and we will never be able to get rid of it, we will always have rising maintenance fees, association fees, etc., and it will be passed on to our children even though they never signed anything. And there it is: the Westgate angle… …a promise that you can sell your timeshare… …a referral to someone who says they can sell it for you… …and when they can’t, you’re still on the hook for all the fees. Now THAT’S clever…too clever by half, perhaps. Don’t like the way Westgate gets customers coming and going? Let Westgate CEO David Siegel know at david_siegel@wgresorts.com. The American Resort Development Association (ARDA) represents timeshare companies in Washington, DC. Jason Gamel is the President and CEO of ARDA. Let’s let him know that overly creative financing is a bad look for the industry. You can email him at jgamel@arda.org. Or… if you’ve heard the “good investment” sales pitch from another timeshare company, and want to let their top brass know, here is a list ARDA published of its VIPs across all its member companies. Maybe you can find your timeshare company executive and tell them about the consequences of deceitful sales practices. And if your timeshare company won’t keep its promises, you can always let us know at info@timesharefacts.com. PS: Follow us on social media. Twitter Facebook Instagram Tell us your timeshare horror story, too. Send it to us at info@timesharefacts.com. PS: Follow us on social media. Twitter Facebook Instagram |
