| Creativity is usually a good thing. But maybe not so much when it comes to dealing with debt. That’s where the term creative financing should set off some alarms. We heard the five-alarm fire kind of alarms blaring as we leafed our way through the 1,648 pages of complaints about Wyndham Destinations on file with the Florida Attorney General’s office. That’s because Wyndham really gets creative when it wants customers to take on more debt to finance upgrades. It’s debt their customers can’t always afford. Like Christopher and Annemarie from Kennesaw, Georgia. They wrote to the Florida Attorney General with this story: “Over the last eleven (11) years as Wyndham timeshare owners, we have made several upgrades to our ownership all of which were as a result of coercion, manipulation and high pressure by Wyndham timeshare salespeople.” “In eleven years, we went from a 120-month payment contract of paying $365.48 per month in 2007, and four upgrades/purchases later, to a current new 120 month contract of paying $2045.31 per month.” “In ALL cases we have reasons to believe we were intentionally deceived and manipulated to making new upgrades through purchasing of new contracts.” So how did it come to this? Sounds like it started at the beginning of each timeshare stay… “Every time we check in at each resort for some well needed relaxation, we were harassed with persistence and vigor by Wyndham salespeople to attend a member update meeting…These updates have also destroyed many short weekend getaways as a result of long meetings pressuring us to purchase new contracts.” Turns out, Wyndham had all sorts of ways for the couple to finance all their upgrades. Like using a new Wyndham credit card to make a down payment! Christopher and Annemarie’s salesman “…told us we were losing out on the benefits of double points for purchases available only with the newest Wyndham credit card, saying that, ‘we had the old Wyndham credit card which did not offer double points on purchases.’”. “If we spend money on the new credit card, we would not have to pay our fees. We were shown calculations where we would only need to spend $7,0000.00 per month in household expenses on the new credit card and redeem the points at the end of each month that worth approximately $500.00 in cash to offset the additional costs ($500.00) for purchasing an upgraded contract.” That means charging $84,000 a year – just to cover the increased fees! One credit card wasn’t enough. Wyndham signed the couple up for more. “Over the years with each new purchase, we have incurred new debts with the down payments being placed on an entirely new credit card…With their urging we opened a RCI Mastercard and Wyndham credit cards (two each) all having over 20% interest rates that has brought negative impacts to our credit scores as a result of these lies.” But credit cards have their limits. So, Wyndham came up with yet another way for Christopher and Annamarie to finance an upgrade: “We were denied our first attempt for approval of the Wyndham credit card and instead, they opened a PayPal account to put the down payment for one purchase with interest free money for my down payment which has a 19.99% interest rate after 6 months. If the balance isn’t paid in full you end up paying the back interest.” As Christopher and Annemarie discovered, all of Wyndham’s creativity comes with a price: “Every time we made a trade for a new purchase the term resets to 120 months. This impacts us owners by having to reset the interest to the front of the loans. We end up paying all of that interest all over again. With 120 months not paid off early we end up paying 2-3 times the purchase price. None of this is ever explained.” “Now we are stuck with the additional contract, with higher monthly obligations we cannot afford.” “The constant lies and deception by the Wyndham sales personnel and their managers is overwhelming…” Overwhelming…and outrageous! If you think Wyndham has gotten a bit too creative in its approach to financing upgrades, let Mike Brown know. He’s the CEO of Travel and Leisure, which owns Wyndham. His email is Michael.Brown@travelandleisure.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 |
