In a famous scene from the 1942 classic movie “Casablanca”, the corrupt police captain Louis Renault asks Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine why he came to Morocco.
Rick replies, “My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.”
Louis responds, “What waters? We’re in the desert!”
Rick tells him, “I was misinformed.”
Capital Vacations didn’t exist in 1942, but we think they would have felt right at home in Casablanca.
So apparently does Douglas, a Capital Vacations owner. We found his complaint against the company among the hundreds on file with the Better Business Bureau. He describes how he was misled by Capital Vacations sales representatives during their sales presentation.
“We have outlined here some of the items that during these meetings where we were misinformed by Capital employees…”
“Misinformed.” That’s a polite word for it.
“…to include that upgrading to the Platinum level would allow us to walk away from the timeshare contract at any timewithout further maintenance fees or payments.”
“This provision was a significant factor in our decision to upgrade, as we did not require additional points. However, upon further investigation, we discovered that this walk-away policy does not exist.”
Kind of like how Rick found out that Casablanca wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
And the deceptions at Capital Vacations were as plentiful as sand in the Sahara.
“We were told that by upgrading to Capital Plus, our children would receive an inheritance of $175,000 if they chose not to continue with the timeshare contract. This claim was reiterated multiple times during the meeting and was a SIGNIFICANT FACTOR in our decision to upgrade.”
“However, upon further investigation, we discovered that this provision was not included in the contract. This misinformation led us to make an unnecessary and costly upgrade.”
Now might be a good time to mention that Capital Vacations is a member of the American Resort Development Association (ARDA), the trade group for timeshare companies.
As an ARDA member, Capital Vacations is supposed to follow ARDA’s Code of Ethics, which says this about sales pitches: “Verbal representations should be consistent with information contained in sales documents, contracts and written disclosures.”
According to Douglas, Capital Vacations is more interested in unethical consistency.
“We have been swindled out of a lot of money, been consistently lied to and cheated throughout our ownership process with Capital Vacations.”
Unfortunately, ARDA’s Ethics Committee seems to have taken a page out of corrupt Captain Renault’s book when it comes to policing members like Capital Vacations.
ARDA mandates that all the members of the committee be representatives of the very timeshare companies they are supposed to be monitoring!
And we don’t think ARDA’s Resort Owners Coalition, which claims to represent the interests of timeshare owners like Douglas, is going to be much help. Travis Bary, the co-president of Capital Vacations, and Ken McKelvey, an executive consultant to Capital Vacations, are both on its board of directors.
Seems unlikely that they will be rounding up even the usual suspects any time soon.
Let’s dare Travis Bary and Ken McKelvey to prove us wrong. Email them at tbary@capitalvacations.com and klm@capitalvacations.com to see if they are taking any steps against employees who “misinform” customers.
Jason Gamel, the President and CEO of ARDA, is also a member of ARDA’s Ethics Committee. We’re sure he has a beautiful relationship with Capital Vacations. Let’s email him at jgamel@arda.org anyway to find out how he’s policing Capital Vacations.
Observed any ethics violations at your own timeshare company as time’s gone by? Use the contact information in this list of ARDA VIPs to let your company’s leaders know you’re watching.
Finally, you must remember this, if you’ve been misinformed by your timeshare company, share your experience with us at info@timesharefacts.com.
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