| High-pressure sales tactics… …from the moment you enter what you hope will be your dream vacation. It doesn’t matter which timeshare company. They seem to ALL send their sales vultures to the same unscrupulous training school. Here are just some of the recent stories we have received… “I bought a voucher for a raintree resort for not much money during Covid that could be used in the next 2 years to allow the hurting hotel industry make money. The sales representatives used this to sell me a “vacation club membership” stating that website members will have access to is a group of hotels and resorts selling weeks at very steep discounts to recover from Covid damaging their income….“pay an upfront cost and get a 100 weeks at these great savings!” I paid $10,000 to buy into this club. The contract has a 5 day rescind period but doesn’t give you access to the website for 7-10 days!! Once I had access the hotels and resorts are the same price or MORE expensive than when I Google the hotel and could buy like the general public!! I just paid $10,000 for a total scam. Tried to dispute with my credit card and that didn’t work so I’ll try BBB and emailing the CEO.” – Erin Let us know what they say, Erin!! “So about five years ago I took a small trip down to Galveston Texas and rented a room at a Holiday Inn and next thing I know I’m in the sales thing and they taught up all these good good things that they can show me all the resorts and everything and I listened and told him I wasn’t interested. Then they said well what are you do when your vacation I said I go to Florida for two weeks I’d like to be right on the beach and they said well we have resorts that can accommodate you there and I said show me and they said well I don’t have a book for them now but there’s one in Pensacola and then we have Orlando Cape Canaveral and various other places so needless to say after a two hour sales pitch they looped me in with a small fee which was fine I used the points they gave me the following year but then everything went up and then when I went to use my points I had to listen to another two hour sales seminar and they wanted to shelf sell me more shares and I kept telling him no no I can’t do it I can’t do it I can’t do it because I’m getting older you know I’m not want to put out all this money. Three hours later I end up signing something now this is 2 1/2 years ago and I told him that I don’t think I’ll be able to do this and he said well if you can just call me and we can buy back your shares well about seven months ago or eight months ago I called to see cause I just don’t want to throw this money away anymore they don’t have the resorts where I wanna go so I’m not using it and they said oh no we will never buy back your shares so that they lied about. So I would like to get out of the timeshare that I’m in… it’s costing me $525 a month and then I think my yearly maintenance is $960 and I haven’t used anything since two years ago when I went to cape Canaveral and I wasn’t pleased with the facility” – Patty “I can tell a horror story about Wyndham resorts also. We are here in Pigeon Forge as I write. Have been in this scam since mid-nineties. Have all points I can use or ever want. Could have bought a Condo on beach with money I have invested. There have been good times on vacations, but dealing with high pressure sells folk, can definitely spoil the entire vacations. We check in Sun. The lady at check in was wonderful, and very accommodating. Then they won’t give you your keys until you cross over to next guy to get bracelet to get in your room. He was very nice also, no pressure from him. I told him I did not do meetings with sales Reps anymore. He gave me my bracelets and I was on my way out when this blonde lady intervened to try and pressure me. I had to do an update since there had been changes. I told her absolutely no. I do my update online and pay the very high maintain fee on my account monthly. She was mad, but I did not care. I had it placed on my account at corporate office that I would not deal with these agents anymore, but that doesn’t work out either. Just think you can buy a beach condo with what you invest in a time share program. We have had some good vacations when kids were at home, but now it is just me and my husband. Please leave us alone and let us enjoy what we have.” – Virginia “We were trapped there for 9 and a half hours. I had a 5 year old and year old with me. I was on crutches. Every time we tried to leave they would say, well there’s another video or we bill you $2000 for the whole weekend. So it was stay or be billed outrageous prices for what was supposed to be a $199 stay. When it got dark and we tried to leave they said we had to stay to see the rest of it tomorrow. It was a nightmare. And on top of that, we haven’t been able to book anything using the club in the 6 years we’ve been trying to either use it or get out of it. At first we were paying for it and trying to book vacations, but there were restrictions blackout and fees on top of what we were already paying that would have made it cheaper to book without having the timeshare. Our credit is ruined…This has quite literally ruined our lives and we have no hope of ever being out from under it. The whole damn thing should be illegal. Holiday inn club vacations is a wretched scam.” -MP We hear these high-pressure sales stories about almost every timeshare company. The American Resort Development Association (ARDA) represents timeshare companies in Washington, DC. Jason Gamel is the President and CEO of ARDA. Maybe he should hear how these sales tactics impact the lives of real people, not just the bottom line of timeshare companies. Let’s email him at jgamel@arda.org. Or… here is a list ARDA published of its VIPs across all its member companies. Maybe you can find your timeshare company executive and share your story with them too! Tell us your timeshare horror story, too. Send it to us at info@timesharefacts.com. PS: Follow us on social media. Twitter Facebook Instagram |
