Feb
15
2011
On 18 Aug 2007 my wife and I went to a Wyndham sales office in San Antonio to sit in on a time share sales presentation in exchange for some incentives. During the presentation we spoke with Nicholas Peterson and we decided that timeshare ownership wasn’t for us. However his bosses were very persistent in selling us a timeshare plan. We eventually bought a biennial contract with the understanding that the timeshare would appreciate in value. It wasn’t until later in that we discovered this was a lie and what we bought was almost useless. On May 14th of 2008, my wife and I attended a dinner party hosted by Wyndham Vacation Resorts at the Sheraton Gunther hotel in business district San Antonio. After dinner everyone was split off into couples so that Wyndham could provide us with updates to our ownership. We were introduced to Mr. Michael Suarez who we were told would be our executive to help with any questions regarding our ownership and update us on new programs for Wyndham owners. Mr. Suarez was not introduced as a salesman; it wasn’t until later that we discovered that the dinner party was nothing more than a sales pitch put on by Wyndham to lure people into buying more points in their program. During the “OWNERSHIP UPDATE” Mr. Suarez told us that we did not have enough points to use our timeshare as we had previously bought a biennial contract with Wyndham. From our original purchase we understood that our biennial contract would allow us to have a certain number of points with Wyndham to use over the course of two years. But according to Mr. Suarez, by not having enough points we were ineligible for many of the benefits within Wyndham like Wyndham’s Extra Holidays rental income program. He made it sound like we had been sold an inferior package the first time and he wanted to help us get superior value from our ownership. Mr. Suarez promised us that he would personally help us rent our points. He boasted about how he had rented some of his points which covered the expenses he incurred when purchasing some new home entertainment equipment amounting to over $2000. Mr. Suarez explained that if we bought additional points to reach the next level of ownership and by using Extra Holidays that we could actually (with his assistance) have the program cover our monthly maintenance fees of $73.71 and repay the $15, 600 for this second purchase. Mr. Suarez wrote all this out on paper and explained it in great detail and provided us with his personal cell phone number to reach him at anytime and he would reply any questions we had. By the time he had us sign the contract it was after midnight, we were totally exhausted and just ready to leave. At the time of signing the contract Mr. Suarez and his notary told us that we needed to back date and sign the document otherwise we couldn’t buy into the next level of ownership. This created what we later realized was a false sense of urgency - there really was no reason to hurry us up. However, having been given what seemed like a reasonable explanation at the time, we back dated the document and left. Looking back on all this, the explanation was dubious at best, we feel like this was just another reason to hurry us up so they could get us to sign the contract. Future attempts at calling Mr. Suarez were of little help and the Wyndham Extra Holidays rental income program did not cover any of the costs as promised. If Mr. Suarez had not intentionally lied to us and purposely misled us, we would not have purchased anything that night. Instead we remember Mr. Suarez making the purchase of the additional points sound like a ‘no brainer’ being that it would pay for itself, PLUS we could eventually make some cash with our ownership like Mr. Suarez claimed to have done. On May 31, 2009, my wife and I were staying at the Wyndham La Cascada resort. While staying there we had some questions about our now $28, 198 timeshare and how we could more effectively use what we had already bought. We made an appointment with Wyndham’s member services to go over our membership. At our appointed time we went down to member services desk and were introduced to Mr. Abel Michael Rosenberg who, after he specifically and intentionally misrepresented to us that he was not a salesman, told us that we should have been contacted about the new Wyndham programs and that we were missing out on financial benefits that were currently being enjoyed by other timeshare owners who had been notified. He said that he could not understand WHY we had not been notified but that he would now go over everything with us and try to get us to a point where we could use our timeshare more effectively. He said that we needed to be at the gold level of 500, 000 points to take full benefit of the program. He explained what we would need to do to get there and he would help us with any questions that we might have in using any of the Wyndham programs, l
Feb
05
2011
Wyndham Resorts Vacation/Ownership – deception to sign legal contracts
On 18 Aug 2007 my wife and I went to a Wyndham sales office in San Antonio to sit in on a time share sales presentation in exchange for some incentives. During the presentation we spoke with Nicholas Peterson and we decided that timeshare ownership wasn’t for us. However his bosses were very persistent in selling us a timeshare plan. We eventually bought a biennial contract with the understanding that the timeshare would appreciate in value. It wasn’t until later in that we discovered this was a lie and what we bought was almost useless. On May 14th of 2008, my wife and I attended a dinner party hosted by Wyndham Vacation Resorts at the Sheraton Gunther hotel in business district San Antonio. After dinner everyone was split off into couples so that Wyndham could provide us with updates to our ownership. We were introduced to Mr. Michael Suarez who we were told would be our executive to help with any questions regarding our ownership and update us on new programs for Wyndham owners. Mr. Suarez was not introduced as a salesman; it wasn’t until later that we discovered that the dinner party was nothing more than a sales pitch put on by Wyndham to lure people into buying more points in their program. During the “OWNERSHIP UPDATE” Mr. Suarez told us that we did not have enough points to use our timeshare as we had previously bought a biennial contract with Wyndham. From our original purchase we understood that our biennial contract would allow us to have a certain number of points with Wyndham to use over the course of two years. But according to Mr. Suarez, by not having enough points we were ineligible for many of the benefits within Wyndham like Wyndham’s Extra Holidays rental income program. He made it sound like we had been sold an inferior package the first time and he wanted to help us get superior value from our ownership. Mr. Suarez promised us that he would personally help us rent our points. He boasted about how he had rented some of his points which covered the expenses he incurred when purchasing some new home entertainment equipment amounting to over $2000. Mr. Suarez explained that if we bought additional points to reach the next level of ownership and by using Extra Holidays that we could actually (with his assistance) have the program cover our monthly maintenance fees of $73.71 and repay the $15, 600 for this second purchase. Mr. Suarez wrote all this out on paper and explained it in great detail and provided us with his personal cell phone number to reach him at anytime and he would reply any questions we had. By the time he had us sign the contract it was after midnight, we were totally exhausted and just ready to leave. At the time of signing the contract Mr. Suarez and his notary told us that we needed to back date and sign the document otherwise we couldn’t buy into the next level of ownership. This created what we later realized was a false sense of urgency - there really was no reason to hurry us up. However, having been given what seemed like a reasonable explanation at the time, we back dated the document and left. Looking back on all this, the explanation was dubious at best, we feel like this was just another reason to hurry us up so they could get us to sign the contract. Future attempts at calling Mr. Suarez were of little help and the Wyndham Extra Holidays rental income program did not cover any of the costs as promised. If Mr. Suarez had not intentionally lied to us and purposely misled us, we would not have purchased anything that night. Instead we remember Mr. Suarez making the purchase of the additional points sound like a ‘no brainer’ being that it would pay for itself, PLUS we could eventually make some cash with our ownership like Mr. Suarez claimed to have done. On May 31, 2009, my wife and I were staying at the Wyndham La Cascada resort. While staying there we had some questions about our now $28, 198 timeshare and how we could more effectively use what we had already bought. We made an appointment with Wyndham’s member services to go over our membership. At our appointed time we went down to member services desk and were introduced to Mr. Abel Michael Rosenberg who, after he specifically and intentionally misrepresented to us that he was not a salesman, told us that we should have been contacted about the new Wyndham programs and that we were missing out on financial benefits that were currently being enjoyed by other timeshare owners who had been notified. He said that he could not understand WHY we had not been notified but that he would now go over everything with us and try to get us to a point where we could use our timeshare more effectively. He said that we needed to be at the gold level of 500, 000 points to take full benefit of the program. He explained what we would need to do to get there and he would help us with any questions that we might have in using any of the Wyndham programs,