| diamond resorts international |
| Diamond Resorts International Sunterra Corporation High Pressure Sales Practices and Misrepresentation Las Vegas, Nevada |
| 25th of Jun, 2011 by User263752 |
Warning to all consumers!
The timeshare industry is full of fraud, scams, deceitful/high-pressure sales practices, and outright lying. In particular, we want to call your attention to the practices of Diamond Resorts International headquartered in Las Vegas, NM. They are not members of the BBB, but the Southern Nevada BBB shows that they have had 219 complaints in the past 36 months of which 65 were not resolved to the customers satisfaction. On the industry comparison chart they are shown to be number 1 or worst in the industry.
Fifteen of the 65 unresolved issues involve sales issues. After you get the main sales pitch from one of the sales associates who will tell you all kinds of things some true and many false. If you convince that person that you are not going to buy anything, you have to meet with the sales manager who will give you lower or other offers and is harder to convince that you are not interested. Diamond headquarters says that they have written policies that these practices are not tolerated, but they need to get out in the field undercover to see what really is happening instead of saying that there is no evidence of our claims and that
our written contract stands. It is our experience that Consumer Protection Laws of both Missouri and Arizona have been violated numerous times in regards to our timeshare first by Sunterra Corporation and their representatives, and then by Diamond Resorts International when they took over our contract and did not provide us with the choice or opportunity to leave our contract and in fact informed us such action was impossible. The entire mess started in 2000, when we were convinced to buy a timeshare based on the following promises: Hassle-free, inexpensive vacationing at entertaining, high-class resorts; would be able to take vacations at a reduced rate through the points system; would be able to use points to pay for flights, car rentals, and hotels/motels; a variety of locations readily available for owner use; a vacation service that doubles as a real estate property we could sell for an eventual profit; and real estate property taxes that we would be able to write off on our federal tax return. Things went from bad to worse in 2004. We went to an upgrade presentation at the Suites
of Fall Creek, Branson Missouri location on November 22. We went because we were told we needed to attend an owners update meeting for our Sunterra timeshare. This is actually a long-running complaint about our timeshare ownership since we purchased our property in 2000, we have been pressured on almost every vacation to attend a thinly-disguised sales meeting advertised as an owners update or ownership information seminar. The worst offenders are the resorts at The Suites at Fall Creek in Branson, MO and The Summit in Sedona, AZ. This is extremely frustrating, and to be completely honest, this knowledge alone would have prevented the original purchase. If they had told us back in 2000 that almost every single vacation would be interrupted with high-pressure sales from then on out, we would have walked out without a second thought. At the November 24, 2004 high-pressure sales meeting, we were introduced to a Jarry McCoy, who was our sales representative. We were upset with our timeshare and how little value and use it was turning out to be. Jarry McCoy convinced us to upgrade, claiming that we had not initially been sold the correct type of timeshare for what we wanted. He proceeded to make the following claims:
Once we upgraded, we would be able to rent our unit for a profit. With our rental profits, we would be able to pay off our timeshare mortgage in 36 months. We would have the benefit of annual vacations wherever we wanted, and all we would need to worry about were maintenance fees (once we paid our mortgage). The maintenance fees would rise slowly, in pace with inflation (the upgrade fees went from $1,500 to $3,200 in 6 years).
We thought by purchasing the upgrade, we would not only be able to completely pay off our timeshare, we would finally get the travel and vacation benefits that had initially been promised to us easy, hassle-free, inexpensive vacationing on a flexible, owner-friendly schedule. We were lied to, once again. During the upgrade sale, Jarry McCoy stated I guarantee you that you will be making money with your timeshare if you do exactly what I tell you. He gave us a list of 25 locations that had Sunterra resorts that were located close to big events, such as the Daytona 500, Phoenix Open, New Years Eve in Las Vegas, etc. and told us that he would help us get started. We specifically asked him about the clause in our contract that stated the timeshare was not an investment, and Mr. McCoy told us to ignore it. He claimed it was there for legal reasons, to protect the consumer. He told us people regularly purchased timeshares as a real estate investment, and he himself regularly rented his timeshare units out and supplemented his income with the profits. In retrospect, its obvious he had a slick, immediate answer to counter every question or hesitation we brought up at the time, he seemed incredibly helpful and eager to assist us in every respect. We hoped, with Jarry McCoys assistance and the benefits we were promised for upgrading, we would finally get the services we had bought back in 2000. In the four years before and all the years since our upgrade, neither Sunterra or Diamond Resorts International have fulfilled the promises that convinced us to buy in the first place. Many times when trying to schedule, we had to use International Interval and pay the exchange fee out-of-pocket. Some times we were not even able to use International Interval. In other words, we experienced substantial difficulty getting in when and where we wanted. When we did get a reservation and arrived at the resort, we were roped into owners meetings that are represented as mandatory, and are usually pre-scheduled we just arrive and they tell us when and where the meeting is as they hand us our keys. Only after much haggling with the consiere, could we avoid the meeting. This is a huge deterrent to vacationing and a pretty big hassle to deal with when traveling. As for writing off the property on our taxes, we have not found that to be the case. In fact, when we contacted tax professionals about doing so, they could only figure out how to write off some of the mortgage interest, but nothing else. And the points system is a joke based on value per point, its far less expensive to just pay one of many available discounts out of pocket. When we try to redeem our points in any of the ways promised, we have to work within ridiculous restrictions on when and where we can use them. The past three years we have used approximately 80,000 points to pay approximately $3,500 toward about $9,000 in maintenance fees. At the owners update meetings (really high pressure sales meetings), they continually make claims about the various ways we can lower our timeshare costs. They claim owners can refinance through their banks, write off timeshare expenses on their taxes, and rake in rental or sales profits. If year after year of sitting through these mandatory owners update meetings has taught us anything, its that the fraudulent sales claims and deceptive practices are endemic to Diamond Resorts International/Sunterra. The consumer fraud used on us was not an aberration it is obviously a systemic pattern of deception practiced by Diamond Resorts International/Sunterra, and scam artists like Jarry McCoy are encouraged and nourished in the unethical, dishonest business environment cultivated by Diamond Resorts International/Sunterra. After the 2004 upgrade, we quickly discovered we had been lied to again. Jarry McCoy was to be our coach in helping us to rent our time shares. We tried calling him several times the first few days after the sale and left voice mails which he didnt return. When we called the front desk at the Suites at Fall Creek in Banson and demanded to speak to a manager, we were told that Jarry McCoy no longer worked there one week after he signed off on our paperwork. The prices quoted during the upgrade for renting our timeshare have been nowhere near realized. After booking five locations associated with key events in January of 2005, we were only able to rent a one week two bedroom booking at Steam Boat Spings during spring break for only $250 total total not the $250 per night we were quoted. We never had another oportunity to rent our time share even after advertising on Ebay and with severall timeshare rental firms, such as RedWeek. Furthermore, the cost of maintenance fees was seriously misrepresented to us rather than keeping pace with inflation, they have steadily outpaced inflation at 14% per year without any apparent reason. Shortly after our upgrade in 2005, there was a strange closing of the sales office of the Suites at Fall Creek in Branson, Missouri. We later learned this was due to the forthcoming bankruptcy of Sunterra, but at the time this information was not provided to owners such as ourselves. It added to the confusion that some offices (such as those in Missouri) shut down, while others (such as those in Arizona) did not. We even asked a Sunterra/Summit sales person at one of the so-called ownership updates about a sales office closing at the Suites at Fall Creek, and he indicated he was unaware of any other offices closing. Shortly after, Sunterra went bankrupt and sold out to Diamond Resorts International. After Diamond Resorts International took over Sunterra Corporation, we tried to notify them of our long-running complaints in early 2007. We wanted out of the timeshare, and we wanted Diamond Resorts International to release us from the contract they had bought we never agreed or wanted to be Diamond Resorts International owners, and we were not happy about being Sunterra owners. After several e-mails back and forth, the final response from Diamond Resorts
International to our request to void our contract was that Diamond Resorts International was holding us to the original contract with Sunterra Corporation. It seems that a corporation just as crooked and unethical as Sunterra took over our contract. Weve had enough of the games and dishonesty. In January of this year we disputed the right of Diamond Resorts International and the basic validity of this contract, which we believe was sold to us through the violation of consumer protection laws. We have asked for a written cancellation of our timeshare contract and no further claims on moneys due to Diamond Resorts International. We have filled complaints with the Missouri AGs Office and the BBB in both Missouri and Nevada. After pursuing these avenues, Diamond Resorts International still refuses to meet our request. This posting is just the next step. |
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I posted this complaint on 6/26/2011. I am happy to inform you that my wife and I have come to an amicable resolution with DRI. To DRI's credit the resolution was very fair and in the end the company has done the right thing.
Van from Edwardsville, Illinois |
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| I'm glad to here your issue was resolved. Over the weekend my husband and I purchased a 15, 000 point "sampler Package". There was misrepresentation during our sales and after purchasing realized that it was not as it was described to be. I am in the process of disputing the charge with American Express and will also be making complaints with the Federal Trade Commission, Nevada Attorney General and The BBB. Do you have any additional suggestions? |
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