Resort Condominiums International [RCI]
Reviews and Complaints

We were cheated by RCI and Best Western Resort Country Club, Manesar, India and the and have hence filed a complaint (complaint No. 579/2009) in the Consumer Courts, Sheikh Serai. The case is sub-judice. The summary of my complaints is below:

Summary

• We were enticed on 13th Sept’ 2000 into buying a time share with Resort Country Club, Manesar for a “ One Bedroom Apartment”—Red Week ( Priority over White and Blue week ). At least one week of booking with a resort of one’s choice from RCI’s list of almost 4000 International and 70 resorts in India was allowed per year.
• We paid full money of Rs. 76, 600/- on 13th Sept’ 2000 i.e. on day one.
• We were told that we would receive our membership certificate and card within one month and the RCI membership within 6 weeks.
• However we did not receive anything despite reminders. After 5 months in Feb’ 2000 we received our membership certificate which was from the year 2002 to 2032 (alternate 16 years) so that we couldn’t start availing our holiday before 2002. What a joke! We pay in full in the year 2000 with a promise to use our holidays within 2 months but can’t start our holiday before the year 2002!
• We protested and finally in July 2001 i.e. after 10 months RCC apologized by sending a person to our home and rectified the “Agreement” and gave us a new “membership certificate” with amendments to pacify us by making it for 15 consecutive years.
• After constantly prodding RCC we got out RCI membership too (which was RCC’s job) in late July 2001 i.e. 10 months (i.e. almost 44 weeks against the promise of 6 weeks) from our date of paying.
• The RCC membership card was not received by us even until Jan’2002 i.e. 16 months later (see our letter dated 28th Jan 2002 to RCC)
• We could not avail our holidays for the years 2000 and 2001. This was despite the promise of at least 3weeks—one welcome week, one ownership week each for the years 2000 and 2001. We got none. Thanks to the slip shoddy job by RCC
• The only satisfying holiday that we ever got thru RCI was at Toshali Resorts, Shillon Bagh, Shimla in the year 2003. We tried Toshali again in the year 2005 (which we could not avail) and in 2006( the bitter experiences of which are narrated in out letter to RCI)
• In the years 2003 and 2005, we were given “Studio Apartment” by RCI at Bhimtal and Toshali respectively despite our higher entitlement of “One Bedroom Aptt.). This was despite the fact that both resorts had surplus “One Bedroom” accommodation available. There has been an attitude of denial throughout by RCI
• Most of the times we could not get our 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice during our kids’ vacations even though we asked months in advance. We had to adjust to RCI’s dictates of what was available. Ajit Bhawan in Jodhpur in summer and club Mahindra resort in Binsar were two such destinations which were practically imposed on us. Country Inn, Bhimtal was another. Though the resort was nice yet the timing given to us was inconvenient. We had to travel thru U.P. during Holi—another nightmare when our vehicle was attacked by a mob of 50 people and 2 window panes were broken by the mob. We reached the resort with my kids and wife bleeding with the vehicle full of broken glass. During Holi few would venture thru U.P. for a holiday—the resort was fairly vacant and RCI could only provide us this despite our asking for a resort in Himachal Pradesh
• In the past 5 years from 2005 till 2009, we have been able to avail only one holiday in 2006 (that too unsatisfactorily) of 2 weeks at Toshali--- 2 weeks at one place only because RCI couldn’t offer us any other choice out of the various choices in Himachal Pradesh.
• We have been paying up our dues regularly to RCC and the RCI excepting the annual subscription of Rs. 7000/- for the year 2009 which we have withheld for reasons above
• Apart from this Rs. 1, 36, 253/-, exchange and utility charges have been given to RCI and the respective resorts from time to time. If we include these, our total investment would be around Rs. 2 lakh the interest on which alone would give us a decent hassle-free holiday every year with freedom to choose time and place. But now we are just slaves of RCI and RCC paying them every year without commensurate benefit.
• Both RCC and RCI have been deficient in service and have taken us for a ride

This is an eye-opener for those investing in time-shares--don't enslave yourself!
Those having similar experiences and wanting to discuss and have more details can contact me after 12 P.M.any day on [protected]

Satish Sharma,
23.3.2011
C-2/2499, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi-110070

I am a former employee of RCI and I live in Saint John New Brunswick Canada, where the largest RCI contact center has been for 10 years plus. If your an RCI member and have called, then you have dealt with this particular center. A few days ago RCI told all the employees at this center 300 or more that the center is being closed in April so they are all out of jobs and many of them have been there for several years.

They say more and more customers are doing buisness on the net and I know they are but I am willing to bet its because the Canadian and US dollar have been equal for some time so were not cheap enough anymore. You can bet your life when you call in after that you will be talking to the small center in Indy which I doubt or more likely the center in Manila where the labor is dirt cheap and we all know they are masters at speaking english that no one in North America could understand and selling you stuff you dont want without you knowing it.Or they will open a center in some other thrid world *** hole so be aware when you call you will no longer be talking to nice Canadian's and I would keep my credit card number to myself.

Talk about crooks! You trade in your nice week, they rent it out and when you want something nice they don't have it. What's wrong with that picture?
Crystal and John Dehaan did not set it up that way! They split up, but Wyndham split the owners up. Don't buy a timeshare unless it belongs to Interval International. Their website is IntervalWorld.com. Ask your salesman if the resort is RCI or II affiliated.

I've held a RCI timeshare for 10 years. In those 10 years I've never be satisfied with the product $700 per year in maintenance fees, $179 in booking fees, $50 per year in membership fees and pay taxes on my 1 bedroom condo that I have the priviledge of being able to use for 1 week a year. The maintenance fees have gone from $350 per year to $700 per year. Recently I tried to book a trip on a Thursday and was kicked out of their computer system because they were doing maintenance. I tried again on Monday only to find that the rules and rates had changed. The week I wanted to book was now only available if I combined 2 weeks and paid a $99 fee to combine them so I could get the 1 week I tried to book earlier. I spoke to 3 customer service managers only to find out that they had the ability to book this condo like I had originally wanted but they chose not to do it. Talk about crappy customer service. I'm in the process of trying to sell or give away this white elephant before it costs me another $700 for the 2011 year. Do yourself a favor and never use RCI. Tell your friends never to use them and if you have a condo with them try to unload it as soon as possible.

I had a time share allotted thru RCI at the Hill Country Resorts Kodaikanal Tamil Nadu from June 23 - June 30.
Informed the resort i will be checking in on June 25 and kindly block my rooms.
On arrival on June 25 the registration took 1 hour and then was allotted a room with "NO VIEW" facing the hotel entrance and Gate.
The issue was notified to the manager Mr. Mohan Iyer who quoted the following:
"We provide our time share members only R4 & R5 rooms no Valley facing rooms as they are for our other normal guests."
This is inspite of early notification of my check in.
The resort follows a discrimainatory approach and when i called up the RCI customer service the statement was there were no other rooms available.
Apparently the policy of the resort to treat RCI members as second class guests is not being addressed.
Advice all RCI members to stay away from Hill Country and such resorts if you intend to get value for money you pay.

We purchased a timeshare at the Orange Lake resort in Kissimmee Florida about 10 years ago. It's a wonderful timeshare, gorgeous grounds and rooms. It's what they call a 'gold crown' resort, their crème de la crème type resort.

My issue is that we've been there 5 times already so we've really had our fill of Orange Lake. In 10 years, we were NEVER able to trade anything outside of the Orlando area.

When we purchased, they showed us a whole catalogue of resorts and assured us there was nothing we couldn't trade ours for. ..well, unless you want to go to a SKI RESORT or a CARIBBEAN BEACH IN AUGUST - there is NOTHING!

They told us the maintenance fees rarely went up, well, they went up nearly 500% in the 10 years we've had it! RCI is a rip off and I would advise anyone considering going with them to run away in the opposite direction!

RCI lists hundreds of resorts as available for exchange however when you go to the resort on line and click on the week
you find a statment that due to recent activites the resort is no longer available. This notation stays on the site for weeks and weeks so as to provide a false sense of the real number of resorts avaiable. You only find out after going thru each resort. very time consuming.
I have sent emails to RCI and no response.
Check this out on the web.. go to their site, click on carolinas, then south carolina and then Hilton head and then the month
of MAY. You will find 5 resorts listed and 11 weeks as available but when you go thru the process on each one you will find that
NONE are available. Is this fraud?

When we were looking for a cab at the Cozumel airport we were ushered to the "travel advisory" desk just before exiting the airport. The fellow at the desk presented a very hard to turn down on a car 4 $50 dollar car . I thought well, we really won't need one but to have a car in exchange for viewing a 90 minute property that we may wan to stay at on out next vacation was not a bad deal.

Several days later, when we went to 11am breakfast, we spent an hour on the ferry and 45 minutes in a van to get to Tres Rios. While waiting in the lobby for breakfast(by now its noon and my 10 year old is ravenous). I was told that we needed to wait for the presetation. They aske dif I had plans for later in the day and I told them we had already purchased tickets for Xcaret. They said there was no way I would get there before 6pm. ANd I exclaimed that I was expecting a 90 minute presenation!

They then very sternly informed me that I was told on several occassions that it was at least a 2 hour presentation. I don't see how they sell anything or get anyone to come back with that type of sales technique!

We may have bought one but after that kind of sneaky hook we had to leave. At that point we were stuck with a car rental bill ( for a car that we did not need in Cozumel) at full rate. What a cluster pain!

We'll just avoid Cancun and Cozumel from now on!

The

RCI charges $199.00 exchange fee if you want to book a resort with them. Most, if not all, of the resorts you get to select are "all-inclusive" which require a fee per person per day. The average fee is $65/pp per day. When you have two people, that amounts to $130/day. If you book directly with your choiced resort, the daily all-inclusive rate including the room is lower than that! In fact, if you include the $199 exchange fee, you are paying more to book through RCI than through the resort directly! How is that a deal? And you have to pay RCI to be a member when you do not get any benefit at all! Make sure you check the resort rates first before you do an exchange with useless RCI!

I made resort reservations on 1/16/09 for 1/16/10 using banked points through RCI. When I recently called the resort to reconfirm my dates, I was told that RCI had scheduled me for 1/16/09 and there was no way the resort could adjust for RCIs mistake. I called RCI and got nowhere. Additionally, RCI cancelled my membership. I am contacting an attorney to try to get my banked points plus my transfer fee totalling over $500 back.
The only other time I banked my timeshare points with RCI, I got put in a rundown resort when I exchanged my points. I own at a very classy, expensive resort. RCI is a rip-off!

RCI...greedy! Canceled a much looked forward trip to Cancun, because of the most recent media reports about Swine Flu, on the advise of our government, I might add. RCI will not reimburse the booking fees or apply them towards another vacation. Even the airlines are not charging rebooking fees in connection with this. It's ridiculous enough that I pay a membership fee to RCI, a booking fee for any vacation I wish to use MY week for (that's assuming they even have somewhere I want to go-which is rare), all in addition to the few thousand I pay in taxes for the timeshare. HOW DID I EVER THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?

I was recently asked by RCI Points to pay what I was told was a discounted rate for Points for one year. This amounted to about £400 for about 56, 000 points. This amount is similar to what I used to pay as a Maintenance charge for ownership that had entitled me to the same number of points.

Later I came to find the only booking I could make with RCI was for a week in a very nice looking Irish Cottage. If I booked this cottage direct it would cost about £600 for a week. If I use my points to book the Cottage week RCI say I must 'spend' about 180, 000 points. The rate is apparently 300 points are 'worth' £1.

However to purchase points the rate is approximately 140 points per pound. So the 'exchange rate' seems to be about half and the cottage week will actually cost me £1, 300 plus the RCI booking fees etc. If I had never been a member of RCI and the cottage would only cost £600.

With the large number of rental properties available now it is very hard to see how RCI Points can survive or be worth subscribing to unless you are a property owner and find it works for you. So I feel that this situation of points cash value should be publicized as a fraud and that RCI should change their system so that they are giving far better value for money.

Otherwise it is hard to see why anyone should continue to subscribe unless they are able to use the system to make exchanges between properties they own and nearly equivalent properties elsewhere. To use RCI Points as a sort of bank to purchase weeks in apartments seems to be a either a fraud or at best an expensive way to do what could be done cheaper by just going on the internet and making a direct booking.

I have used rci very much over the past years. When I first saw the cheating I thought it might have been a mistake. But the mistakes are continuous. The sole purpose of rci is to rob as much money from customers as possible and then everyone doesnt respond. Rci has a class action which claims rci is renting out properties that they shouldnt. Over the last 8 months I have been addressing illegal people being at my resort. Read below. Below is the recent letter that I sent rci. Check everything that you do with rci. Anything bad about rci, let everybody know by writing in sites like this. Good luck
03/25/08 dear rci feedback, I am leaving town saturday and I dont think I will have internet. I would like a response from mr. Balotti and mr. Ruff by friday evening. Mr. Ruff has had the case for weeks so he should be able to answer all questions in two days. He threatens me in a letter and he doesnt leave his email address so he doesnt have to answer questions. Please tell him to email me when he has answered the simple questions that I asked. Thank you. Joe walsh being my friends paid for airfare and fishing charters they want a response also. Thank you.

—
From:
To: rci. [protected]@rci.com
Subject: re: your rci account
Date: wed, 25 mar 2009 18:54:07 +0000
03/25/09 dear rci feedback, over 8 months I have been cheated, lied to, not responded to and threatened by richard ruff. Richard ruff and other rci employees have caused severe stress and aggravation to me and friends by intentionally taking a very long time to respond and still not answering critical questions. For 2 weeks I have been telling various rci employees that mr. Balotti, ceo, must know what is going on. I need a confirmation that you are getting this to mr. Balotti immediately. I and friends are intensely angered by this situation. Please respond and confirm shortly. Thank you. Joe walsh ps please email below to mr. Ruff asap. Please ask him to respond to me on email. Ask him to answer the questions that he still has not responded to asap. Thanks again

—
From:
To: rci. [protected]@rci.com
Subject: re: your rci account this is an updated letter with more questions rci has not responded
Date: wed, 25 mar 2009 17:11:57 +0000 to. Mr. Balotti, ceo, must get letter. I need confirmation of this. Thanks
03/25/09 this letter is in response to your letter of march 25. As I addressed to you previously, I believe that these issues are so critical and rci still hasnt addressed issues that it is critical that mr. Balotti read this letter and respond. First of all my anger is because rci repeatedly does not respond to questions and crimes. After 8 months your letter does not respond to the issues I raised. Kindly read the following carefully and respond to every issue not just the issues that you want to respond to. Let us take last case for example. Below is melinda kelsey's response of feb 26. As you can see she stressed the urgency of the matter. Erin rader took the case several days later. Airfares and fishing charters have been paid for in hawaii. From feb 26 until today melinda kelsey and erin rader did not say one word about the situation. Why did you take so long to respond about critical issue? 3 different times I called rci weeks and they said they would email erin and her supervisor for response. No response. Why no response? Also you did not address the lie of melinda kelsey to cancel weeks in hawaii. Below is letter to erin on 3/23.in it you will see the lie of melinda. Why did she lie? The charges of 164 and 547 are for hawaii. A rci girl said I had to pay this amount for hawaii, so I paid it and charges have not been cancelled. The charges were removed from the weeks I had because even until your letter you have not addressed the crimes. Please explain clearly to me why rci did not respond to american express about the charges. It is your direct fault that charges were removed. I showed rci that there were people illegally in my unit. I also showed rci repeatedly that the resort refused to respond. All I asked rci was to tell me what they showed for weeks. When I wrote letter I wasnt aware of class action against you for renting properties that you shouldnt have. Rci realized that crimes were committed so they did not say one word about the crimes nor what their records showed.in all the time you took, you did not address the issue. Rci has direct responsibility of whom is in my unit. As for turkey I was told by three different rci people that breakfast was included. When I got there, I was told breakfast was not included.in the evidence I sent repeated emails to rci with no response. Why no response? From turkey I called rci to resolve and I was told I should get breakfast. I still did not get breakfast and still no response from repeated emails. On the official rci confirmation there was no points listed nor breakfast shown.in actuality I should not have been charged any points. Is this correct? I also addressed the obvious and intentional overcharge of 115, 000 points for one small room outside the city in off season. David albright or you have not addressed the intentional crime. Why not? All david said was that he was going to give me back points and end of case. Orbitz also did not respond to crime. I sent david and rci my bills for breakfast and telephone charges and not one word was said by rci. Why not? Also the resort promised pool and bus to the city. Neither one existed. Pool was down. I addressed this with rci and again no response. Why not? The last time I dealt with rci partners I was intentionally charged 150 dollars more than what was agreed to by rci. I explained this to rental company and they agreed I was overcharged and they gave me credit. The evidence is plain to see. My vacation was completely ruined because rci left me hanging. Any dispute to what I said? I also addressed to you the week that completely disappeared when it was transferred from wyndham to rci. These are weeks that rci does not allow us to see on the internet. Why is this? Why is it that most of the weeks that I have I cant see on the internet? After the week disappeared a supervisor said these things happen. I told rci 4 years ago that we should see everything we own and nothing has changed in 4 years. Also, the internet to rci is ridiculous. A rci employee said the same. Internal errors, cant do what you requested, call rci for help. These are exactly the errors that I saw four years ago. I have been on many internet sites and not one has had the problems that rci has almost on a daily basis. When I see the same problems that I saw 4 years ago, my educated guess is that you are doing this to steal weeks as you did once to me. Kindly explain this. Over 8 months, 30 hours of writing, and much stress for myself and friends, you still have not responded to the issues. You have not done any research on my questions so why did it take you so long to respond? Kindly respond and answer questions. Thank you. It has been previously stated to you that rci did not rent out your unit and your alleged credit issues are not with rci but with your home resort. If you wish to continue to use your rci benefits you will need to allow the charges to go through for your future exchanges along with the $547.00 to pay for the past vacations which you have disputed with your credit card company. Until this issue is resolved we will be unable to attempt to reinstate your confirmations. Since these confirmations have been cancelled, there is no guarantee the inventory will still be available. You can understand how urgency in this matter is important since inventory changes every day. We do want you to successfully transact with rci and encourage you to address this issue as quickly as possible. 03/23/09 dear erin, it is now monday evening and no response from rci or you. This has been from feb. 26 and if you read below melinda kelsey said this was a matter of urgency, yet nobody in rci has responded. Below is my credit card with charges of 164 and 547 paid to rci. These were for my weeks in hawaii. The reason I paid this is that rci girl told me I had to pay this figure for weeks in hawaii. Check the audio tape. The charge on 2/4 was the charge melinda lied about and said that I withdrew the charge of this day. Neither charge is withdrawn. The evidence of rci obstructing justice and intentionally not responding to cause many people pain because we have paid for airfare and fishing charters is below and other emails. Also, rci did not respond to american express about the charges and it is rci's fault that rci wasnt paid. My friends and I talked it over with legal help and what we are going to do is fly to hawaii, stay at resort for one month and bill rci. Rci made a mistake once before and cancelled my confirmation even though I had airfare paid for. Rci is not going to ruin another vacation. Again, melinda said it was an urgent situation almost one month ago and nobody from rci has responded. Your lack of response is also preventing me from taking other weeks. I want a letter from mr. Balotti about this situation. Thank you.

RCI confirmed a booking for a vacation in England. I proceeded to purchase a flight. Now RCI tells me the "hotel" changed my check-in date and it's half way into my vacation - leaving me 1/2 a vacation where i would be w/o a place to stay. I have non-refundable airline tickets !

I dont see how once you have a confirmed reservation they can just "change" it on someone !

When I tried to exchange my gold crown resort, and could not get anything I was told it was my fault for not putting the request in early.
Well... I put the request in almost a year ago and have still not received a trade. Although, I have been called by rci to rent what I have a request in for. I asked them if they were an exchange company or rental agency.
I was furious. Is this legal!

I have been a member of RCI for 6 years. I have used their properties only twice. Once in Manhattan, NY and once in Florida. The property in NY was very nice but the people were horrible. The property in FL was gross - bugs climbing up the wall, dirty bathroom, stained carpet and incompetent people. I spent 1 out of 6 nights and left. I have never been able to get the property I request in all this time. I am totally fed up.

The clincher is I made a reservation on RCIs recommendation and after checking online the property reviews, I immediately called back and cancelled the reservation. RCI wanted to charge me $25 to cancel an reservation which was made for only 10 minutes. It took me 5 phone calls and 1 1/2 hours to get a waiver to get back my $25. I was so fed up I cancelled my membership. Good riddance.! They are a big RIP OFF.

On July 12, 2008 would be my sixth time to have share with RCI and arranged an accommodation in Risata Bali Resort &Spa, Bali, Indonesia. Kindly be informed that I have been insistent by the RCI's office assistant instructioned during my request to get the resort in Risata Bali our first arrangements we are 5 persons (including my three children) so actualy we're 5 (five) and always with 2 bedroom, kitchen and all facilities, sharing laundry, gym nice swimming-pool etc,
I made sure and have directly called to Risata Bali Resort requested if 2 (two)bedroom hotel are available for that period, positively as their responded are available with 2 bedroom hotel for 5 person (07/12/08 through 07/19/08) as long as RCI could afforded for me plus 4 person.
As usually and erlier I have paid $199.00 for booking two bedroom at Bali Risata Resort with kitchen but RCI has decided
and only one bedroom without kitchen at Risata Bali Resort.
I have been loyal and proud for being members of RCI but this time I got disappointed, no better choices and accepted the offer. I feel so reluctant and stressed, but I always be and being alert with high moral ( to calmed down my self) that RCI should be more respect and understanding of a certain guaranteed with rules, regulations and full standards, come on man this is an American big company, how could you do that..?
" Anyhow, your prompt attention on this matter would be highly appreciated",

God bless America and blessed weekend.

We went to stay at a RCI time share at Paramount Walton Hall and Hotel Warwickshire. The accommodation was dirty and in desperate needs of refurbishment also no heating on. When we approached the Manager Mr Peter Watkins he agreed the accommodation was below par and in need of refurbishment and that RCI were fully aware of the state of the rooms but could offer no recompense or alternative accommodation. When the time share was taken out we understood that the accommodation would always be of a certain guaranteed standard. This certainly fell well below. I am not even sure it was legal as the electrics left a lot to be desired with wires from the hair dryer exposed in the bathroom.

RCI are nothing more than a bank trying to take as much money from you as they can. Ludicrous annual fees to be a member, for which you get a periodic magazine with resorts that when you try and obtain a transfer week, the answer is same too frequent "nothing available" If you do find a place you then have to pay a ridiculous $199.00 for booking a non home resort!
Trying to book at your home resort is nearly as bad. We just found out from our home resort owners that we can dump RCI and book through them as they only give RCI a few vacancy's per month, which we are doing. This is the way to go if you are happy with going to your home base and not having to pay a $99.00 to RCI to do that! and lets face it, RCI can't/won't get anything elsewhere anyway!