Wyndham Vacation Ownership review: deceptive sales methods and fraud 6

Wyndham has consistently refused to resolve this complaint, opting rather to call the US Navy Chief Petty Officer making the complaint a liar:

On April 4, 2008 while visiting Wyndham’s Governor’s Green resort we attended a sales presentation conducted by Wyndham salesperson Henry Wilkerson. We were promised that the presentation would take only 90 minutes, but by the time it was concluded it lasted much longer. In fact it lasted four hours. We had our children with us who are 10 and one year old. At the end of the presentation, Mr. Wilkerson knew they and their frustration distracted us. Our baby, just a year old, was very fussy while we were attempting to sign the documents. We were tired, hungry, overburdened with information and ready to leave by the time we were signing our contracts. We now understand that this was by design. We believe that we were purposely hurried through the contract signing specifically in order to keep us from reading it more carefully.

It has, in fact, taken us over a year to discover that our contract is defective. We have been able now to compare our contract with those of other owners and we are missing vital parts of the contract that were never copied for us. We never received a copy of the document required by the Department of Housing and Urban Development—the Settlement Statement. We never received any notarized documents such as a Mortgage Deed or Deed in Trust. We are therefore ignorant of the specific duties assigned to us and of those assigned to Wyndham. It would seem to us that the contract is invalid on this one point alone. While someone might contend that we signed the documents, the signing was conducted by the representative in such a way that they seemed not to be of great importance. We trusted the Wyndham representatives to include all the necessary documents and we would not know how to identify any missing documents in any case. As we’ve already mentioned, we were under a great deal of stress from our children and from being hungry that our judgment was definitely impaired and Henry Wilkerson knew it.

Mr. Wilkerson promised that he would personally help us to move points from year to year into Wyndham’s rental program “Extra Holidays” in the event that we should not be able to make our payments. Everyone pays for their maintenance with this program, he said. He told us that we should not worry, that enough money could be made to make payments and take care of the maintenance payments as well. Our maintenance payments are $77.49 and our monthly payments are $412.68—so we were led to believe that renting out our points would earn that much. This was especially relevant in our discussion with Mr. Wilkerson as we informed him that due to military obligations, we would be unable to take advantage of the points ourselves for the first two years of our ownership. He told us not to worry, we’d be making money until we could use the points and we’d retain our VIP status as well. This was not true.

Henry continually assured us that this purchase was a sound financial investment. That its value would increase if we ever wanted to sell it. He promised that we’d be getting a tax break because this was a real property purchase—we could write off the interest and property taxes even though they’re included in our maintenance fees.

Presidential suites were to be available to us and we could still travel three to four weeks every year on the points that we were purchasing. This would be possible because Mr. Wilkerson promised to help us “work the system” to our advantage. He promised to be the person we should go to with any problems or questions we had concerning using the program. Henry showed us the point conversion chart in the RCI book and told us that we could travel anywhere, anytime we wanted for a “blue studio week.” Because Wyndham owns RCI, he said, we could stay at any Wyndham resort for a week for the same number of points that it took to get a “blue studio week” which we now know is 28, 000 points. We also know that this is not possible.

We would be able to transfer points from one year to the next according to Mr. Wilkerson. He would be available to help us with this, he said, all we had to do was call. Available, is what Mr. Wilkerson was not—ever. We later learned that what Mr. Wilkerson had promised is entirely contrary to Wyndham’s policies.

We specifically told Mr. Wilkerson that we would not, because of my Permanent Change of Station orders with the U.S. Navy, be able to use the first 2 years’ points or the bonus points. Mr. Wilkerson and his manager both assured us that this did not matter—our VIP status would be permanent and we could start using our points whenever we were ready. We were also informed that our bonus points would be reserved for us. Mr. Wilkerson specifically told us that our points would just “roll over” to the next year and to the next until we had accumulated a huge number of points for a big vacation when it came time after the two years. This was not true.

We indicated that we were ready to leave but were told that the price we were being offered was only good for that day. It was a special price offered to us only on the day that we took the tour. We were told that we absolutely had immediately to make up our minds concerning a purchase that would eventually cost our family more than $50, 000 plus maintenance fees. There was no time to “think about it.” After investigation, we found that the price we received was no different than those offered to any other.

In summary, Mr. Wilkerson and his manager made promises that misrepresented the program. Every time we indicated that we needed to attend to the children or that we were all hungry, we were told to “hang on for one more minute.” They knew we were being worn down emotionally and physically and needed to attend to our children. So they knew we were under duress when we signed the contract. The contract was not explained to us and the provisions were covered only in the most cursory manner. We didn’t know until recently that the contract was deficient and that the promises made to us by Mr. Wilkerson were false.

To be sure, Wyndham has a rental program called Extra Holidays, but were we were not informed that 40% commission was charged. We were specifically told that we’d be able to make enough money to make payments and never have to pay maintenance fees. We were told that Mr. Wilkerson would be available to help us arrange the rentals and he is not. We have been informed that the role of sales people ends at the point of sale. After that it appears we are on our own. These methods of securing a sales commission were deceptive and fraudulent; they caused us to suffer loss.