I purchased a 5 bedroom timeshare at Westgate-Gatlinburg in October. The financing offer was a down payment and payments over 10 years. The option was to pay 50% within 60 days and remainder over 3 years with no interest. My plan was to use the option within the allotted time. After about 45 days, I received a call from the accounting/deeding department in Orlando indicating that Westgate wanted to close loans and was willing to offer an incentive (5% discount) to pay it off within the 60 day period. I asked and it was confirmed that paying the loan off 100% would not incur any interest. The answer was YES, NO INTEREST. I asked for the payoff total and authorized the payment from my credit card.in January, I received a notice that I had paid $200.97 in interest. When I questioned why interest was charged, I received several fabricated stories but finally they said I broke the contract by paying the loan off early and therefore they could charge interest. I still have the recording from Westgate representative stating the payoff would be a no interest loan payoff. An appeal to the local business closure person who wrote up the “no interest” loan provision caved in to the home office and indicated that if I took them to court. They would provide numerous witness stating that I agreed to be charged interest. This is a total fabrication and I challenged them to listen to their tape recording of phone calls to prove it. They would not. An appeal to David Seigal, president, resulted in no response. The lesson is that even though a contract is in writing, they can change their mind and dare you to sue them. Any future purchasers of a time-share from Westgate, do not believe anything that is told to you nor anything that is in writing. Just bend over, grab your knees and hold on.
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