To whom it may concern
Subject: Complaint concerning the fraudulent and deceptive practices used by the Festiva Peppertree Resort Salesman, sales manager and other employees during the presentation in which we purchased our Adventure Club Membership
My name is Jin
E-mail: [email protected] tel: 252 634 3368
Address: 103 Sextant. New Bern NC 28562
My husband Bill and I bought 12,000 vacation points/Biennial from Festiva PepperTree Resort on Nov. 13. These vacation points were to be effective Jan. 2012 and the points are non specific use points. The salesman explained this means we can use 1900 points any season to get any size bedroom for a one week vacation. At the same time he pointed to the first page of the user manual to prove as proof of this claim. We were told the 12000 points would be the equivalent to 7 weeks vacation at the Festiva Resort locations. Again this was noted on the first page of our membership manual and they pointed to this on numerous occasions We were told that our points could be traded for airfares and cruises. When we asked the salesman how to trade and what the exchange rate would be his supervisor Kenny told us that 1500 points would be the equivalent to $1200 on air tickets through Expedia and/or one week cruises. Then he told us we could also book weeks at the local Atlantic Beach Pepper Tree resort during the summer months and he could supply us with a local 20th Century Realtor to sale out and we could net back about $1200. We could use this money to offset our maintenance fees. He told us lots of his customers used this realtor. We were also told we would become a member of the Festiva Adventure Club Platinum Rewards, a program that allows you to take cruises, tours, land-air trips and extra condo weeks at rates well below retail. The supervisor Kenny said that we would probably use this more and be able to save our points. They showed us online many great deals we could get after we become a member. The getaway program showed us how we could enjoy one week vacation at numerous locations around the country and world for as little as $49 a week if we booked at the last minute. He again said we could book weeks at the local resorts use his realtor and then use the getaways to enjoy wonderful vacations after we retired when we could then make use of booking at the last minute.
On Jan we got the first inkling of false claims when before we could check any reservations we had to pay our maintenance fees and they were higher then told at our presentation. He also told us the increases were rare and there had been none for several years. We were also told we could set up the maintenance fees on a monthly plan but when we tried to do this we were told we couldnt use our points until they were paid in full (this was certainly not explained to us when we asked) What good would this do if you cant use your points and by the time you paid them your points would have expired? Finally when we were able to access our points was when we started to find out how deceptive and fraudulent our salesman and the supervisor had been. We could not book any resort at any time for the 1900 points. We could not book any of the getaway deals, they were always already booked even though they remained on the web site for numerous weeks. Kenny the sales manager told us they had a 96% success rate on all bookings during the sals when we ask the availability.
We were told that our 12000 points could be exchanged for a $1000 dollar air fare by the booking agent. What happened to 1500 point for $1200 dollars, this was just a straight out lie from Kenny the sales manager. He can not deny, he lied about the trade rate. He knew if he told the truth at this point he could not make the sale. An exchange rate of 12000 points for $1000 would have exposed the true value of our points. No one would buy at this exchange rate. This leis just put us in the situation: We use $10 exchanged $1. Because Our monthly payment is near $400. Two years payments are $8000, plus maintenance fee near $ which the total $10000 exchanged 12000 points = $1000. Clearly we were fraud by Festiva salesman in this unfair trade. This in our opinion is a flagrant violation of consumer protection laws and was especially deceptive and fraudulent behavior by our salesman and the sales manager.
We were told and it is spelled out in our manual that we would be enrolled in an Interval International membership. We were told we would receive this in 6 to 8 weeks and if not to call them direct. We called the number supplied on numerous occasions and were told they had no record of our membership and we should contact Festiva. We have call Festiva, all the numbers we have and have been unable to get anyone to return our calls. We actually talked to someone at the local office and he told us they were closed but he would have someone call back. We are still waiting and now no one answers that number and none of our messages are returned. Here I want mention, I try to book a cruise through Adventure Club.in two days, every day I hold the phone for hours to wait someone helping me, then it never happened. I booked it in 10 minuets with go vacation online. Our cruise is on Jan. 28 2012. At this time, we have Adventure club membership service, but we are unable to use it.
Festiva sales team was misleading and deceptive and are in violation of Good Business Practices.
In addition you are only allowed 5 days for cancelation, which is not practical being as you are unable to access any of the features of the program. You are given a package but unable to open for two months to look inside and see and use the contents.
To summarize:
We were victimized by fraudulent and deceptive practices by the Festiva Sales team.
We were not enrolled in the Interval International as spelled out in our contract.
We cannot exchange points for air fares and cruises as told by the Festiva sales team.
We cannot book any weeks at the 1900 point level as told by the Festiva sales team.
We cannot use the Adventure Club Platinum Rewards as described by our Festiva sales team.
We would have never made this purchase had the program been described in a truth full, straightforward and honest presentation.in this unfair trade with Festiva, clearly we did not receive what we bought. This package try to sale us vacations and two membership service. We got no vacations and no service!!!
At this point we no longer have any faith in Festiva product or Festiva company and Strongly request Festiva cancel our contract and refund all our money. And compensation for this illegal contract caused us all of emotional and physical disturbing.
We also want to our government investigates what is real behind Festiva business.in our opinion, they have one hand steal consumer money, create bad loan for bank and a other hand spending tax payer money keeping law enforcement busy to clean up what they did. If we allowed this kind business continue doing what they did for us, then our economy will crash very soon. Because our government need more money to bail bank out for the loan they lost and more money spending to correct they are wrong doing. Our law should never let them put such bad product in our marked. They abused consumer trust and government trust. They play a trick between the law. The law allowed consumer cancel a purchase contract if the product does not meet consumer satisfaction. Festiva play a trick, did not offer the chance to their consumer to let them to know the product quality. They use a trick short period, to try to limit our cancelation right. We believe everybody can see what kind trick they play. They are responsible for what happened in this trade. They should be punished by law. They are the enemy in our house. They stealing every tax payer money.
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