This was my first experience with a timeshare sales pitch, and boy was I surprised at the sleaziness of the whole thing. I was contacted about a year ago, after entering to win a "free" vacation to Orlando. They said that I hadn't won the grand prize, but had still won a free vacation, all I had to do was pay a $400 processing fee. I kept telling them I wasn't interested, but they kept insisting that it was a good deal, that I'd get 2 tickets to Universal Studios, along with 3 nights stay at a "resort" hotel, and an additional 2 nights in Cocoa Beach.
Well, I became worn down by this telemarketer, and signed up figuring it's not the worst deal in the world. Well, they sent the package and we made arrangements to visit Florida in October. The first sucky thing about the deal is you have to go to this "travel bureau" to get a voucher for your hotel before you can check in. We did that, and get to the hotel and realize it's a crap hole (Barcelo Orlando). I looked online and we could have got the room at their retail rate of $59 a night. It was supposed to have a heated pool, but it was ice cold. You couldn't use the hot tub because there was so much crap floating in it.
I don't understand why they are trying to sell a timeshare at a nice resort, but put you up in a craphole. Why not just let you stay at the resort so you can see what it's like???
Anyway, we couldn't get the Universal Studios tickets until we went to the "90 minute" sales presentation, which ended up taking over 3 hours of our time. Now keep in mind that we couldn't get the tickets the first day, and the second day we are at the sales presentation till almost 2PM, and the fourth day we had to checkout and drive to Cocoa Beach. So really we only had one full day to spend at Universal Studios.
But back to the sales pitch. Our "realtor" was a guy that seemed really nice, he kept saying no matter what we decided, he's still be our "friend". He also stated he'd worked for Bluegreen for several years. So, he tells us how great timeshare ownership is, how much cheaper it is than renting a hotel room, etc... He was throwing out perks of ownership left and right, but not giving an ounce of detail. I kept asking what it costs, kept getting the answer it depends on when you stay, length of stay, type of room, etc... Never got an answer on price until very end. The resort was nice, because it was brand new. So, we finally get to the price issue. Everything is in points, so you buy a certain number, and get an amount of nights based on demand.in other words, the more demand for a certain room on a certain night, the less number of nights you can stay there for the same amount of points. He tried selling us 12,000 points for around $30k, payable in monthly insallments of over $600, and a down payment of around $2,500. And I kept asking how many nights I'd get for 12,000 points, kept getting the reply it depends, but should be able to get a week. $600 a month for a week of nights??? WTF! And that doesn't include the maintence fees which run up to $800 a year! So the total cost for a week at this resort is over $8,000! I basically told him he was crazy and was ready to walk, but he brings over his boss, who offers us 4,000 points for around $8,000 and $800 down. Which translates to $129 a month, and $400 for the mainteneance fees. I said to the boss, what would that get me at this resort, this week, for a 2 bdrm. He said around 3 nights!!! Wow, $1,800 a year for a total of 3 nights, sign me up!!! Do they really think people are that stupid?
But I was polite and said no thanks. Then the sales pitch racheted up. The boss says we can use the first year to pay the down payment in installments, and still stay there the first year, and after that year start paying the regular payments. I thought it was funny that our sales guy acted all surprised, and said he didn't know such a program existed. Yeah, sure. You worked there for several years and never offered this to anyone else, gee we must be really special! At this point I was getting angry, because I knew he was lying, so I told him under no circumstances were we buying anything from him today, they could give us the info in writing and I'd look it over and call him if we were interested. No go, today only. When we walk out the door the offer goes away.
At this point I then informed him we wouldn't be doing business with him today, no matter what "deal" they came up with, so they either give us the offer and let us think about it, or we were leaving. It was at this point that our sales guy turned nasty. At least he let us leave, but not before making me feel about 3 feet tall. I know one thing, I felt like I had escaped a prison after we walked out the door, and the whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth. I will never trust another timeshare deal, no matter how honest it is. I don't know how these salespeople can sleep at night. If they'd just be honest, give us the best deal upfront, tell us honestly what we were getting, put it in writing and explain everything, show us the resort, and tell us to go home and think it over, I may actually be interested in buying a timeshare, but I get the feeling that no timeshare company does this.
0 comments