A friend and I were accompanied during the bus ride from the airport to El Cid (part of the process of staying at El Cid) for a 1 week vacation that was in a 2 bedroom / 3 bath unit which was fully paid for. We were promised a day of all inclusive for each of us as well as one of four different city tours if we would attend a 1h time share sales pitch to which we agreed.
During the sales pitch I told the main salesman that I already had a time share in Belize and that I didn't have enough vacation for 2 weeks of timeshare a year. He proposed that he sell my timeshare for $16.9K (which value he came up with by obtaining comps taken from recent sales at the resort that I own my timeshare in) and then all I would have to do is pay the difference for a 2bedroom week at El Cid. I thought this was pretty good because it was only a difference of $4K (purchase price of the 2 bedroom El Cid resort was $20.9K) for a 2 bedroom vs a 1 bedroom which is what I had in Belize. Plus they offered to pay for the yearly fees to RCI for 20 year which currently cost me ~$75 a year on my existing timeshare (a $5K value in itself over 20years) as well as providing me 154,000 RCI vacation points good for an additional timeshare week and an additional 2 bonus weeks at El Cid good for 2 years. The sales person said that he could guarantee (which is the word that he used) that my timeshare would sell for at least $16.9K due to the comps and his experience in such sales.
After I signed the paper work, I found out that my timeshare would be sold through a 3rd party (RSI), and there was no guarantee that it would sell. I did research on the web and found out that this tactic was used frequently at El Cid. Since there was no way that the sales person (I'm not putting his name in this complaint) could provide a written guarantee (I requested this the next day and he said he would not provide this) there was no way that I would know if my timeshare would sell. Thus, I could be stuck with 2 timeshares and I would not have any recourse once the 5 day grace period was consumed (this is the tactic that other disgruntled owners on the web said was used with them in the past).
Fortunately I had access to the web and was able to cancel my contract before the 5 days was up via sending registered mail and various emails.
They still charged us for the "all inclusive" and "room upgrade" perks that I were offered but never requested. I tried to dispute this via my credit card company but was unsuccessful.
Don't get caught by their outright lies!!!
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