each year we go(every year a diff week we pay the extra 130) we are being litteraly harrased. they have forced us to come to that stupid breakfast “that will only take 20 mint” but it ends up taking at least 3 hours. two years in a row my kids where so sick they where vommiting in the bathrooms during the meetings and they still made us still threw another hour. during one meeting i lost it and said i want to take my kid to the er she is running a high temp(it was 103)and the sales lady said ” well the er is just next door so its ok if you wait”..

we have been flat out lied to during every meeting and just ganged up on.
if they cant get past my hubby they gang up on me.. which is getting to be a lot of fun, trying to deal with two small kids, the sales people etc..

we just got home 2 days ago from our trip and omg i have just had it and i am just thinking about saying screw it next year and not go to the meeting. this year we told the women that took us to our room that we didnt need or want to go. well she said we have to its a rule..(whom i couldnt understand- she spoke manly spanish whoo hoo.) this lady promised she wouldnt sell us anything “she isnt in sales” and the lakes have nothing left to sale they are sold out, so i said fine you get 15 mintues, not our whole day.

we get there and it was fine for about the first 15 mins. a little pressure but i am just beyond annoyed at even having to come and she knows this. she was saying “well you waste one side of your 3 bedroom you could rent it out, or why dont you buy into the newer bludings they are so much better bull sh!t”, so much for not trying to sell us things…now i have a really bad back- so i was having to stand up a lot during this b/c it was killing me. she kept saying but ms.. dont you think that you could afford- i just kept rolling my eyes at her. after this she said ok see it only took 40 mintues and i didnt try to sell you anything. then she said she had to get out papers we have to sign, she was gone for over 15 mins. when we seen her agian she was waiting on another family, not us. so by now i am way beyond pissed. when she returned with the papers, we both signed them and said ok we are done. NOPE then she had to get her boss to talk with us. so i wait for another 5 mints and no one came back to meet us. so I just walked out with the kids, leaving my husband back to deal with her.

about 10 mins later my hubby calls me and says they wont let him go b/c i am not with him. the sales lady’s her boss said they wouldnt sign off on paper work with out me there. I told my hubby just to walk out, we are done end of story. as he was getting up the boss says well if there happens to be something wrong with your room its not our flaut, its on you… so wth now we are down to making threats??? all b/c i wasnt in the room to meet a manger??? what can i do to stop this crap and just have a nice vaction?

please help
wen

I am reflecting on my own experience, whereby my wife and I consented on buying a timeshare from Westgate Resorts in Florida (Westagte Palace). My wife and I are highly educated people yet we had not heard of the timeshare concept prior to the tour (I am a foreigner, she is US citizen). Going into the tour, we knew we were not going to buy anything. That was our attitude during the presentation and remained so. I guess being nice and polite in nature, we handled very well the presenter`s pressure on us. Our presenter, I must say, was very skillful and fun to talk to. As he told us later on, he was one of the best salesman in the company and was specially picked for us since we were considered VIP guests. Why? Simply because, he explained, being highly educated meant to them that we will be living an upperclass type of life, more like yuppies. Therefore, we will be spending a lot of money on vacations. Eventually what really made us take the bait and agree on the purchase was a series of pathetic LIES that the presenter gave us as answers to some of our questions. He even had some documents to back himself. The lies concerned Orlando being the number one tourist attraction in the world (we still have the
presentation with this falsified notion), that the timeshare will be easy to rent or, even better, to sell later on and to make profit since, with time, it should build equity on it. Another big lie was the concept behind using interval international’s getaways. The timeshare presenter explained to us that with interval international, we could stay in hotels very cheaply even if we stay for just one night while on the road on long day trips. This was a big
plus for us since, at the time we took the tour, we were racking up a huge hotel bill from traveling from Miami down to the Keys, then north along Florida’s East coast to Daytona Beach and then east to Orlando. For us, that was big news since my wife and I like traveling a lot. I thought I would be dumb not to take the deal. Imagine traveling 1000 miles and staying in hotels for really great deals as getaways.

We now realize that renting and even selling our timeshare is very difficult. There are a lot of offers, but not much demand. Just check ebay or
craigslist. Some people are selling their deeds for $1. We feel trapped since we have to pay a huge $575 maintenance fee every two years, whether we use it or not. The fee used to be $460 in 2006. Even though you have 10 days to say no for the contract, how can one interrupt his/her vacation to sit down and read pages and pages of fine print? The presentation after all was perfect and the presenter answered our question with delight and cherry on top (irony). They even had an official deed person from Florida state to sign the documents. This meant to us, well simply have confidence, these people will not lay a trap for you, they are legitimate and officially supervised by the state of Florida.

So off was our chance to get off the hook. We have researched the timeshare business ever since and discovered that we were not the only people complaining. We desperately still want to get rid of it but how ??? We keep reading on the web how impossible it is to to sell it. Those who tried, ended up losing money just to post the ad. Some are selling it for 1$. Now I know why. I might do that to stop paying the maintenance fee or simply bite my wound and try to get at least one vacation with WR. But even with that option I read bad experiences people have had going to WR properties. Just check the reviews and the ratings. I don’t want to take time off waste more money on an airplane flight just to have a bad vacation.

I implore you to spread the word against Westgate. NO MORE VICTIMS … No more slavery… 500$ every two years I have to pay. I still remember the Florida representative telling me, hey you can pass this to your children later on to use… BIG NO!!!

The Sundance week is definitely not a “blocked week” in my purchase agreement. Now I know, that’s how Westgate makes money by sucking minority shareholder’s blood.

Thanks,
Poi