A 9 Hour Cautionary Tale

Last week, I had dinner with a couple that bought a timeshare from me 22 (!) years ago. I’ve written about the fact that they’re very happy with it and with me, who sold them a great product that they understand and use. 

The resort was recently acquired by Capital Resorts. And although it wasn’t required, the resort staff persuaded this couple to attend an update where they’d learn all about Capital. Of course, it’s not an update, it’s a sales pitch. These people purchased something to the tune of $14,000 whereby they gave up what they owned and converted it into Capital points. It’s important to note here that the process took over 5 hours. Keep that in mind. 

They told me this over dinner and confessed that they had some questions and misgivings. I volunteered to go to the resort with them in a few days and ask some questions of my own. I volunteered for two reasons; first to make certain that these people were doing what was best for them and second because unlike some people with a grandiose view of themselves, I don’t proclaim to know everything about timeshare. I figured I’d learn something about Capital. 

So they have an appointment with the sales manager for between 12:00 noon and 1:00. I show up at the resort at noon and I’m told that the manager has moved the meeting to 1:30. Already a bad sign. 1:30 comes and goes. He’s still not available. At this point, the couple have been discussing their misgivings and confusion for several days and have determined that they should cancel. I should add at this point that this was their decision. I was merely asking questions and the more questions I asked, the more it became apparent that things just weren’t making sense.  

The husband gets up at this point and tells someone that they want to cancel the purchase. Miracle of miracles, the sales manager becomes available to talk. He proceeds to the computer set up in the middle of a noisy sales center to try to show my friends how they’d be guaranteed accommodations at many resorts if they make their reservations 4 months out. Luckily, my friends know that the only way timeshare reservations are guaranteed is if you own a fixed week, fixed unit. 

Things still aren’t making much sense to my friends and the sales manager can’t pull up anything in Hawaii to demonstrate the guarantee he’s talking about. It gets worse. He a) admits that he’s not working on an actual reservation site, but a “test” one and b) complains about the poor wi-fi saying that Capital is going to put $40 million into upgrades at the resort. Again, thankfully my friends understood that a large part of that $40 million would come from increased maintenance fees. Frankly, anyone with a brain would read in between the lines of that statement. 

It’s now 2:45. Sensing he’s not making any headway here, the manager asks my friends, who just gave him a credit card for $14,000 several days ago, for their email address, promising them he’d email them screen shots of Hawaii availability the next day. Screen shots!  My friends casually mention to him that he promised them his personal cell phone number so that he could help them with everything. Incredulously, he still doesn’t provide it, instead saying it will be in the promised email. 

I ask some questions and am given some fishy at best answers. The most basic question I asked was to see the comparison/conversion chart between the RCI point structure and the Capital Resorts point structure. He throws out a number, to the best of my recollection it was 10,000 RCI Points translated to 47,500 Capital points, but that no chart existed. Really?  So are the numbers simply pulled out of thin air?  

It’s now 3:20. We’ve been there for 3 hours and 20 minutes and have more questions than before. I need to sit down, so the 3 of us walk to the lobby. Soon, we’re talking with someone from the contracts department who gives us completely different numbers for the RCI/Capital conversion. He also mentions that it’s possible to merely convert the current ownership into Capital points without purchasing any additional points. Something that was not mentioned by the sales manager. 

So now we have a myriad of options but still no clear answers. The contracts person tells us we’re free to come back anytime in the next few days after 4:00 pm to sign paperwork. 

It’s now 4:00. We’ve been there for 4 hours. Add that to the 5 hours my friends were there purchasing the conversion and we’re at a mind numbing 9 hours!

9 hours!  9 hours with no clear understanding and no verifiable information. 

No timeshare sales pitch should go on for 9 hours. 

There are several lessons to be learned here:

1. A timeshare sales pitch is no place to get educated about anything. 
2. Consumers might want to consider holding off on converting anything for a year. This acquisition of the resort by Capital was only a few weeks old and it was obvious that not everything was going as smoothly as it should. 
3. Resort personnel should be on the same page. Consumers should not be given different information and different options by different people. 
4. If you don’t understand what they’re pitching after 2 hours, 7 more hours isn’t going to make it better. 
5. I’m not volunteering to go to any more informational meetings!