If you could start over...what would you do?

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

I realize that not many people make socially-conscious decisions when it comes to spending money, and that the way a company is and acts does not affect most consumers.

But, I take note of a trail of litigation and things like sexual harassment.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Speaking of Orlando,

The Hilton Grand Vacations Club often posts their studios on Hotwire for $69 a night.

I have personally rented a one bed unit at Sheraton Vistana Villages in Orlando for a week this past late February for $79 a night. No extra fees. Why trade at that price? There is a huge glut in Orlando as you say. I know the maint fees on that property were far more than I paid and thats a shame.

Anyway, I knew going in which they were because you can discern the listings using the betterbidding forum. Just need to look up the icons, section of town and star rating...and you can nail down the exact property to 99% accuracy in many cases.

Wow! Did I post this?

HW lets you search for condos and PL does not, but I recently actually got ahold of a real person on the phone at PL and he actually did a search for a condo for me. HW had em beat . . . and, yes, it was for a Kissimmee timeshare, one down the same road from Wastegate, and one somewhere here was recently trying to unload.

(When exclusivity left the timeshare game, the perception of value left with it.)

When I googlemapped it, DW and I laughed, cuz it's down the same road off 192 from the Denny's where it all started for us way back last century. Where's the time go when you're having fun?

Also, I get Hilton employee perks, so can stay at Hilton properties really inexpensive, some free sometimes. A co-worker recently honeymooned at their Key Largo resort thataway. (I wasn't invited. )

It was interesting to see all those SW FL HGVC resorts on the list, only the notation was that those employees can get into other Hilton properties, but it is not reciprocal.

[chriskre Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close chriskre]

I realize that not many people make socially-conscious decisions when it comes to spending money, and that the way a company is and acts does not affect most consumers.

But, I take note of a trail of litigation and things like sexual harassment.

Jim, not all of us have enough time in our day to investigate every company we do business with.

Westgate has never done anything to me so I hold no grudges, but since alot of others do, it's all good for me.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Jim, not all of us have enough time in our day to investigate every company we do business with.

Have you heard of the Internet?

Google

Google

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&h...c716aade6fa416


Maybe you can time how long it takes to click.

Yeah, maybe I'm anal, but when I meet someone new I may be doing business with, I sometimes do a 60-second background check.

I can tell you some funny stories.

[Hobbitess Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hobbitess]

Maybe you can time how long it takes to click.

But the only one of those the average person would be likely to search for is the first - "complaints about Westgate." And even that may be a stretch, because I've done lots of searches looking for complaints on lots of Timeshares and never used that exact phrase. Unless someone's heard something specific they're not going to be searching "david siegel sexual harassment" or "JLB tug posts" - which last I wouldn't do if I'd heard anything, because you post here on a number of subjects so I wouldn't think to search on your name for info on Westgate.

And it isn't the searching that takes so much time, but the reading.

That said, I have heard enough I doubt I'll ever stay in anything Westgate. But where people draw that line varies.

[chriskre Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close chriskre]

Have you heard of the Internet?


Maybe you can time how long it takes to click.

Yeah, maybe I'm anal, but when I meet someone new I may be doing business with, I sometimes do a 60-second background check.

I can tell you some funny stories.

If I was worried about sexual harassment, I'd have had to quit my job long, long ago, unfortunately but it's a sad reality in many places not just Westgate.

So what happens when you google happy westgate owners? I found a few of them and happen to work with 2 people who own at Westgate and are very happy with their one week a year in Orlando. I've tried to help them learn how to get more vacations out of it but they actually like their week, so there are some happy campers out there but as usual, they don't post their happiness on the internet for all to see.

[timeos2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close timeos2]

Wastegate owners - sooner or later they will be dissatisfied.

If I was worried about sexual harassment, I'd have had to quit my job long, long ago, unfortunately but it's a sad reality in many places not just Westgate.

So what happens when you google happy westgate owners? I found a few of them and happen to work with 2 people who own at Westgate and are very happy with their one week a year in Orlando. I've tried to help them learn how to get more vacations out of it but they actually like their week, so there are some happy campers out there but as usual, they don't post their happiness on the internet for all to see.

While what you say may be so few organizations are so blatant that they get caught & fined. Just one of many ways that the whole Wastegate organization considers themselves above any rules, regulations or mere laws.

The ONLY "happy" Wastegate owners are those who haven't yet been royally shafted. Within a short time, for a limited few it may be longer, for most that will change and they will likely join the vast majority that wish they had no relationship or even heard of Wastegate. There is no defense for them and their SOP.

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

Jim, not all of us have enough time in our day to investigate every company we do business with.

Westgate has never done anything to me so I hold no grudges, but since alot of others do, it's all good for me.

I don't know anything about Westgate so I have no opinion about them one way or the other. I do agree with you in I don't pay any attention to what a company does other than how it affects me directly. I read a lot of reviews of hotels ( we stay 50-60 nights a year in hotels ), products etc. I discard all the opinions that are not related directly to the product or service.

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

Back to the topic. We bought our first timeshare 23 years ago. We bought another one a couple years later. We sold one of them 3 years ago. If we are referring to today's timesharing world then I wouldn't buy a timeshare.

Timesharing to me has always been just another vacation option. We take as many or more non-timeshare vacations as timeshare ones. There are so many vacation options available now that owning a timeshare does not suit our travel preferences.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

[QUOTE=JWC;409373I don't pay any attention to what a company does other than how it affects me directly.[/QUOTE]

That's what I meant about "most people".

As for sexual harassment, which, as dumb as it sounds, I, too, have been a victim, for $5.4 million I'd put up with a bit of it.

BTW, to my point, where do you think the $5.4 Mil came from?

Where do think the $100 Mil for his house came from?

Etc.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

So what happens when you google happy westgate owners?

Why aren’t Wastegate owners happy? - Timeshare Users Group Online Community Forums

Post #12

Funny!

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Why aren’t Wastegate owners happy? - Timeshare Users Group Online Community Forums

Post #12

Funny!

Actually, that whole thread, although wrought with the personal attacks of other posters and the sharp edge typical of that forum, is very interesting reading.

It pretty much sums up all one should need to know about the Wastegate mess. Literally tens of thousands of complaints have been posted about the company, and, yet, owners who are yet to be screwed or realize they are being screwed, criticize the criticizers.

I always wondered what got accomplished by criticizing criticizers.

I understand there is a natural human tendency to defend what one is personally attached to or to defend one's decisions. Denial is also a strong emotion.

We do it to warn others, but, no good deed goes unpunished.

How did this get started, again?

[chriskre Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close chriskre]

Actually, that whole thread, although wrought with the personal attacks of other posters and the sharp edge typical of that forum, is very interesting reading.

I always wondered what got accomplished by criticizing criticizers.

I understand there is a natural human tendency to defend what one is personally attached to or to defend one's decisions. Denial is also a strong emotion.

We do it to warn others, but, no good deed goes unpunished.

How did this get started, again?

So is that how you got banned from TUG 4 times?

Jim, I don't think that people are in denial, they just are not in the "know".
I know people who hate timeshares period because of the way they are sold.
I can look beyond that and see that the product suits me. Maybe because I have sales training and know what it's like to earn a commission. Does the end justify the means? No, but I didn't invent TSing, just along for the ride.

So was that you Jim, that I saw in Branson holding the big sign?
Oh come on fess up?

And how did this get started? Such strong emotions about a $79 deal to Orlando that I got once and hope to repeat soon.

Well off to Orlando now but staying in my expensive DVC this week. Maybe next month I'll get my cheap Westgate deal.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

they just are not in the "know".

Not a very good excuse any more.

As I said in that thread OY, when we first toured WasteGate it was Bldgs A & B, a Clubhouse, a tent, and a lot of mud. It was in that tent that we, two uninformed and naive Ozark Americans on their first vacation together, took the bait.

It all sounded too good to be true, but we just knew they could not say those things if they weren't true.

Of course, they weren't true, they could say them, and they still are, almost verbatim, except for badmouthing RCI every chance they get rather than ballyhooing them as they did in the 80's (before Ms. DeHaan got her fill of Mr. S).

I have the insight of what they were doing and saying in the 80's, what they did to us as owners, how we continue to get timeshares sales calls asking about our WasteGates, how we were treated as RCI guests, and what they are doing and saying now.

I have the experience of having done something concerning timesharing almost every day for the last 13 years, pretty much keeping on top of things.

There was no Internet to go to when we got hooked, but if there was I would have been extremely grateful to have heard from someone like me.

[chriskre Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close chriskre]

It's unfortunate they took advantage of your naivete but that's FL salesmen for you. Remember they're great at selling swamp land.

Speaking of swampland, why don't you just dump this wastegate mugwump swampy timeshare and buy something that would make you happier.

I recommend Hilton. Then you can go back to SW Florida where the water is fine.