RCI Lawsuit Grinds to a halt

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

Is anyone surprised? This has been predicted here (and other places) since the breathless announcement of "a class action lawsuit" against RCI was posted. More than a year later the discovery process has been halted, the class has not been certified and it will be months before even that very basic and critical decision is handed down. Then only IF the class is certified will the discovery be put back on the agenda with many more months or even years before any actual arguments would be heard. And some think this is a way to improve the actions of RCI? Dropping your use/membership if you feel they are so bad is much more likely to produce results than this exercise in shyster enrichment. See the summary on the Streettalkblog.

[markccollins Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close markccollins]

Don't want to make RCI Better

I could care less if their actions improve. This scam has gone on long enough. Between rising maintenance fees, diminishing services, the useless "spacebank" and now strong arm tactics to get "weeks" owners to become "points" owners, it's time to put Fairfield and the whole lot of them out of business. I only own because my parents bought a week at a resort in Newport, Rhode Island when I was a kid. That was some 20 years ago and just last year the resort got some new furniture. I pay almost $700 dollars a year in maintenance fees for one week. Imagine owning a Condo and having $35,000 dollars per year to maintain it. Yet they took away our maid service, they got rid of the game room, and they still haven't replaced the silverware. Now we actually had one of Fairfield's salespeople tell us that they would allow "weeks" resorts to deteriorate until the owners left so they could be converted to "points" resorts. Which is how they really want it so you no longer own a stake in a property, just a $20,000 dollar travel club membership with yearly maintenance fees. Maintenance on what? My points?
This wasn't such a bad deal back when my parents bought into it. You own a week and if you want you can exchange it for a different week for a small fee. Now the maintenance fees are so high that I could easily go on Travelocity and get a vacation for less than my yearly maintenance fee. Now I only use the condo every year to spite them. The other option is to give it back to them and suck up the loss of my parents initial investment. That would suck on principal alone. I intend to file a lawsuit against the owner of this property for their recent strong arm tactics and the fact that they have basically taken what my parents bought into and made it something completely different. I intend to force them to buy the property back off of the weeks owners and then if they want to make it a weeks property they can do that.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

Mark,

Nice first post. I hope we don't get someone touting Timeshare Relief in a couple of days.

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

Mr. Bum is not typically complimentary to folks who feel this way, who like what they bought and are upset because someone changed it or because the industry breached the faith of their customers by changing the way they operate. Mr. Bum is normally an advocate of progress.

That, in a nutshell, is the complaint of a lot of folks.

I intend to file a lawsuit against the owner of this property for their recent strong arm tactics and the fact that they have basically taken what my parents bought into and made it something completely different.

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

I could care less if their actions improve. This scam has gone on long enough. Between rising maintenance fees, diminishing services, the useless "spacebank" and now strong arm tactics to get "weeks" owners to become "points" owners, it's time to put Fairfield and the whole lot of them out of business. I only own because my parents bought a week at a resort in Newport, Rhode Island when I was a kid. That was some 20 years ago and just last year the resort got some new furniture. I pay almost $700 dollars a year in maintenance fees for one week. Imagine owning a Condo and having $35,000 dollars per year to maintain it. Yet they took away our maid service, they got rid of the game room, and they still haven't replaced the silverware. Now we actually had one of Fairfield's salespeople tell us that they would allow "weeks" resorts to deteriorate until the owners left so they could be converted to "points" resorts. Which is how they really want it so you no longer own a stake in a property, just a $20,000 dollar travel club membership with yearly maintenance fees. Maintenance on what? My points?

Until a group of people are willing to pony up the big bucks to fight FF, nothing will change. What is there for any law firm to gain from a class action suit? There has to be better than 50 percent probably of winning before any law firm would consider taking on FF in a class action. And what would the remedy be - how can you determine the true damages to the injured parties?

I don't think using other exchange companies by depositing your Newport RI week with Sfx or DAE will dent RCI much either. There has a be a real critical mass of folks doing this for RCI to even yawn at the threat. They are renting RCI spacebanked weeks to veterans for discounts, so they must feel there's a glut of RCI spacebanked inventory they can't get fair rental value for.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

Mr. Bum is not typically complimentary to folks who feel this way, who like what they bought and are upset because someone changed it or because the industry breached the faith of their customers by changing the way they operate. Mr. Bum is normally an advocate of progress.

That, in a nutshell, is the complaint of a lot of folks.

I can speak for myself. Thank you.

I am very suspicious of anyone who comes onto any message board and starts flaming on their first post.

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

There is an old saying that the wheels of justice grind slowly. This lawsuit is no different than others in that regard, and indeed will tend to move even more slowly due to its complexity.

Among reasons that I have always prefered that these issues with RCI be raised by a state Attorney General's consumer protection suit rather than a class action is that 1) a state AG would not have to consume time jumping through the hoop of certifying the class, and 2) a state AG could get into court to get some substantive relief more quickly with a motion for a preliminary injunction.

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

I could care less if their actions improve. This scam has gone on long enough. Between rising maintenance fees, diminishing services, the useless "spacebank" and now strong arm tactics to get "weeks" owners to become "points" owners, it's time to put Fairfield and the whole lot of them out of business. I only own because my parents bought a week at a resort in Newport, Rhode Island when I was a kid. That was some 20 years ago and just last year the resort got some new furniture. I pay almost $700 dollars a year in maintenance fees for one week. Imagine owning a Condo and having $35,000 dollars per year to maintain it. Yet they took away our maid service, they got rid of the game room, and they still haven't replaced the silverware. Now we actually had one of Fairfield's salespeople tell us that they would allow "weeks" resorts to deteriorate until the owners left so they could be converted to "points" resorts. Which is how they really want it so you no longer own a stake in a property, just a $20,000 dollar travel club membership with yearly maintenance fees. Maintenance on what? My points?
This wasn't such a bad deal back when my parents bought into it. You own a week and if you want you can exchange it for a different week for a small fee. Now the maintenance fees are so high that I could easily go on Travelocity and get a vacation for less than my yearly maintenance fee. Now I only use the condo every year to spite them. The other option is to give it back to them and suck up the loss of my parents initial investment. That would suck on principal alone. I intend to file a lawsuit against the owner of this property for their recent strong arm tactics and the fact that they have basically taken what my parents bought into and made it something completely different. I intend to force them to buy the property back off of the weeks owners and then if they want to make it a weeks property they can do that.

RCI has NOTHING to do with MF's!!!

Good luck trying to force them (or anyone) into doing anything.

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

This is RCI not Wyndham

I could care less if their actions improve. This scam has gone on long enough. Between rising maintenance fees, diminishing services, the useless "spacebank" and now strong arm tactics to get "weeks" owners to become "points" owners, it's time to put Fairfield and the whole lot of them out of business. I only own because my parents bought a week at a resort in Newport, Rhode Island when I was a kid. That was some 20 years ago and just last year the resort got some new furniture. I pay almost $700 dollars a year in maintenance fees for one week. Imagine owning a Condo and having $35,000 dollars per year to maintain it. Yet they took away our maid service, they got rid of the game room, and they still haven't replaced the silverware. Now we actually had one of Fairfield's salespeople tell us that they would allow "weeks" resorts to deteriorate until the owners left so they could be converted to "points" resorts. Which is how they really want it so you no longer own a stake in a property, just a $20,000 dollar travel club membership with yearly maintenance fees. Maintenance on what? My points?
This wasn't such a bad deal back when my parents bought into it. You own a week and if you want you can exchange it for a different week for a small fee. Now the maintenance fees are so high that I could easily go on Travelocity and get a vacation for less than my yearly maintenance fee. Now I only use the condo every year to spite them. The other option is to give it back to them and suck up the loss of my parents initial investment. That would suck on principal alone. I intend to file a lawsuit against the owner of this property for their recent strong arm tactics and the fact that they have basically taken what my parents bought into and made it something completely different. I intend to force them to buy the property back off of the weeks owners and then if they want to make it a weeks property they can do that.

Unfortunately the RCI lawsuit has nothing to do with the Fairfield/Wyndham system. There was also a silly lawsuit against them which has, I think, completely been killed. It didn't involve FF weeks based resorts either. The RCI one still hangs on by the thinnest of threads for a little longer. Neither was likely to change anything even if they had gone forward and it is best for all owners to take whatever steps are needed to protect themselves.

If your parents/you held on to a weeks resort with FF but allowed management to run it into the ground then where were the owners while this was going on? They were paying fees for upkeep and management yet it wasn't being done? The owners should have taken a strong stance and things would have changed. It's never easy but it can and has been done when owners unite to make things right. It won't change if they sit back and complain.

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

...If your parents/you held on to a weeks resort with FF but allowed management to run it into the ground then where were the owners while this was going on? They were paying fees for upkeep and management yet it wasn't being done? The owners should have taken a strong stance and things would have changed. It's never easy but it can and has been done when owners unite to make things right. It won't change if they sit back and complain.

This is a good point. I own at a resort that was built by Fairfield. The HOA (Homeowners' Assoc) got fed up with Fairfield as the management, fired them, and hired someone else. So, it can be done. There are some developers who use shady tactics to maintain control of the resort even after it has been sold out (at which point generally the HOA should get control), but I don't think Fairfield is one of them.



Fairfield/Wyndham is part of the same corporation as RCI, but the issues here are different. The RCI lawsuit isn't related to Fairfield/Wyndham's resort management.

As for the class action against RCI, it is richly desired. However, I don't hold out much hope that it will change things. If it succeeds, RCI customers will probably receive something like a $20 coupon -- which they can redeem only by giving RCI yet another one of their weeks, taking whatever crummy week RCI offers in exchange, and paying RCI's exorbitant exchange fee. (This is what happened when Northwest was "successfully" sued for anti-competitive practices about a decade ago, except the coupon was for airfare, not timeshare exchanges. Northwest continued to charge exorbitant fares out of the Detroit market, so even with the coupon, they were still a rip-off. My coupon expired unused.)

Actually, here is what I see as the best thing about the RCI class action: When newbies show up, we can tell them, "RCI Weeks should be your absolute last choice for an exchange company. They are so bad, their customers are suing them."

[dougp26364 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dougp26364]

While I am dissapointed, I am not surprised. Going to points and then allowing points to be spent on items other than timeshare exchange will allow RCI to show that rentals are generated by people giving up their weeks for rental cars, airline miles or merchandise. It may be entirely impossible to prove what weeks where given up (points for service/mechandise) and what weeks were taken for rentals.

In the end this practice will only stop if enough people quit giving up their weeks or points to RCI. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening. With timeshare the uneducated seem to out number the educated by a considerable margin.

It is unfortunate IMO but RCI has probably done nothing wrong. They've just learned how to manipulate their system so that it favors them and make more money for their stockholders. Last time I looked they refered to timeshare owners as subscribers and not members. Essentially, they seem to be looking at timeshare owners as a cash cow to exploit to their fullest advantage to make as much money as they can. Seems as if they're doing a pretty good job of that.

IMO, points based systems serve mostly the company and not the timeshare owner who purchased with the intention of using or exchanging their timeshare for timeshare vacations.

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

Sometimes when you have a problem and you feel you just can't take it any more and that it can't get any worse and that litigation is the only way to get relief, you find out that it can get worse, by litigating.

Not only do you then have your adversary still doing the things that annoy you, but you have added to it an attorney, or two, or more, and a judge, who make can things worse for you. Then, toss in a mediator, at your expense.

Even if this was taken on contingency, the plaintiff still has to pay the expenses. I doubt that there are any here who would be willing to fork over the kind of money it would take for a suit like this, with an unlikelihood of receiving and collecting a judgement. The expense of discovery, appearances, research, etc. would be enormous.

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

Have you ever played paintball?

I can speak for myself. Thank you.

I am very suspicious of anyone who comes onto any message board and starts flaming on their first post.

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

Big settlements make big news, but the truth is that when those wheels are grinding they grind everyone involved.

There is an old saying that the wheels of justice grind slowly.

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

...
IMO, points based systems serve mostly the company and not the timeshare owner who purchased with the intention of using or exchanging their timeshare for timeshare vacations.

Let's not paint all points systems with the same brush. Many of us are having a fabulous points-owning experience.