No Paper Trail for RCI Rentals?

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

Have you rented a timeshare week from RCI ?


Have you rented from RCI? ........ I have.

Have you gotten a Confirmation for the Rental?........ I didn’t.

Oh, I got a Confirmation all right. But it is for an Exchange! It is the same Exchange Confirmation Form as you get when you actually make an Exchange. There is nothing on the Confirmation Form that you give to the Resort that says Rental.

There should be 3 Confirmation Forms.

1 For an Exchange.
2 For an Extra Vacation Rental.
3 For a Last Call Rental.

That way there would be a paper trail for each transaction.

I talked to the management at the Beach Club and at the Maui (Embassy) Ka’anapali Resort. Both said that they really can not tell if the unit is being Exchanged into or is being Rented. Not unless the renter comes to them to complain that they didn’t get the best unit at the Resort after they paid all that rental money to come to the Resort.

The management of both resorts also said they get no money from RCI rentals of owner’s Exchange Weeks. In the case of the Beach Club, they are sold out. They have Cunningham Management Company for renting (the owners get about 2/3 of rental fee) and selling any extra weeks for the owners or the HOA. In the case of the Maui Embassy, Developers Weeks are used by the Developer for Developer Promotions.

Both Resorts realize that there is no benefit to them or the Owners, to have units rented out for less than or near the cost of the Maintenance Fee. This hurts sales, re-sales and value of ownership. Both Resorts were not aware of the extent of RCI’s Rental program. Why not talk to your home Resort management about it?

So where does the RCI rental weeks come from?

Maybe there is a reason for only 1 Confirmation Form. No paper trail.

Walt

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

Same was true for the one week I rented. I don't think RCI really wants anyone to know what weeks are rentals, perhaps more so for the resorts who would be better off financially if the week went usused.

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

Last Calls

last calls come in the normal exchange confirmation format and I suspect Extra Vacations do to.

I'll let you know if I decide to confirm that Gurneys week. That was available for exchange as well but I can only use 3 days and the $300 for the extra vacation was more attractive than my exchange total costs of +/- $600.

It's just another way to hide what's really happening over at RCI. It will be interesting if that case ever goes to court...

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

These theories could be true. But, I'll bet some product manager who tried to implement these rentals ran into a systems problem rather than this fitting into a grand conspiracy. Company systems aren't that flexible. Even if the senior executives were conniving thieves, grand conspiracies are next to impossible to execute through systems unless they are done by an inside computer hacker. Those hackers usually aren't the executives.

Their theory was that they would just use the existing systems to implement this new revenue generating program. So, they shaved a ton of time off the time to market and they saved on the capital and development costs. They got the project approved and when it came down to implementation, that product manager went to the IT department and they said, "hmm, you want what?.... We can schedule it for completion in 2009.... We just got our budget cut and so we can't possibly fit it in until then."

Then, the saavy product manager says, "yes you can, just do this..."

I have launched and run many different transaction based services in my career. This type of discussion happens on a daily basis.

I tend not to subscribe to grand conspiracy theories simply because it gives way too much credit to the cons for being great at execution. I don't think many of them are that good. The best ones do it without anyone even knowing its happening. And they certainly don't want to leave a paper trail.

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

All of these should have shown your membership number, showing at least that you were a legitimate timesharer. RCI makes up membeship numbers for the non-member rentals, so the resorts have to do a little detective work to figure out the rentals. At first it was easy - just look at the RCI inbound reports for the inbounds without any number. Then RCI came up with the phony numbers to make it less obvious to resorts.

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

All of these should have shown your membership number, showing at least that you were a legitimate timesharer. RCI makes up membeship numbers for the non-member rentals, so the resorts have to do a little detective work to figure out the rentals. At first it was easy - just look at the RCI inbound reports for the inbounds without any number. Then RCI came up with the phony numbers to make it less obvious to resorts.

I can think of many reasons why this would be implemented other than there being a conspiracy to hide renters from resorts.

Here are two:

1) RCI wanted to create accounts for renters so that they could offer them other deals in the future.

2) When RCI found out that it was incorrectly subjecting themselves to sales tax liabilities and potential sales tax evasion, they decided to create a member registration process so that they could verify the location of the renter and map it to the location of the rental to determine sales tax liability and accounting.

I am not saying this is exactly what happened. But, it too, can explain this change in system.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

...
I tend not to subscribe to grand conspiracy theories simply because it gives way too much credit to the cons for being great at execution. I don't think many of them are that good. The best ones do it without anyone even knowing its happening. And they certainly don't want to leave a paper trail.

Never ascribe to intelligence that which can be explained by incompetence.

[Jya-Ning Silver Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close Jya-Ning]

The local government should ask RCI to report these accounts and activities, and ask local resorts to report them too, as a cross check. It is their best interest to collect the tax. The resort should ask RCI to have them in seperate account type, so they can send them to local government.

Since RCI has to report Sale Tax to local government, I wonder what the sequence if they overlook this.

Jya-Ning

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

Tax?

2) When RCI found out that it was incorrectly subjecting themselves to sales tax liabilities and potential sales tax evasion, they decided to create a member registration process so that they could verify the location of the renter and map it to the location of the rental to determine sales tax liability and accounting.

I am not saying this is exactly what happened. But, it too, can explain this change in system.

I have never, not once, paid a sales tax on any week from RCI no matter how or within which system I obtained it. I have on the other hand paid the resorts directly in states where a transient tax is charged. ie Hawaii & California.

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

I have never, not once, paid a sales tax on any week from RCI no matter how or within which system I obtained it. I have on the other hand paid the resorts directly in states where a transient tax is charged. ie Hawaii & California.

I don't recall the specific post, but I do recall someone posting on TUG that RCI has changed their policy on sales tax collection and therefore do so now on rentals where it is required.

I didn't personally verify it. But, I believe they changed their policy on that relatively recently.

Florida, for example, requires RCI to collect sales tax on Florida rentals.

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

I don't recall the specific post, but I do recall someone posting on TUG that RCI has changed their policy on sales tax collection and therefore do so now on rentals where it is required.

I didn't personally verify it. But, I believe they changed their policy on that relatively recently.

Florida, for example, requires RCI to collect sales tax on Florida rentals.

I don't recall seeing anything like that. Not in a post and certainly not on the RCI website. If it were true I would have seen it on my Extra Vacation this morning < as an extra vacation would HAVE to be considered a rental, wouldn't it? >. Gurneys is a NY property and Hotel Occupancy rates at least in the city are decided by a table:

Hotel Room Occupancy Tax is based on the day rate [“rent”] being charged for a room:

If the rent for the room is…
The tax will be…

$10 or more, but less than $20
50 cents/day + 5 percent of the rent

$20 or more, but less than $30
$1.00/day + 5 percent of the rent

$30 or more, but less than $40
$1.50/day + 5 percent of the rent

$40 or more
$2.00 per day + 5 percent of the rent


But I was charged exactly what the rate was with nothing extra added on.

You will have to see if you can find that post for me.

[4ARedOctober Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close 4ARedOctober]

Personally I prefer the rental paperwork to be treated like an exchange for the rentals I have purchased at RCI....in several cases if it wasn't then I would have had to pay taxes on my stay that I am not subject to with an exchange.

There is an electronic trail....sort of.....on the profile in RCI and at Vets Holidays which shows which rentals or EV's have been purchased.

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

Did you mean this one Boca?

You will have to see if you can find that post for me.

http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showthr...&highlight=RCI


Re: Extra Vacations

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

dadtsky,

There are no intended online discounts for Extra Vacations. However, the tax collection process is different online than with a Guide. Our mainframe database can collect varying tax amounts according to each state, but our website does not yet have this programming and is still collecting flat rates. In both cases RCI pays the correct amounts to each state. Taxes do not apply to resorts outside of the U.S.

Last Call vacations are intentionally discounted online. This program was originally designed as a web-only product. We soon extended it to Guides to offer by telephone; however, the pricing is higher.
__________________
~ Madge

another reason to use the on-line system then.

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

I also think it's a system limitation. Look, they have a big ole mainframe, not the most agile of systems to program. They made a workaround, it works.

So it looks a little funny to you if you already get exchange confirmations from them, but, so what?

Much is being made of what the form is that comes out. I'm more concerned with where the inventory comes from, not what stock it prints on.

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

http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showthr...&highlight=RCI


Re: Extra Vacations

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

dadtsky,

There are no intended online discounts for Extra Vacations. However, the tax collection process is different online than with a Guide. Our mainframe database can collect varying tax amounts according to each state, but our website does not yet have this programming and is still collecting flat rates. In both cases RCI pays the correct amounts to each state. Taxes do not apply to resorts outside of the U.S.

Last Call vacations are intentionally discounted online. This program was originally designed as a web-only product. We soon extended it to Guides to offer by telephone; however, the pricing is higher.
__________________
~ Madge

another reason to use the on-line system then.

Darnit Lawren,

I spent a half hour looking for that post, I find it, I come here to post the link and you beat me to it.

Yes, that is one of the posts that I was referring to.