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Diamond Resorts LTVR presentation
Timeshare Hell
Things got nasty at the end. We were finishing up a timeshare presentation at the Lake Tahoe Vacation Resort. This, the same resort where we own a timeshare week. We've been owners here since 1998. Every time we come up (especially since the property was sold to Diamond Resorts International) we are invited to take a tour and convert our deeded property to a "points based system." After years of being worn down, and with time on our hands during our week up there, we decided to take a tour. Compensation for our time would be a $125 gift card and a "complementary" 3 day 2 night stay at one of the other Diamond Resorts locations. Under no circumstances were we going to buy, upgrade,convert anything to anybody. We learned our lessons about timeshares when we paid "developer prices" back in 1998. I told our sales rep "Andrew" right up front, that we weren't interested in buying, trading, or exchanging. One true thing that Andrew said during the presentation was "well, the one thing I can't do is spend your money." Thank God for that, else Andrew would have dipped into our pockets and pulled out near $50,000.
Anyway, we get pulled into a large room where 20 other couples were each sitting at a table with a salesperson getting the Diamond Resorts sales pitch. After some obligatory small talk, Andrew went on with this presentation. Assured that, with his mountain of data, smarts, quick wit, and logical answer to EVERYTHING, he would convince us that it made sense to "buy points." Since we were what he called "traditional owners" (deeded vs. "points" owners), he first tried to get us to supplement our current week in Tahoe by buying into the points system. To make a long long LONG story short, they were trying to sell us one of three "point packages" ranging from $20,000 to $47,000. The pitch was, for $20k, we can get lifetime access to a studio or one bedroom for a week anywhere in the world. For the $47k, we can get a two bedroom for a week anywhere in the world during the most desirable times of the year, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, Easter, Christmas. I told Andrew, that out of the 11 years that we have owned our timeshare in Tahoe, we have spent 4th of July here 8 of those years. That means that what I have now is worth $47K, so why would I need to buy more points? "To get into the CLUB". The CLUB allows us "exclusive exchanges to exotic locations around the world". "Where do you want to go?" Andrew asked us. We hate to play this game. Truthfully, there are plenty of places I'd like to go, but what I wanted to say was that we don't like to go anywhere but Tahoe. To please Andrew, I say "Hawaii". Andrew is proud to show us the "signature properties" on both Maui and Kauai. HA HA!! I tell him "we've stayed in both of those places via an outside exchange company. One of our best vacations ever! Things weren't going Andrew's way so he decided to give us the tour. We did like the "new" two bedroom. He called them "deluxe" but they were just "remodeled". Same floor plan but totally upgraded. NICE!! He first said that in 18 months all the units would be upgraded, but later said that traditional owners (like us) would not get to use them. Whatever. At this point we knew we couldn't trust anything Andrew was saying. He had lost us.
The hard sell, no matter how he tried, was not working. It was finally beginning to sink in to poor Andrew that he wasn't going to make a sale on this day. Several times throughout the presentation, Andrew would stop, put his pencil down, look at us and say.."make sense?" Just to move things along (already at the magic 90 minute mark) I always said "yes, makes sense". But no matter what sense HE thought it made, the fact of the matter was that he was trying to sell us something that we already had! I just think Andrew wanted to make "cents".
So after two hours we give Andrew the final, bad news, that we just couldn't afford such a great deal no matter how much sense it made. " The one thing I can't do is spend your money". (THANK GOD!) "I'll go get Danny to give you the exit interview and you'll be on your way" Awesome. Thanks Andrew!! So we are waiting for about 10 minutes.. I really thought the worst was over.
So Andrew comes back and introduces Danny. Danny shakes Barb's hand first, " Andrew told me about your battle with cancer. (Andrew asked us about our wristbands when we were seeing the deluxe 2 bedroom) My Dad has stage 4 pancreatic cancer so I know what a hard time you are having". Danny was VERY compassionate. " Let me go through the exit questions real quick and get you back to your vacation..... How was Andrew?? 'good'. Was the presentation helpful? 'yes' Why won't you buy? 'we can't afford it. "Ok, let me go turn this in and I'll be right back. Five minutes later Andrew and Danny BOTH come back. Danny has done us a favor!! He has checked and noticed that we were never given the opportunity to "convert to points" back in 2004 and that he would "go to bat for us" if we really wanted him to. He will try to get us the same deal that "everyone else" has taken advantage of. So now Andrew leaves and Danny sits down. They called in the relief pitcher! THE CLOSER!! So Danny sits down with a piece of notepaper with the "FINAL OFFER" all written out. For $7200, they would give us 3000 points a year, then convert our current deeded timeshare week to 10,500 annual points. Giving us 13,500 points a year, all for the bargain basement price of $7200. "Its an unbelievable deal. I'll give you a couple minutes to think about this. Then Danny looks me right in the eye, and with all sincerity says "but I want to tell you, if my wife had cancer, I would definitely want to spend some more quality time her. this would be the perfect opportunity to do that". It was only then that I realized just how much of a sleaze this guy was!!!! Danny was actually trying to guilt me into buying his stupid points!. He played the cancer card in trying to sell a timeshare! How low can a guy go? I was disappointed and I think it showed. He looked me in the eye when he said that, and I'm pretty sure he realized that, at that point, he had blown it.
So Danny leaves to let us decide. What a jerk!! We both couldn't believe what he had just done. My faith in humanity was shattered. Five minutes later Andrew comes back and says "Good news! Danny just heard from his dad and the tumor is shrinking....So I hear you are ready to buy?!?" ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Sorry Andrew, you have it all wrong. "Danny said that you were interested in the offer, and it IS an excellent offer." Get a clue Andrew, and get a shave while your at it. I quickly TRY to explain to Andrew that if we paid $7200 to convert to points, and received 13,000 points a year, we could not spend 4th of July (like we've done 8 of 11 years) in Tahoe anymore since it would "cost" 15,000 points to do so. HELLO?!?!?!?!? MAKE SENSE!!!!?????
Andrew's only response was that he "felt real sorry for us" because we weren't taking this offer. He made it sound (in his own special way) that we must be idiots for not taking the offer. At this point I'm just trying to get out of there with the gift card and without assaulting someone. "OK, Jenny will be over to get you your gifts and get you back to your vacation" Thanks Andrew!!! Jenny comes over, not with the gifts but with the FINAL FINAL OFFER. Pay $900 for a "$3500 valued" vacation and have a whole year to decide on the original $20,000 to $47,000 offers. No thanks Jenny, Gifts please!! COCKTAILS!!!!
So we FINALLY get out of there with a couple of Visa Gift cards totaling $125 and the voucher for the 2 night stay. Our blood pressure was WAY up and we needed to get back into vacation mode ASAP. We decided to make a bee line across the way to the Riva Grill for cocktails and appetizers, courtesy of the gift cards. After a couple of rounds and a few appetizers, the bill came and ...CARD DENIED!!!!. SORRY!! We don't accept these since we've had so many problems with them!! Are you kidding me?!?!?! The final insult in an otherwise perfect vacation to Tahoe. It was a good thing we were able to order stuff online that night, else I would have had to .......
I should say that I fully expected a hard sell. That's why I avoided their calls and invitations for so long. It was a hard sell that got nasty at the end. Playing the cancer card to sell timeshares is a disgrace. Our buddy Andrew "feeling sorry for us" was his back handed way of saying we were stupid. SHAME SHAME SHAME ON THEM.
We used the cards to order stuff from Amazon.com. Bought a pizza the next night and even some Starbucks coffee!!
Anyway, we get pulled into a large room where 20 other couples were each sitting at a table with a salesperson getting the Diamond Resorts sales pitch. After some obligatory small talk, Andrew went on with this presentation. Assured that, with his mountain of data, smarts, quick wit, and logical answer to EVERYTHING, he would convince us that it made sense to "buy points." Since we were what he called "traditional owners" (deeded vs. "points" owners), he first tried to get us to supplement our current week in Tahoe by buying into the points system. To make a long long LONG story short, they were trying to sell us one of three "point packages" ranging from $20,000 to $47,000. The pitch was, for $20k, we can get lifetime access to a studio or one bedroom for a week anywhere in the world. For the $47k, we can get a two bedroom for a week anywhere in the world during the most desirable times of the year, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, Easter, Christmas. I told Andrew, that out of the 11 years that we have owned our timeshare in Tahoe, we have spent 4th of July here 8 of those years. That means that what I have now is worth $47K, so why would I need to buy more points? "To get into the CLUB". The CLUB allows us "exclusive exchanges to exotic locations around the world". "Where do you want to go?" Andrew asked us. We hate to play this game. Truthfully, there are plenty of places I'd like to go, but what I wanted to say was that we don't like to go anywhere but Tahoe. To please Andrew, I say "Hawaii". Andrew is proud to show us the "signature properties" on both Maui and Kauai. HA HA!! I tell him "we've stayed in both of those places via an outside exchange company. One of our best vacations ever! Things weren't going Andrew's way so he decided to give us the tour. We did like the "new" two bedroom. He called them "deluxe" but they were just "remodeled". Same floor plan but totally upgraded. NICE!! He first said that in 18 months all the units would be upgraded, but later said that traditional owners (like us) would not get to use them. Whatever. At this point we knew we couldn't trust anything Andrew was saying. He had lost us.
The hard sell, no matter how he tried, was not working. It was finally beginning to sink in to poor Andrew that he wasn't going to make a sale on this day. Several times throughout the presentation, Andrew would stop, put his pencil down, look at us and say.."make sense?" Just to move things along (already at the magic 90 minute mark) I always said "yes, makes sense". But no matter what sense HE thought it made, the fact of the matter was that he was trying to sell us something that we already had! I just think Andrew wanted to make "cents".
So after two hours we give Andrew the final, bad news, that we just couldn't afford such a great deal no matter how much sense it made. " The one thing I can't do is spend your money". (THANK GOD!) "I'll go get Danny to give you the exit interview and you'll be on your way" Awesome. Thanks Andrew!! So we are waiting for about 10 minutes.. I really thought the worst was over.
So Andrew comes back and introduces Danny. Danny shakes Barb's hand first, " Andrew told me about your battle with cancer. (Andrew asked us about our wristbands when we were seeing the deluxe 2 bedroom) My Dad has stage 4 pancreatic cancer so I know what a hard time you are having". Danny was VERY compassionate. " Let me go through the exit questions real quick and get you back to your vacation..... How was Andrew?? 'good'. Was the presentation helpful? 'yes' Why won't you buy? 'we can't afford it. "Ok, let me go turn this in and I'll be right back. Five minutes later Andrew and Danny BOTH come back. Danny has done us a favor!! He has checked and noticed that we were never given the opportunity to "convert to points" back in 2004 and that he would "go to bat for us" if we really wanted him to. He will try to get us the same deal that "everyone else" has taken advantage of. So now Andrew leaves and Danny sits down. They called in the relief pitcher! THE CLOSER!! So Danny sits down with a piece of notepaper with the "FINAL OFFER" all written out. For $7200, they would give us 3000 points a year, then convert our current deeded timeshare week to 10,500 annual points. Giving us 13,500 points a year, all for the bargain basement price of $7200. "Its an unbelievable deal. I'll give you a couple minutes to think about this. Then Danny looks me right in the eye, and with all sincerity says "but I want to tell you, if my wife had cancer, I would definitely want to spend some more quality time her. this would be the perfect opportunity to do that". It was only then that I realized just how much of a sleaze this guy was!!!! Danny was actually trying to guilt me into buying his stupid points!. He played the cancer card in trying to sell a timeshare! How low can a guy go? I was disappointed and I think it showed. He looked me in the eye when he said that, and I'm pretty sure he realized that, at that point, he had blown it.
So Danny leaves to let us decide. What a jerk!! We both couldn't believe what he had just done. My faith in humanity was shattered. Five minutes later Andrew comes back and says "Good news! Danny just heard from his dad and the tumor is shrinking....So I hear you are ready to buy?!?" ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Sorry Andrew, you have it all wrong. "Danny said that you were interested in the offer, and it IS an excellent offer." Get a clue Andrew, and get a shave while your at it. I quickly TRY to explain to Andrew that if we paid $7200 to convert to points, and received 13,000 points a year, we could not spend 4th of July (like we've done 8 of 11 years) in Tahoe anymore since it would "cost" 15,000 points to do so. HELLO?!?!?!?!? MAKE SENSE!!!!?????
Andrew's only response was that he "felt real sorry for us" because we weren't taking this offer. He made it sound (in his own special way) that we must be idiots for not taking the offer. At this point I'm just trying to get out of there with the gift card and without assaulting someone. "OK, Jenny will be over to get you your gifts and get you back to your vacation" Thanks Andrew!!! Jenny comes over, not with the gifts but with the FINAL FINAL OFFER. Pay $900 for a "$3500 valued" vacation and have a whole year to decide on the original $20,000 to $47,000 offers. No thanks Jenny, Gifts please!! COCKTAILS!!!!
So we FINALLY get out of there with a couple of Visa Gift cards totaling $125 and the voucher for the 2 night stay. Our blood pressure was WAY up and we needed to get back into vacation mode ASAP. We decided to make a bee line across the way to the Riva Grill for cocktails and appetizers, courtesy of the gift cards. After a couple of rounds and a few appetizers, the bill came and ...CARD DENIED!!!!. SORRY!! We don't accept these since we've had so many problems with them!! Are you kidding me?!?!?! The final insult in an otherwise perfect vacation to Tahoe. It was a good thing we were able to order stuff online that night, else I would have had to .......
I should say that I fully expected a hard sell. That's why I avoided their calls and invitations for so long. It was a hard sell that got nasty at the end. Playing the cancer card to sell timeshares is a disgrace. Our buddy Andrew "feeling sorry for us" was his back handed way of saying we were stupid. SHAME SHAME SHAME ON THEM.
We used the cards to order stuff from Amazon.com. Bought a pizza the next night and even some Starbucks coffee!!
You have made a good decision though.
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