Well, This is a Fine Kettle of Fish - Festiva takes over Escape! Resorts

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

This is another thing that is aggravating about the timeshare and "nightly rental vacation condo" business. Companies make promises and people buy because of those promises. Then when the easy money ends, they fold up their tent and disappear, leaving thousands (normally) stranded, with no one to perform the promised services any more.

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

How did this come about? Festiva is known for buying out contract rights of others, as they did with the sinking Peppertree-Equivest points club. If that is what they did, it is amazing that the HOA board would have entered into a contract with Escapes! that did not require the HOA's consent for such a transfer of contract rights. It would also be misfeasance for the HOA board to consent to a transfer to such bottom feeders at Festiva. Owners should make demands on their HOA leadership about the specifics of what went down. Any board member who supported a voluntary takeover by Festiva should be replaced at the earliest opportunity. If the HOA signed a contract that allowed a sale of contract rights without requiring HOA approval, any board member responsible for such a contract should also be voted out of office.

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

How did this come about? Festiva is known for buying out contract rights of others, as they did with the sinking Peppertree-Equivest points club. If that is what they did, it is amazing that the HOA board would have entered into a contract with Escapes! that did not require the HOA's consent for such a transfer of contract rights. It would also be misfeasance for the HOA board to consent to a transfer to such bottom feeders at Festiva. Owners should make demands on their HOA leadership about the specifics of what went down. Any board member who supported a voluntary takeover by Festiva should be replaced at the earliest opportunity. If the HOA signed a contract that allowed a sale of contract rights without requiring HOA approval, any board member responsible for such a contract should also be voted out of office.

As I've said, I have not been notified by anyone about anything.

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

As I've said, I have not been notified by anyone about anything.

All members have rights under state law to inspect and copy HOA board minutes. Someone should go do that to find out what is going on. You can also inspect and copy the contracts with both Escapes! and Festiva.

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

All members have rights under state law to inspect and copy HOA board minutes. Someone should go do that to find out what is going on. You can also inspect and copy the contracts with both Escapes! and Festiva.

For what purpose?

To do what?

Raising ---- with folks I know, and golf with, etc., may sound great, and easy for someone unattached to spew forth on the Internet, but, real life is different.

I, of course, do intend to find out what's going on, and I just sent an email to the developments' POA, cuz I don't have an email to the "condos'" HOA. Part of our annual fee gose to the development's POA, which I am, thus, a member of.

There is a decent chance that we may be better off now, only having ourselves to care for and not be burdened by a mini-system that has publicly declared they gave up five years ago.

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

I just dug out the only contact from the resort this year, the notice for the annual meeting, dated February, 22. The lawsuit was filed December 20, and there was no mention of that or anything else amiss.

This should serve as warning to those who tout the merits of min-systems.

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

I just got an email from my prospective buyer saying he had just talked to the HOA (of the development) and the Golf Shop, and he did not want to buy anything there at this time.

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

I just got an email from my prospective buyer saying he had just talked to the HOA (of the development) and the Golf Shop, and he did not want to buy anything there at this time.

We actually got to talk yesterday, rather than email. About 10 minutes into our conversation, while I was trying to sort out all the misunderstandings the guy has about timesharing, and Escapes!, and Cooper, it turns out he already owns a full-ownership condo in the development that he was totally lied to about, and through some program Cooper has been allowing him to trade weeks to others of their properties.

It was totally obvious that he was so far lost in trying to understand timesharing/cooper/escapes/stonebridge village that I pretty much gave up on trying to explain it.

That is one of the problems with every system that has come along since the original, Weeks, that each one clouds the "how does it work" issue. Of course, if you hang out on a timeshare every day, you are soon an ex-spirt.

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

We actually got to talk yesterday, rather than email. About 10 minutes into our conversation, while I was trying to sort out all the misunderstandings the guy has about timesharing, and Escapes!, and Cooper, it turns out he already owns a full-ownership condo in the development that he was totally lied to about, and through some program Cooper has been allowing him to trade weeks to others of their properties.

It was totally obvious that he was so far lost in trying to understand timesharing/cooper/escapes/stonebridge village that I pretty much gave up on trying to explain it.

That is one of the problems with every system that has come along since the original, Weeks, that each one clouds the "how does it work" issue. Of course, if you hang out on a timeshare every day, you are soon an ex-spirt.

After I talked to a person at our "office," the guy may own in another section of timeshare at the same resort, one that does not come with the year-round benefits of the section we own in, but it appears he was told it did in order to get him to buy. & it may be a Floating or Points week in the Escapes! mini-system.

If you think explaining vanilla timesharing to someone who doesn't know anything about it is hard, try explaining it to someone who owns non-vanilla timesharing, and was lied to from the git-go about it and how it works.

It's hard to explain simple to someone who has the baggage of complicated presented improperly.

& how many times have we all seen how great folks thought Escapes! was/is?

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

My looking into this is going about the way most things in the timeshare world do. The lady at the phone number for "our resort" had not knowledge of the things I have mentioned here. She gave me an email address which, I guess, is the only way owners can contact our "board". They have responded.

Festiva has responded to each of my emails to them, remaining vague as to what their role is. They attached a copy of the letter they said they sent to "Escapes!" owners, only our resort was not on the list. When I replied to that effect, their reply was that they are doing "Customer Service" for all Escapes! resorts, whatever that means.

I am still not clear as to whether Escapes! is or is not doing anything, and by that I mean doing "exchanges or "reservations" through what was known as "Escapes! Travel Club" (ETC), or anything related their Escapes! points mini-system.

Talked about a boondoggle!!! First, folks bought fixed weeks at "our resort". Then, Coopershares/Escapes! converted whoever was gullible enough to Floating Weeks, and then to Escapes Points, so, as the promise went, they could reserve anything, anywhere, anytime, within the Escapes! system, instead of a fixed week at one resort. Of course, each conversion came with a price, and there were/are fees involved in being in ETC.

But, as in the case of the guy I have been dealing with, if that is the line of BS someone bought and signed up for, something simpler and better, which, surprisingly, in this case RCI and II are, is next to impossible to explain.
- - - - - -
We had our Escapes! weeks in an online account with Escapes!.

Now there is no way to contact them, no phone number or email address, and I can't find one googling. I get the impression they don't want to hear form Escapes! owners, so I can find out if they are still doing any reservations, as my prospect said they are.

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

My looking into this is going about the way most things in the timeshare world do. The lady at the phone number for "our resort" had no knowledge of the things I have mentioned here. She gave me an email address which, I guess, is the only way owners can contact our "board". They have not responded.

Correcting original by changing it to "no knowledge" and "not responded."

Now "the Board" has "not responded" to two emails asking for information on what's going on.

That's owners only contact sources, a phone number, and an email address, which you find out about when you call the phone number.

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

Yesterday was a check-in day, so it was the first time I've had a face-to-face with anyone at the resort since Escapes evaporated, the website where I pay our annual fees was no longer available, with no notice whatsoever, so I had to find all this crap out myself, googling, and then the resort did not reply to the emails I sent to the email address I was given when I called the only phone number owners have been given.

This has been going on since December of last year.

The poor lady who checked me in knows me from many previous checkins, and we always joke. I told her I was tired, and apologized in advance, but pretty much told her this is a fine way to run a railroad, those in charge of the resort not giving any information about Escapes! folding, our affiliation with Festiva, if there is any, and all the other questions not communicating with owners has created.

Her attempts at an explanation was that everything is just fine, and was stuff I have already found myself, but did not address who and what our resort is, who or what we may be affiliated with, why the website where we paid our fees vanished without notice, why there has been no mention of any of this to owners, and why we are still dealing with the people Escapes! used to administer owners' accounts, people I have know personally for almost 20 years.

She did say that I was not given any information because I am a deeded owner, without explaining what that meant. Guessing, maybe that means that those who were flipped into Floating/Escapes Points, for a substantial fee, of course, for the Escapes! minisystem still have some sort of benefits with Escapes! (Cooper).

Who knows?

On the way home I thought how this is the way the industry goes . . . as long as the making of promises brings in new, easy, big money, everything is fine. But, when that stops, as it did for Coopershares/Escapes in 2008 or so, they fold up their card table, wash their hands, and disappear, the hell with promises made.

This was not of the sleazy, hated systems; this was Coopershares/Escapes!, with great resorts in popular locations.

It should be ample warning to everyone/anyone, that promises made and contracts entered into are only meaningful to those making them as long as they continue to be highly profitable.

Another thing we have discussed, and that can be found when you study the demise of Escapes!, is that when the easy money stopped, they went into the nightly rental business with the unsold inventory, which became the precursor of what was to come.

In any event, I left my checkin reminder postcard with the lady who always check me in, with me email and snail mail address on it, and told her if anyone running our resort cared to answer the questions owners have, contact me.

Wanna start a betting pool on if that happens?

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

Stonebridge Village Condominiums


RCI 3402

Stonebridge Village Condominiums
1 Oak Lane
Reeds Springs, MO 65737 USA
Resort Telephone (417)336-2440

Stonebridge Village Condominiums features hotel units, studio units, one-bedroom, two-bedroom, three-bedroom timeshare units.

I find this:

http://dockets.justia.com/search?q=S...%2C+Inc.%C2%A0

Stonebridge Village Condominium Owners
Association, Inc. et al v. Escapes!, Inc. et al

Case Number: 3:2012cv05135
Filed: December 20, 2012
Updated: March 14, 2013

Plaintiffs:
Stonebridge Village Condominium Owners Association, Inc.,
Oakridge Condominium Owners Association, Inc. and
Oaks Vacation Owners Association, Inc.

Defendants:
Escapes!, Inc., Escapes Property Management, LLC,
Escapes Travel Choice, LLC, Cooper Communities, Inc.,
John Cooper and others

Cause Of Action: Breach of Contract


JLB You need to help get this information out to other timeshare owners by using a strong subject line instead of an off topic one.

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

RCI 3402
JLB You need to help get this information out to other timeshare owners by using a strong subject line instead of an off topic one.

Well, that's a fine kettle of fish.



It's pretty obvious to me that no one at this resort cares to, or intends to, answer owners' questions, or feels there is any need to explain anything about anything to anyone.

I now have our weeks for totally free on cl.

&, at our other resort, for the last 19 years when our fee billing has arrived I have picked up the phone, called them, and paid the fee on our credit card.

Today (7/15) I received a billing with a due date of 7/1, a cutoff date of 7/9 and a postmark of 7/9. I called to pay it, and there now is a 3% surcharge for doing what I have been doing for 19 years.

Like I have become accustomed to saying, "Could this timesharing be any more fun?"

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

It's great when you buy wisely.