Welcome to this week’s Letter from America, today we publish another “Nightmare on Timeshare Street”, this is the experience of the Cameron family and their dealing with Westgate. But as usual we bring you some news from Europe.
We start with the headlines in La Provincia published on 18 October 2018
Grupo Anfi denuncia a Santiago Santana Cazorla por “apropiarse” de un barco
La compañía acusa al empresario de sustraer la embarcación y llevársela a Marruecos
Translation:
Grupo Anfi denounces Santiago Santana Cazorla for “appropriating” a ship
The company accuses the businessman of stealing the boat and taking it to Morocco
It centers around Santiago Santana Cazorla “appropriating” a boat which the Anfi Group claims belongs to the company, of which Cazorla owns 50%, as the boat was included in the register of assets of the company until around 1 year ago, when Cazorla decided to transfer it to his name.
The Court of Instruction No1 of San Bartolomé de Tirajana, heard in testimony from Cazorla (17 October 2018), that he purchased the boat in 2012, he transferred the ownership of the vessel to Anfi Group “as part of the payment to forgive a debt”, however, he changed his mind and about the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017, began procedures to transfer the vessel back to his name.
In his testimony Cazorla assured the court that the vessel was his, something Anfi Group does not agree with, no agreement was reached.
One thing is for sure, we are never short of a story with Anfi!
Following on from Wednesdays article about the fake Tenerife law firm ADN Alberto Dlendro Nabalez, Litigacionespaña SL, which is part of the Litigious Abogados family, mindtimeshare yesterday published details of another fake “Procurador”, which is more than likely to be one the fake lawyers will be using.
The name of this “Procurator” is Marco Gravinal with the address
Calle Las Calbas 36, Edificio Bala, Oficina 418, Santa Cruz, Tenerife
Which does not even show up on Google maps, so is obviously a fake address.
The website
Was registered on 31 January 2018 and is due to expire on 31 January 2019, so a short term setup to get as much money from unsuspecting timeshare owners as possible.
The email address is marco.gravila@europe.com which is not linked to the website but is again a free email address provider.
Now for this weeks article.
Our Westgate Purchase was a Recipe for Disaster
Jackie Siegel, wife of Westgate owner David Siegel
By the Cameron family
Friday, October 19
Seeing other Westgate owners talk about their experiences has prompted me to do the same, in the hope that more people will come forward to put pressure on timeshare companies and regulators to take a closer look at timeshare sales practices we feel are unfair and deceptive.
Up in Smoke!
http://insidetimeshare.com/fridays-letter-from-america-24/
The Dashiell’s article
http://insidetimeshare.com/the-tuesday-slot-7/
It is obvious that Westgate, and I believe timeshare in general, has a recipe for success, designed to keep their money rolling in and my money rolling out.
I think I have figured out the secret ingredients!
Step 1: Over promise features and benefits. Add copious amounts of salt with one or two grains of truth.
Step 2: Make them your BFF. Then tenderize customer by forcefully kneading them with one sales pitch after another until they are flattened and easy to manipulate.
Step 3: Quickly gloss over the contract with a nice coating of sugar. Make sure to cover up the actual details of what the customer is buying so that they remain in the dark until much too late for them to cancel their contract. They call this the rescission period and it is quite easy for timeshare sales agents to dodge.
Step 4: Serve on a dirty plate with a fork. I call this plate foreclosure when the buyer finds out you bought something you can’t sell. What product is out there you can’t get rid of?
Step 3: When the customer realizes they have been served a steaming pile of something or other, pretend to be very concerned and run back to the kitchen and hide for months and months. The customer can listen to commercials about why you are happy to have invested in their timeshare while they wait on hold.
Step 5: Finally, when the customer is starting to cause a scene, have the monosyllabic thugs, Greenspoon Marder, eject them from the premises.
The Tennessee AG will be sitting at the next table, pretending like nothing happened while he tucks into his gourmet meal, although I did research and found out the TN AG helped Festiva victims recover $3.5 million.
https://www.tn.gov/attorneygeneral/news/2016/2/24/pr16-04.html
I understand that the consumer needs to take charge here. If there are not enough complaints, as must be the case with Westgate, nothing will happen. I also learned the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau investigated Westgate for two years but dropped the investigation shortly after the presidential election.
That’s Westgate owner David Siegel, King of Versailles next to candidate Trump.
Here’s what happened to us
Salesmen, Jonathan Smith, and Mario Pineda (Manager) sold us a timeshare in July 2016 and convinced us that we were making a good, sound financial decision.
They said we were buying something that would:
- Financially benefit us,
- Allow us to make money renting our weeks and that they would help with this free of charge,
- They said we would never have to pay the HOA fees because the rentals would pay for that,
- They said we would hold a deed to the property and would own this property (Bldg 2041, Villa 302H and 302I). They left out the part that if you want to sell it nobody wants it,
- It would be a great tax write off,
- The equity would keep increasing.
Given all these benefits we signed the contract in good faith, thinking that we would get everything Westgate told us we would get and we would see some return on our “investment” which turned out to be anything but an investment. The reality is that we have not made a penny on this investment. None of the reasons for which we bought this timeshare exist.
While they may define this as real estate, what kind of real estate is worth nothing, except in disaster stricken zones? It is certainly not a tax write-off, it does not gain in value and it would therefore be stupid to pass it on to our family. We would only be passing on a liability.
On top of all this, our experiences at Westgate locations have been awful. We went to a Westgate property to enjoy time together as a family and wind down. Instead we were pressured to buy more and had our precious vacation time stolen.
The first time we went to Gatlinburg we booked a 3-day trip. We were invited to a presentation. They said it would last 90 minutes but we were held hostage for seven hours! This totally ruined our vacation, plus the loss of what little time we had was the cause of much stress.
All this stress came right back when we had our first full week stay and they tried to do and say anything to get us to upgrade to a more expensive unit and more weeks. They held us again for four hours. The stress of this again completely ruined my vacation.
It was after this last stay I started to have heart pain. When I went to the doctor he said it was stress related. This is when it really hit me that I can’t keep going through the stress of Westgate’s high pressure to buy more and more Westgate. My wife and I work very hard. We don’t get to take many vacations together, so do not enjoy spending our vacation in a bad mood after it feels like we underwent CIA manipulation techniques. Plus, we can’t afford to go through this again.
What Westgate is serving up is no good. We suggest you dine elsewhere.
The Queen of Versailles wants to be Florida’s Governor?
http://floridanationalnews.com/blog/jackie-siegel-for-florida-governor/
Jackie Siegel for Florida Governor?
December 6, 2016
Well, if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry, I suppose
Thank you to the Camerons for sharing their timeshare story. It is our hope that timeshare companies will read some of these accounts and think about ways to improve customer relations. We encourage members to submit articles, good or bad experiences, but the satisfied customer is less likely to reach out. They are having too much fun vacationing with a product they bought explained properly, compared to the family who feels they were duped.
These self-help websites and Facebooks are resources and provide a way for members to reach out to help other members.
We seek to provide members a way to proactively address membership concerns; to advocate for timeshare reform; to obtain greater disclosure from the company; to advocate for a viable secondary market; and to educate prospective buyers.
https://www.facebook.com/timeshareadvocategroup/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/DiamondResortsOwnersAdvocacy/
https://everythingabouttimeshares.com/consider-exchange-options/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/180578055325962/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/465692163568779/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1639958046252175/
So that is another week over and the start of the weekend, join us again next week and remember to do your homework before engaging with any company. If you are not sure then use our contact page and we will point you in the right direction.
Have a great weekend.
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