May 16, 2012
Diamond Resorts
10600 West Charleston BLVD
Las Vegas, NV 89135
To Whom It May Concern:
First of all, on behalf of my mother, DeEtta, who will be 92
years old this summer, and myself, as well as my wife Donna, thank you for the
instructive letters, certified and otherwise, regarding our upcoming
reservation and what we need to do at this point to keep it. Unfortunately, having already paid
nearly $2800.00 toward the reservation we booked last year, prior to your
springing the special assessment, we’re not inclined to give you another
$7000.00 just to keep it. Sorry,
but that’s the way it is.
Moreover, I’ve tried, on two occasions since you announced the water
intrusion assessment—for which I see you guys are getting sued; my friend over
in Haena keeps me in the loop; good luck with that!— to simply give you back
the weeks, the contracts, all of it, no questions asked, but on both occasions
I was told you aren’t “accepting voluntary surrenders.”
And I thought: Could that be? That you would want me, or anyone else, to pay thousands of
dollars toward something you, yourself, won’t accept for free?
More on that in a moment, after we go over a little history
…
Back in 1996, my mother and I bought two “Float/Float” weeks
at what was then the Embassy Vacation Resort in Poipu. Bill Fernandez was our Sales
Representative. Back in 1996, Mr.
Fernandez indicated to my aging mother that he owned three weeks of Embassy
timeshare himself. This, I would
soon realize, was a common statement made by timeshare sales reps everywhere
from Morritt’s Tortuga Club in the Cayman Islands to the property that, like
yours, has also changed hands many times in Pagosa Springs, CO. He, Bill Fernandez, as well as others
in the flocking sales group, mentioned a recent law on the island that would
prohibit further timeshare building.
Thus, on the south shore of the Garden Island, there was the Embassy property
(formerly luxury condos built by a Japanese concern, sold following the Nikkei
crash in 1990; perhaps after your 68 million dollar makeover they will become
luxury condos again, that you’ll sell), the Mercedes in the lot, and the Chevy
property, the relatively shabby Lawai, redeemed only by its proximity to the
Beach House and decent snorkeling waters.
My mother, nearly eighty years old at the time, had already
fallen in love with the island, and was, in the end—ironically, you have to
admit—seduced by the “your kids will have this forever“ pitch.
The following year we visited again, with my future wife
this time. We asked about Bill
Fernandez, but he was reportedly gone.
No one was quite sure what had happened to Bill. Someone who could sell my wary,
crotchety mother a timeshare and he wasn’t on property anymore? Stunning. Was he at least coming out to use his three weeks of
timeshare? No one could say for
sure.
A few years later, the Marriott completed its timeshare
property down the road, near Poipu Beach: a Lexus between us and the Chevy—so
much for laws prohibiting further building of timeshare.
Still, being resourceful, my mother and I, and later my wife
and I, and others, continued to use the property, booking early, paying the maintenance
fees—which weren’t really too bad until you fine people came along. As many other unhappy owners have
pointed out. But I don’t need to
tell you how hostile the climate has gotten over just that one thing, not to
mention this new water intrusion thing.
Money, money, money—and for something we literally can’t give away.
Then, in 2009, after thirteen years of fending off your
sales team during our visits (“So, just out of curiosity, what would our weeks
fetch on the open market?” I would ask, and the sales rep would reply, “I
really have no idea,” and I’d reach over and honk his or her nose), my wife and
children and I, along with some friends of ours, came to our “home away from
home.” Once we got there we were
approached, as usual, during check-in, by the concierge—the earnest if likable
John, whom I’d known for years—wondering if we were interested in an “Owner’s
Tour.” We indicated, as we always
did, that we already had more timeshare than we needed given the realities of
the (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) ownership; but he retorted, very clearly, that
even though we had no intention of adding to our position, we should
nonetheless come and find out what exciting things were happening on the
property, for which we would get the usual gift card, good for use throughout
the island.
Why be difficult? we thought. Take the tour!
Tell them we weren’t interested.
Get the gift card. It was
part of the drill. They were used
to it.
During the tour, I mentioned, straight up, over and over,
that this wasn’t a good time for me financially because I’d recently spent
roughly $16,000.00 putting solar panels on our home. Our Sales representative,
Glenn Hughes, however, had likely heard such complaints (objections, as you
call them) before, and, taking it as a challenge perhaps, told us that this
meeting was a “one-time opportunity,” that next time the price would be much
higher (this he showed us on a sheet, and, sure enough, it was much higher),
and that, most importantly, the industry was going through transition and we
would sooner or later have to go along, too, or feel increasingly like
outcasts. In plain words, we could
either join “The Club”—transition to the point system and a higher tier of
ownership—or find it more and more difficult to book our usual spot. Home would feel less like home.
Which, give it to Glenn, was a clever way to attack
us—hitting our one insecurity—since, after all, for thirteen years, while
raising my two nephews, while getting our oldest birth son through cancer,
while trying to write a book of my own, I’d always been able to book. No one had ever implied that we wouldn’t be able, with our
seemingly enviable float/float week, to book it as we always had. And if we couldn’t book our usual oceanfront
in Building Three by calling one year ahead, because others—Club Members who
had bought into the Hawaiian Trust, as, it was implied, we would, if we had any
sense—would be able to book thirteen months
ahead, and what would happen then?
If we literally couldn’t give the property away, despite it being a
beautiful place in a lovely location, and would very soon not be able to book
our usual spot, well then, that was seemingly a bind we had to consider doing
something about, or what was the point of paying the ever-increasing fees year
after year?
When I mentioned that I owned these weeks with my mother,
who wasn’t present at the time, this, oddly, didn’t seem to faze Glenn and the
others. I was told, getting out on
three hours now, that if we, my wife and I, bought into The Club, my mother
could sign later on. We would be
deeded members until my mother signed, through the mail, after which we’d
become part of the Hawaiian Collection Trust. I was further told that we could book our former property at
Morritt’s Tortuga Club as a “club select,” and that this would bump us up to
Gold status as owners, which would offer us copious benefits … we were told a
lot of things that, in short, didn’t prove to be correct, for which, as you and
I both know, there is recourse.
But let’s not get all excited just yet.
So after three hours and an afternoon of vacation wasted on
a one-hour tour, we finally capitulated.
I had friends waiting on us, restless children; we decided not to remain
outcast “weeks” owners and to take the one-time deal (which, we would later
find out, at your property in Lake Tahoe, wasn’t exactly true; there was no
such thing as a one-time deal, we were told by the smiling sales reps). Purchasing the least amount of points
necessary, we “upgraded” to “Club” status, feeling as if we really didn’t have
any good other choice: one can either divorce, at great cost, or agree to the
next set of terms.
Again, I mentioned my mother, the primary owner on the 1996
contract that was being folded into this new contract. I was still trying to understand how we
could do this one-time deal without her being present, without her getting
informed consent, as we used to say back when I was a transplant coordinator at
the hospital. Here I was potentially
committing my mother to more expense—a lot more, as it turned out—without her
even getting the benefit of the presentation. Without her having a say. And now here she is, getting threatening certified letters
from Diamond, my 92-year-old mother, the primary owner of the “float/floats,”
who wasn’t even there in 2009, when we joined your club, all three of us … with
only two of us signing the documents, late in the day, in the “just sign and
date here” fashion.
Later, when, through the mail, I supposedly got my mother’s
signature on the documents (I have still never seen the signed documents), I
was told, by Kerry Rath, via email, that no, we in fact hadn’t opted to join
the Hawaiian Collection Trust, but rather had decided to remain deeded
owners. When I replied saying that
no, I seem to recall that we opted for the Hawaiian Trust, and was there anyway
to get that arranged, I never got a reply back.
Had I known that a special assessment was coming, I would
have kept pressing. Of course, had
I known there would be a special assessment of this magnitude I might have
decided that with a property that one can’t, literally, give away, it was time
to cut my losses.
A lot of owners might have.
Which is why you never told the owners that the special
assessment was coming. Not a
whisper of it, in sales pitches or otherwise, even as recently as January 2011,
when I was on property and there was a great deal of discord leading up to
Board Elections, elections that turned out predictably, with all your stooges
getting spots. At no point was it
mentioned by any of the candidates, or by any of your employees pitching owners
groups at the time to hand over their deeds to the trust, that a few months
earlier this water intrusion issue had been formally discussed in Las
Vegas. At no point, until the bill
came last fall, were you honest with your supposed owners about what was
coming, about why, if the assessment was a fait accompli, they might want to
either join the trust or pay someone to transfer their deeds back to your sales
force.
Needless to say, looking back, I am frustrated,
embarrassed. On that long
afternoon in 2009, I mentioned on several occasions that we were not in a
position to add to our timeshare costs, to buy an upgrade, and then, after
doing so, I discovered that booking the same time in the same location on the
resort would cost me close to 75% more.
And now this special assessment for “water intrusion.” When we first bought, we were able to
book time in an oceanfront unit, reliably, for less than one hundred dollars
per day. Now, the maintenance fees
and “Club” fees, which were never mentioned in the presentation (only that
Interval membership would be free for life), have taken the cost up over $200
per day. For this “upgrade,” 4,000
points, I paid the bargain price of around $9000 in 2009. For an “ownership” that is worth
nothing, that I literally can’t give away.
Which gets us to now.
In calls made to your resort in November, and again on April 30th,
I was told that the resort is not even taking “voluntary surrenders” of the
weeks. Imagine! Quite a different story than what we
were presented back in 1996, when our sales rep and others all owned three
weeks! When these weeks would
prove to be quite an “investment,” since no further timeshare would be built on
the island. Before Club Sunterra,
and now, The Club.
Alas, no one likes to be hustled, and this whole thing—all
of it—was a hustle, a grand hustle.
And you guys, recently, have taken it to a new level. There is no “investment,” and there is
no longer even decent value when it comes to the yearly cost of a stay based on
the maintenance fees. For years,
when we couldn’t make it to the resort, I was able to get people to take the
weeks for the fees, but now, the fees are so high that no one in their right
mind would pay them.
And now you’re going to collect, or try to, upwards of 66
million dollars on the backs of the owners, who in fact own nothing, many of
whom live in the delusion, as we did, briefly, unfortunately, in 2009, that the
next set of terms is better than divorce.
Well, not this time.
I want my money back from our purchase to “Club” status in
2009, as well as the money returned from the booking of our reservation for
this June, which came before the water intrusion assessment in October—which is
to say I am not paying another $6800.00 and counting, in addition to the
$2773.22 I have already paid, to stay in a unit that, a few short years ago,
would have cost me $1400.00 for two weeks. Furthermore, I am not paying you another dime toward my
ownership in a property that I, we, quite literally, can’t give away, not even
to your sales team.
I want all these monies returned, and a release from any
further expense and liability regarding my supposed “ownership” in The Point at
Poipu, and, more broadly, from any relationship with your group, Diamond
Resorts. Should you find this
disagreeable, consider that I am, among other things, a published author, with
enough means and a mean streak to cause you far more trouble than you might
imagine—which is to say I’m not your usual ranting chump. I will write about you and your tactics
relentlessly, and people will read it.
I have an agent in Manhattan, at Curtis Brown, who assures me that if
it’s juicy—and it will be—there are many outlets eager to buy my clever telling
on a subject as previously opaque as this one.
Consider, also, in addition to the legal headaches, the
media headaches, I would be more than happy to visit on you should you want to
quarrel with me, screw with my credit, bother my mother, anything like that,
that I have friends on the island, at least two of which have offered me gratis
lodging should I decide to come over and pay a visit, and, say, spend a lot of
time at the pool bar, at breakfast, on property, talking to your future
clients, being politely and informatively disruptive, shall we say, and
blogging about it, the posts of which would one day soon become a feature
article, or a book, which might even lead to a documentary, with you in a
featured role.
Who knows, maybe no one would pay any attention to me. Or maybe you’d have to call the police
to the property again, like you did when my friends were visiting back in 2010,
to settle everyone down.
Point being: the more interesting this gets, the better it
is for me. And I’m about done with
my current project.
Let me know how you think we can settle this.
Aloha, and mahalo!
Craig Bueltel
