http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5814647557969361869#editor/target=post;postID=69679870050537002
As I said, the letter was written at the urging of a group that I had paid seven months earlier to help me get out of my timeshare arrangement. This after speaking with real estate lawyers, friends, the resort, after finding out that there was no secondary market at all for the ersatz "property." By this time I was fairly certain that the group I'd paid, that guaranteed me in writing they would get me out of this arrangement and with no consequence to my credit rating (this was the worry, the only one, really, and the one thing no one else I spoke with could give me any insight on), were in fact a bunch of low-grade scam artists. Nothing they promised me up front, before they got my money—something I never should have done, that YOU should NEVER DO: give anybody any money at all, up front, to help you with your timeshare problem—had in seven months time come to pass, and by now I was simply pestering them endlessly, seeing what new absurd, ineffectual advice they had for me now that I had finally gotten a letter of foreclosure from Diamond Resorts. I was curious how the final innings would play out. What was the scam? How did it work? How were they still in business, nice people, it seemed, with a solid BBB rating (like many other groups promising the same)?
It took me awhile, but I finally discovered the smoking gun. I got my answer, in fact, from Diamond Resorts, and only because I was now in the "foreclosure" process. As I note in the letter, linked above, I had on at least two documented occasions tried to give the property back to Diamond—two weeks of de facto oceanfront, currently going for around $40,000 a week if you were to buy on the resort, at one of their presentations—and they had refused, saying that at this time they were not accepting "voluntary surrenders."
So, rather than pay the latest "special assessment" of around $20,000, this on top of the yearly maintenance fees, which had gone parabolic in the last few years, I was letting them foreclose on me. This, I was told by the group ostensibly assisting me, was part of the process. Once that happened they would really get down to business with cease and desist letters, and all manner of other legal tactics that would put this huge corporation, Diamond Resorts, on the ropes, whereupon they would finally yell Uncle and let me off the hook, not ruin my credit. Despite my amused skepticism at this point, they insisted that all I had to do was be patient and have faith. And write this one letter ...
"Why should I write the letter?" I had said. "I'm paying you. For you supposed expertise. Why don't you write the letter and cc me a copy?"
Well, it turned out that, contrary to what I was told, it was important that Diamond didn't think they were dealing with professionals. Thus what this group did was serve as expert advisors.
"Hand-holders, you mean," I said. "$3000 per week hand-holders, is what you're saying."
"Just be patient. You'll see—"
About a month after I wrote the letter, I called the number to Diamond Resorts "foreclosure unit." There was no phone bank to navigate, no Wagner-esque vacation soundtrack in the background. Just a woman who picked up the phone and said hello. I told her who I was, explained my situation, then added that I hadn't called to yell and scream at her, but that frankly I was looking for clarification on what was coming next. How this thing would play out. I told her we had, unlike many, gotten many good years and memories out of our place in Kauai, and that from my point of view the arc of that storyline was simply coming to an end, due largely to the fees, but nonetheless. In addition, I said, "I'm fairly certain I'm being scammed by a group that is claiming they're going to get me out of this thing—"
At this point she sighed. "There are a lot of crooks out there. The one thing I tell everyone is: Don't give anyone any money—"
"Unfortunately," I said, "It's a little late for that."
She paused a moment and said, "Listen, since you're the first person today who hasn't yelled at me I'm going to tell you something. I'd tell anybody this if they just knew what to ask and didn't yell and rant about things I can't help, but here it is: We are not going to list you with any credit bureau. We don't do that. It costs money to list an individual with a credit bureau and frankly we foreclose on so many that it wouldn't make any sense. What will happen," she added, "is you'll get two more letters. One indicating the foreclosure is imminent, the last being the one saying it is done. And then you're done. There will be a record in the courthouse in Lihue, along with a pile of others, but unless you're planning to buy property in Hawaii, it's nothing that is going to follow you around. No one is going to be calling you, or your mother, on the phone, wanting their maintenance fees. These guys prey on people who worried about their credit being ruined, and frankly, my group encourages those worries so that the owners continue to pay their fees, but the truth is nothing is going onto your credit rating—"
So, there it was. I asked if she'd send me an email documenting what she'd told me. She did. I told my hand-holding helpers in Orlando what I'd just been told, and that I had it in writing, and along with emails from their group that were, frankly, pretty damning. The woman who was my "case manager" now insisted that I was mistaken, that being foreclosed on was actually a good thing. "It means you've been released!"
She actually said that in an email.
I shared all this with the owner, all that I had in writing, particularly from his sister, the one who had initially pitched me, the one I told, quite candidly, that I was not the sort of person who would simply throw up his hands and go away if this turned out to be a scam; I was a writer, someone far more desperate and resourceful and potentially crazy than that. I would turn this into a based-on-a-true-story thriller, with her as the sexy villain, if she fucked with me, I had told her, in a more friendly way.
I told the owner the same, now, that his sister would be the first one I came after if I didn't get every last cent of what I'd paid them seven months earlier returned to me, right soon.
Many who heard me tell this said that I'd be lucky if I saw any money at all, that these people are typically pretty thick-skinned. Certainly, if I got half, I should count my blessings. If I wanted to hire an attorney, I would want to go local, get some one good. It was against the law to threaten a call to the DA ... all this added up to about a $3,000.00 legal bill, if I decided to push forward. Oddly, it seemed to me, that was the fee, per week of timeshare ownership the group promised to get you out of, that the group charged. It would cost you as much to get your money back, and most who had problems didn't quite understand what was happening to them, what had happened. They were people who had bought into timeshare, after all. Many were old. I was told all this is more candid conversations with the owner, when times were better. It turned out he was the sort of guy that if you talked to him long enough, he just could help telling you things. I'm the perfect person for someone like that, to get someone like that to finally tell you something.
I told the owner after weeks of hemming and hawing and feigned outrage on his part that I was going on vacation with my family in a week, and if I didn't have a check in my mailbox when I returned, I was booking a flight to Orlando.
That weekend some nut shot up a theater in Aurora. And now ... perhaps ... some garrulous nut writer from Colorado was coming to Orlando. I have to think that worked in my favor. As I told him, there's nothing crazier and more dogged than a desperate writer who has just finished a novel concurrent with being scammed by timeshare crooks. Trust me, I said, that person is looking for meaning wherever he can find it, and if it happens to be in Orlando, researching his next unfolding book, so be it.
And God help him if the check didn't cash. That would be a Federal Offense, as he must certainly know.
I ended up getting all the money back. I never had to go to Orlando. All I had to do was be relentless, it turned out. Relentless, and just on the careful, prudent side of crazy.
Moral of the story: Don't buy a timeshare unless you have money to burn, and value ease of use over any hope of return. And if you do, and find yourself one day without money to burn, just do what Cary Grant suggested one should do when it just isn't any fun anymore: walk away.
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