Tau Resort Timeshare Presentation
My spouse and I attended a timeshare presentation at the Tau resort on Banderas Bay near Puerto Vallarta. Before we went, I looked online to learn what I could about the Tau resort and their presentations, but I couldn't find much. So I am writing this for others who may similarly seek this information.
This post is to let people know what they may be in for at a timeshare (aka fractional ownership) presentation at the Tau resort.
The Tau resort seems to have a good start on its construction and is located on a large property with a beautiful coastline and beach, villas, and virtually exclusive access to the general area.
It takes the better part of an hour to get there from Puerto Vallarta. The Tau resort is past Bucerias, on the north part of Banderas Bay.
After you arrive, it takes almost another hour before you get breakfast. Upon arrival, you are seated at a small table outside of the resort entrance and offered 2 ounces of juice in a shot-glass size cup. While there, a number of people come over to talk to you, to see your credit cards, and ask you questions. They want to see your ID, to know if you are married to each other, if you have any plans or appointments for the day, and they want to know what the OPC promised you.
Breakfast is at a very leisurely pace -- ordering, being served, and eating. You spend breakfast time with a sales person asking about your family, careers, vacations and travel plans and expenses, hopes, and dreams, past, present, and future. After breakfast, the sales person asks you to leave a tip. Although I was ravenously hungry by the time we finally got (a meh) breakfast, and although I finished breakfast still kind of hungry, I left a nice tip as requested regardless.
After breakfast we went on a personal tour of the resort area, much of which is under early construction. The Tau resort has plans for expansive infrastructure. This tour was conducted by our breakfast sales person.
We eventually worked our way back to the big sales presentation room where we were seated at a table. The salesperson asked us to rank our level of interest. We let our sales person know that we were not very interested in ownership there. Undaunted, our sales person convinced us to artificially upgrade our interest level for the written form being filled out and then went to get a subsequent sales person who was to be the principal person to pitch the Tau resort to us.
The Tau resort utilizes the following tools, among others, to engage and subdue its presentees:
• the 500 peso deposit you initially gave the OPC (at points in the discussion, they will really make you wonder whether you will get your deposit back from them)
• a statement you sign up front that you will not misrepresent anything to them, that you don't have anything against buying real estate in Mexico, or anything against a property that it is under construction, etc
• the initial statements you exchange as you first meet the principal salesperson ("you'll give me an opportunity to show you how to save money" "If you fall in love with the property, you'll be ready to buy" "we're close on these ideas") ... (Later on you'll hear, you told me "..." "..." and/or "...", as the sales person angles for a misrepresentation on your part).
The Tau resort used each of these items individually against us and in any combination of one with the other.
Their sales pitches start out at six figures, just under $120,000. For this, you get a number of weeks that you can access, and, unlike a typical timeshare, you only pay when or if you use them, around $500 or so per week, depending on the size of the unit you get to stay in.
If you already own a timeshare elsewhere, they will offer to buy it for cash for an amount they determine to offset part of the sales cost as part of the deal.
If you keep saying no thanks or that you're not interested, they will keep pitching to you anyway. (You did agree to give them an opportunity, you see.) They will continue with different pitches, working their way down through the five-figure ($XX,XXX) sales prices to the four-figure sales prices ($X,XXX). They will also bring over additional sales people to make different, creative, and interesting pitches to you. They will often ask you why you don't want to buy, hoping you'll say something to invalidate your gift, your deposit, or to get you in a position where you will have no choice but to buy.
If you somehow outlast all of this, you will be sent to a quality control person who will tell you that your presentation has ended. While you answer the QC person's questions and describe how every one there treated you and whether you understood all of the offers they made during your presentation, another salesperson who says they are part of the resort management will come by and give you several different additional sales pitches. The quality control person will not interfere with this manager's efforts to sell something to you.
It is not easy to outlast and turn down all of this. Nevertheless you will be told along the way that they do not use high-pressure sales tactics.
In the end we finally did receive back our 500 peso deposit and we got the promised courtesy taxi ride back to Puerto Vallarta.
Looking back on this experience, I've been able to see how the sales team worked their craft, using their tools, almost all of which they get from us guests.
The sales person cared more about what gifts we were "promised" by the OPC. However, it didn't seem to bother them that the OPC told us it would be a 60-minute presentation, that we would only be speaking with one sales person, that it would be low-pressure, and that we could get up and leave after the 60 minutes was over. The OPC also told us we would likely be back to Puerto Vallarta after 2 1/2 hours, unaware of the delays that awaited us. For us, it was almost 7 hours total to go and return and to endure and outlast the sales people and their delay tactics at the Tau resort.
Instead of an arrangement where the Tau resort presents or fulfills the gifts to the presentees, the Tau resort apparently only pays the OPC for bringing guests and the OPC, from the proceeds of that commission, gives the promised gifts to guests attending presentations.
We note that after we were dropped off at the Tau resort by the OPC, that was the last we saw of our OPC. We did not receive what the OPC promised. My advice is that whatever you get from your OPC, you will need to get it before you are dropped off at your presentation. We checked into this as best we could, and apparently if the resort can't independently qualify a prospect (their income, their marital status, their timeshare ownership, etc.) during the presentation, then the OPC does not receive as high a commission and consequently the guests won't get their promised gift.
I've never seen so many delay tactics used in a sales presentation as I endured at the Tau resort.
Additionally, at some points in the discussions, both the breakfast sales person and the principal sales person tried to make us out as liars about several different things including whether we were married to each other, how we made decisions about vacations, whether the OPC had coached us, what the OPC had promised us, etc.
One idea I came away with was that I did not want to do business with those people at the Tau resort no matter how attractive their resort or their offers could become. It was also difficult to get the sales people to understand anything I was saying. I believe that would not have been the case had I been saying that I wanted to buy something from them.
During our presentation, the sales people told us that the only way to access the Tau resort was by being an owner. However, yesterday I received my new Interval International catalog. Lo and behold, the Tau resort is listed as one of the resorts for exchange, with a note that it is currently under construction.
During their presentation, I quickly realized that the less I said to them, the less able they would be in trying to use my words against me or in trying to accuse me of misrepresentation so as to forfeit the promised gift, my 500-peso breakfast deposit, or our courtesy taxi ride back to our vacation.
My advice to those signed up for a presentation: you need to decide if getting your 500 peso deposit back is worth what you go through and give up while on vacation.
When you say goodbye to your OPC, that may be all you're getting from them.
If you decide to buy at the Tau resort, keep saying no and collecting offers until you are almost out of the door, then go back and negotiate from the most attractive offer you received.
Go ahead and eat breakfast before you leave your room to go to your presentation. The much delayed breakfast at the Tau resort is more like a snack to me, and you'll be glad to have eaten more anyway to keep your endurance up and your stress in control.
