[2016] Account review email [Accts. suspended]

[Sandi Bo]

True, it's not fair to speculate specifically about what Ron might have done/known/accepted, although Ron could have avoided it by simply saying nothing.

But if I were an owner in the same boat with a frozen account and I learned that Wyndham is selectively choosing to work with some affected owners (apparently asking them to agree to non-disclosure terms) while completely ignoring others, I'd be even more pissed as all get-out! Not at Ron, but at Wyndham! They've already done enough to cause unbelievable frustration and worry, this is just piling on.

From my armchair... looks like Wyndham has silenced/taken out of the equation someone who could have organized/been the voice for many of the people being affected by the frozen account situation. Divide and conquer... I say they do know what they are doing.

 

[wjappraise]

From my armchair... looks like Wyndham has silenced/taken out of the equation someone who could have organized/been the voice for many of the people being affected by the frozen account situation. Divide and conquer... I say they do know what they are doing.

I had not thought about that. Wow, what an accomplishment if this is what they have done.

Has everyone else read the post?: Wyndham being discussed in the financial press - 346 lawsuits

What a expose this is, I wonder if the difficulties with their IT that resulted in suspended accounts has reach the point of more than one state being involved? Somewhat telling when the corporate leaders are selling off their stock in the company they represent. I cannot help but wonder if all of this is related.

 

[am1]

Wyndham is winning today. On my call back I am told that reservations can only be touched for checks in today and tomorrow. Guest names cannot be added to reservations past January 1. Cancellations cannot be done past January. Even January 14 which today is 15 days to check in. I am told exceptions will be made on Monday but I have to call in before the department who cancels overlapping reservations get their hands on that reservation or the one at a another resort that I do not want cancelled.

Are all owners facing these restrictions today over the phone? I am told I am not being singled out but have my doubts. I never read this policy in any of the material provided by Wyndham. Maybe the end of the use year should not be in the biggest travel week of the year? Especially not going into peoples accounts and changes use years to January 1. Giving owners the option of 1 use year between the 4 would alleviate this problem.

Why does Wyndham make their staffing issues my problems?

Hopefully 2017 is better for Wyndham as they really made a mess of 2016.

 

[uscav8r]

I am sure I would have accepted those terms, almost any terms that would allow me access to my ownerships. Wyndham has turned this ordeal into a nightmare.

The resorts are amazing, people are great but the management and sales hold Wyndham back from an owners perspective. After this I would never suggest anyone purchase resale or retail. Unless they want a headache and constant uncertainty.

This issue seems to have only affected high-volume VIP owners or megarenter type owners. The vast majority of owners appear not to have had to deal with this problem.


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[John or Jane Doe]

Are all owners facing these restrictions today over the phone?

Are there other owners still frozen (besides you).

From what I've observed - it seems like you've been targeted/had different restrictions and conditions all along.

I am slushy these days (unfrozen with restrictions). But when I was frozen - I could call the VIP line (I gave up on the 877 due to long hold times or getting a recording). Calling the VIP line they would add GC's and cancel reservations (that is all they would do - no new bookings or upgrades). If you call the VIP line they won't help you? From what I've read here I assume no - that only the 877 line people will assist you (maybe... if they answer the phone)? I really don't understand why they won't put GC's on your reservations - that makes no sense to me.

Kudos to you am1. I don't know how you've managed to stick with this for so long. I wish you the very best of luck.

For all let's hope an end to this audit madness soon!!!!

 

[wjappraise]

Are all owners facing these restrictions today over the phone? I am told I am not being singled out but have my doubts. I never read this policy in any of the material provided by Wyndham. Maybe the end of the use year should not be in the biggest travel week of the year? Especially not going into peoples accounts and changes use years to January 1. Giving owners the option of 1 use year between the 4 would alleviate this problem.

Why does Wyndham make their staffing issues my problems?

Hopefully 2017 is better for Wyndham as they really made a mess of 2016.

I believe there are three categories of impacted owners with this "suspension." The first category is the owners that Wyndham is negotiating to end their ownership.

The second category is where you are, with minimal activity allowed and all of it requiring a phone call in - guest names, cancellations, etc. The rules change by the day and depend on who answers the phone. This group appears to be one that Wyndham may view as combative.

The third category is where most of us "impacted owners" are; enjoying use of our online accounts with notable limitations placed on the account. We have had no updates nor communication since September or October. And we do not know if our accounts will be fully reconciled and reinstated or if we will revert to group one, targeted for termination, er, negotiation.


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[wjappraise]

Wyndham is winning today. On my call back I am told that reservations can only be touched for checks in today and tomorrow. Guest names cannot be added to reservations past January 1. Cancellations cannot be done past January. Even January 14 which today is 15 days to check in. I am told exceptions will be made on Monday but I have to call in before the department who cancels overlapping reservations get their hands on that reservation or the one at a another resort that I do not want cancelled.

Adam, were you able to get your reservations fixed today before they cancelled the ones that overlapped?




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[am1]

Adam, were you able to get your reservations fixed today before they cancelled the ones that overlapped?




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Yes was able to add a guest name to one. Still a joke that on the 31st they were limiting what could be done. I am sure that was not the case on the regular lines.

 

[Jan M.]

I don't have the IT background that some of the other people who post do so I find it extremely hard to understand how it could possibly be taking this long to fix their system. And at this point I wonder if it can be fixed. I find it very curious that the outage was supposed to last until tomorrow morning but didn't even last 24 hours! Apparently IT couldn't deliver whatever management ordered and expected to be ready.

This is what we do know:
1. There was a $20m settlement the court awarded the sales employee over targeting the elderly. Not a good thing to be caught doing as the courts are taking a very dim view of taking advantage of the elderly.
2. Wyndham is currently involved in 348 lawsuits which is a huge number compared to other timeshare companies.
3. The top people in Wyndham have been selling off their stock for the past 2 years
4. The drop in Wyndham stock prices is expected to continue indicating a lack of confidence.
5. The abrupt departure of Franz Hanning is seen in the financial community as suspect.
6. The Ovations program is a smashing success. It costs Wyndham money to take back these deeds and to carry the maintenance fees on them.
7. If they run the mega renters and point managers out of business there will be a massive dumping of deeds worth billions of points. Does Wyndham have the reserves to settle/buy back these deeds and carry that much more in maintenance fees to keep them off the resale market?
8. A massive dumping of deeds on the resale market will be noticed and further hurt the stock prices. In addition to making it all that much harder for Wyndham to sell developer points.
9. Some owners gained huge numbers of points with credit pool issues. Some used those points.
10. Some owners stripped deeds, likely in excess of a billion points, and resold those deeds which came back with full points because Wyndham didn't do their due diligence.
11. Wyndham's computer system is such an unholy mess that none of us has any confidence that they can fix it.

 

[Sandi Bo]

I don't have the IT background that some of the other people who post do so I find it extremely hard to understand how it could possibly be taking this long to fix their system. And at this point I wonder if it can be fixed. I find it very curious that the outage was supposed to last until tomorrow morning but didn't even last 24 hours! Apparently IT couldn't deliver whatever management ordered and expected to be ready.

This is what we do know:
1. There was a $20m settlement the court awarded the sales employee over targeting the elderly. Not a good thing to be caught doing as the courts are taking a very dim view of taking advantage of the elderly.
2. Wyndham is currently involved in 348 lawsuits which is a huge number compared to other timeshare companies.
3. The top people in Wyndham have been selling off their stock for the past 2 years
4. The drop in Wyndham stock prices is expected to continue indicating a lack of confidence.
5. The abrupt departure of Franz Hanning is seen in the financial community as suspect.
6. The Ovations program is a smashing success. It costs Wyndham money to take back these deeds and to carry the maintenance fees on them.
7. If they run the mega renters and point managers out of business there will be a massive dumping of deeds worth billions of points. Does Wyndham have the reserves to settle/buy back these deeds and carry that much more in maintenance fees to keep them off the resale market?
8. A massive dumping of deeds on the resale market will be noticed and further hurt the stock prices. In addition to making it all that much harder for Wyndham to sell developer points.
9. Some owners gained huge numbers of points with credit pool issues. Some used those points.
10. Some owners stripped deeds, likely in excess of a billion points, and resold those deeds which came back with full points because Wyndham didn't do their due diligence.
11. Wyndham's computer system is such an unholy mess that none of us has any confidence that they can fix it.

Thanks for the great recap.

I think I would say #9 a little differently - maybe 3 points - I am not aware of people getting excess points due to credit pooling issues:
9a. There are issues with credit pooling. Credit pooled points return as regular use year points (sometimes). This actually benefits Wyndham. We pay to credit pool our points and extend the expiration but when used for a reservation and then cancelled the points come back as regular use year points and expire in the current use year.
9b. There are known issues with points amassing due to owners having split use years. Points rolled forward (for years) and never expired. This caused people to have more points available than contracts support for a given use year. The system issue has been fixed but the amassed points still exist (and may have caused people to be included in the audit).
9c. There are known (maybe not before the audit) issues with the system not calculating points correctly. Some examples were around bought and sold resale contracts with reservations on them (and the reservations then being in both accounts). There were other reporting accounting anomalies.

 

[am1]

I had 10's of millions of points push forward since before Wyndham stopped people from transferring points. I took a huge gamble and paid other owners to transfer points into my account. I could not stop the point from being pushed forward even when I wanted to. It was the system that did that on its own. It then caused Wyndham to wonder why I have many more points in my account then I should have. Almost 6 months later and my accounts are still locked. I have lost out on shortening my reservations, splitting them, discounts, upgrades, canceling reservations, booking new reservations and on September 30 and December 31 points expiring. There does not seem to be an end in sight.

 

[Sandi Bo]

I had 10's of millions of points push forward since before Wyndham stopped people from transferring points. I took a huge gamble and paid other owners to transfer points into my account. I could not stop the point from being pushed forward even when I wanted to. It was the system that did that on its own. It then caused Wyndham to wonder why I have many more points in my account then I should have. Almost 6 months later and my accounts are still locked. I have lost out on shortening my reservations, splitting them, discounts, upgrades, canceling reservations, booking new reservations and on September 30 and December 31 points expiring. There does not seem to be an end in sight.

Am1, I put that in my 9b. bullet point. Although I had not taken into consideration the cumulative effect of transferred points from back in the day when owners could transfer to other owners (that was before my time). I wonder if suspending those of you with larger amount of points so that the points are not able to be used is somehow keeping them with the guidelines of the trust. Since there has been no transparency about what they are doing or why - one can only speculate. We see different rules applied to different people. Could they be saying -- we need to remove x amount of points from circulation and by suspending your account (and few other choice ones) they've met that requirement?

 

[Jan M.]

In 12 more days the 6th month of the freeze will begin. Some people had their hopes dashed that their situations might be resolved with the New Year and their wait continues. I don't care if the owners who are frozen or still partially frozen are 100% in the right, 100% in the wrong or some combination of right and wrong; the length of time was unacceptable several months ago and has progressed to totally outrageous. They are understandably very concerned and distressed over this.

 

[Sandi Bo]

In 12 more days the 6th month of the freeze will begin. Some people had their hopes dashed that their situations might be resolved with the New Year and their wait continues. I don't care if the owners who are frozen or still partially frozen are 100% in the right, 100% in the wrong or some combination of right and wrong; the length of time was unacceptable several months ago and has progressed to totally outrageous. They are understandably very concerned and distressed over this.

Wasn't the original estimate (for resolution) 5 months ago that it would be 2 weeks? And at that time -- 2 weeks seemed unacceptable.

 

[wjappraise]

In 12 more days the 6th month of the freeze will begin. Some people had their hopes dashed that their situations might be resolved with the New Year and their wait continues. I don't care if the owners who are frozen or still partially frozen are 100% in the right, 100% in the wrong or some combination of right and wrong; the length of time was unacceptable several months ago and has progressed to totally outrageous. They are understandably very concerned and distressed over this.

It's the complete lack of communication that is particularly galling. No return phone calls or emails. Nothing. My last live person response with any update was September 27, 2016. I believe it to be an obscene coupling of ignorance (incompetence) and arrogance.


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[am1]

It's the complete lack of communication that is particularly galling. No return phone calls or emails. Nothing. My last live person response with any update was September 27, 2016. I believe it to be an obscene coupling of ignorance (incompetence) and arrogance.


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Seems they just do not care about us the owners. Now that the holidays are over there are even less excuses.

 

[raygo123]

Seems they just do not care about us the owners. Now that the holidays are over there are even less excuses.

I think you're right. Until otherwise proven, you a no good mega renter that stole points. And are going to make your life miserable.

It doesn't matter if it a Wyndham problem, it's your problem now.

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[am1]

Anything in the directory that states a owner/guest name cannot be changed on a reservation after the day of check in? Yesterday I leave a voicemail before 5pm and never got a response back. Now Wyndham does not want to add the guest name.

 

[wjappraise]

Anything in the directory that states a owner/guest name cannot be changed on a reservation after the day of check in? Yesterday I leave a voicemail before 5pm and never got a response back. Now Wyndham does not want to add the guest name.

There is nothing in book that states it cannot be added after check in date. I have done it before, but needed a relatively experienced VC on the phone to do it. My first VC said it could not be done, I hesitated, and he said, "Do you want me to check with my supervisor?" I said "yes" and we got it done.

 

[Bigrob]

Anything in the directory that states a owner/guest name cannot be changed on a reservation after the day of check in? Yesterday I leave a voicemail before 5pm and never got a response back. Now Wyndham does not want to add the guest name.

I have been able to add a guest name after the day of check in, but was told it was "outside of policy" and that guest names have to be added by the check-in day. I do not recall seeing that in the directory anywhere. Might have to call and ask for supervisor or Owner Resolution.

 

[am1]

Once again no call back before they closed today with multiple messages left before 5pm. About 30 straight calls went to their voicemail.

 

[wjappraise]

Once again no call back before they closed today with multiple messages left before 5pm. About 30 straight calls went to their voicemail.

Adam - I would suggest that you simply call the regular line, and ask for what you need done. While the direction has been given for impacted owners to only call the 877- number, you are correct that this goes unanswered and emails go without response. When I have called into the regular lines, I have been able to do what I need to do. A few times, the VC has said she could not do anything on my account. I have told her that the other phone number is unanswered and I need to have this done, and asked her to get supervisor approval if needed. That has worked for me. . . so far.

 

[Bigrob]

Adam - I would suggest that you simply call the regular line, and ask for what you need done. While the direction has been given for impacted owners to only call the 877- number, you are correct that this goes unanswered and emails go without response. When I have called into the regular lines, I have been able to do what I need to do. A few times, the VC has said she could not do anything on my account. I have told her that the other phone number is unanswered and I need to have this done, and asked her to get supervisor approval if needed. That has worked for me. . . so far.

Is your account still frozen too? I thought yours had online access restored.

I only call the regular VIP line now since the other one is never answered. It may be that Adam can't do this because his online access has not been restored.

However it may be to Adam's advantage, if he is building his case, to have documented the numerous times he has followed the procedure outlined by Wyndham and not had required actions taken as a result. I am sure he is also following up with emails to the address provided that indicate when he has called and left messages.

 

[wjappraise]

Is your account still frozen too? I thought yours had online access restored.

I only call the regular VIP line now since the other one is never answered. It may be that Adam can't do this because his online access has not been restored.

However it may be to Adam's advantage, if he is building his case, to have documented the numerous times he has followed the procedure outlined by Wyndham and not had required actions taken as a result. I am sure he is also following up with emails to the address provided that indicate when he has called and left messages.

Thanks, Eric. I have access to the online features. However, when I was granted this, I specifically asked about how I should handle ARP and other VC oriented tasks. I was told to call into the 877- number, that I would not be permitted to call the regular phone number. After getting no response from that, I have used the tactic I noted earlier, and that seems to work. I also have the "required compliance direction" in an email, so I would assume Adam has the same, and that could be very helpful at a time when an outside authority is asked to look at the conflict, and the clear lack of due process in Wyndham's actions. Adam being limited to only use an email and a devoted phone number that goes unanswered would seem to markedly weaken Wyndham's ability to defend its actions in a dispute/lawsuit if it comes to that.

 

[am1]

Adam - I would suggest that you simply call the regular line, and ask for what you need done. While the direction has been given for impacted owners to only call the 877- number, you are correct that this goes unanswered and emails go without response. When I have called into the regular lines, I have been able to do what I need to do. A few times, the VC has said she could not do anything on my account. I have told her that the other phone number is unanswered and I need to have this done, and asked her to get supervisor approval if needed. That has worked for me. . . so far.

That may work but I am trying my best to follow the rules Wyndham has set up. Even if Wyndham is not. Forget about the callback in an hour if before 5pm or between 9 - 11 the next morning if after 5pm. Forget any replies to e-mails about anything. Time sensitive issues or not does not matter either. The people answering the phone on the most part are great but limited to what they can do.

An example has been that even within 15 days of check in I am still not able to add a guest name but I still receive e-mails I have overlapping reservations subject to cancellation. Back in September e-mail updates were sent out announcing how far out guest names could be added and then it was just pot luck finding out speaking with an agent.

On January 2, my 2019 points were added which are not part of this issue at all but I am still not allowed to use them.