DrewJ
newbie
My wife and I recently purchased a 1000 Club point UVC membership with villa preferred access (summer studio at Villa del Arco) plus 1000 preferred points (similar to "Gold Week", we made this purchase on September 25th 2011 while staying at Villa del Palmar in Cabo. Purchase price was ~$13,250 with 25% ($3756) down on a credit card.
Since we have gotten home from vacation I have been rather concerned about many of the issues I have found on the web being raised by members of the UVC affecting the level of satisfaction of many members.
Also I was concerned about many stories of deceptive sales tactics used by the sales agents. As for my wife and I, our story is not as bad as many I have read however we also were mislead about several items.
1. We were told that once we signed the contract any down payment would be lost if we cancelled "liquidated damages" however as you know we could have rescinded the contract in the first five days without penalty. (this is noted on the back of the contract)
2. We were told that we could cancel the contract within 30 days and only loose any deposit we had made. However from what I have read this does not appear to be the case, it seems there has been little success in canceling a contract after 5 days unless the membership is surrendered when paid in full and current.
3. Also we were verbally told by the salespeople that we could combine the 1000 preferred points (summer only) with our regular club points to reserve a 1 BR instead of a studio, this was important to us since as we stressed to he salespeople, we intended primarily to travel with another couple and the studio would be too small, however we did later find out the preferred points can only be combined with the club points for reservations made 60 days in advance.
4. I brought up the fact during the sales presentation that I would that I was interested in seeing the aftermarket availability of these timeshares. They told me that I could not acquire a villa preferred access (points membership) in the aftermarket, but I have since found several examples of folks acquiring VPA memberships via ebay and other timeshare resales.
5. I specifically remember seeing a piece of paper work during the sales presentation that had "del Arco" printed on it, they told me this needed to be submitted to the developer to reserve that inventory since it was our home resort. However I now cannot find anything in my paperwork indicating del Arco, and I think it represents more of the developer attempts to limit access to del arco inventory by members while indicating they will have some sort of "reserved" access to it.
6. Sales staff also told us they would rent our week to cover 2-3 years MF's
As you can probably guess, we now have a case of buyers remorse and feel that the sales presentation was less than honest. I wondered if you could help me with a few questions and some advice.
At this point I feel we could get a much better "deal" by purchasing a membership on the aftermarket as I originally suspected, even if we had to give up our $3756 down payment, since the resale values are so much lower than the developer pricing. We did enjoy our stay at the resort and do intend to use the membership, however getting a members in the aftermarket would help relieve a current member of a financial burden as well as prevent the developer from getting extra profits reselling surrendered inventory
-Do I have any options to cancel the contract at this point? Today would be the 17th day since our purchase (including weekends) as mentioned I would even like to do this if I had to lose our $3756 down payment (of course I would like to recover this or a portion if possible). Can you give me any advice on who I should contact in the club or elsewhere that maybe able to help me cancel the membership?
Would profeco help since it is after the 5th day?
Should I contest the charge with my CC company?
Thanks,
Drew
Since we have gotten home from vacation I have been rather concerned about many of the issues I have found on the web being raised by members of the UVC affecting the level of satisfaction of many members.
Also I was concerned about many stories of deceptive sales tactics used by the sales agents. As for my wife and I, our story is not as bad as many I have read however we also were mislead about several items.
1. We were told that once we signed the contract any down payment would be lost if we cancelled "liquidated damages" however as you know we could have rescinded the contract in the first five days without penalty. (this is noted on the back of the contract)
2. We were told that we could cancel the contract within 30 days and only loose any deposit we had made. However from what I have read this does not appear to be the case, it seems there has been little success in canceling a contract after 5 days unless the membership is surrendered when paid in full and current.
3. Also we were verbally told by the salespeople that we could combine the 1000 preferred points (summer only) with our regular club points to reserve a 1 BR instead of a studio, this was important to us since as we stressed to he salespeople, we intended primarily to travel with another couple and the studio would be too small, however we did later find out the preferred points can only be combined with the club points for reservations made 60 days in advance.
4. I brought up the fact during the sales presentation that I would that I was interested in seeing the aftermarket availability of these timeshares. They told me that I could not acquire a villa preferred access (points membership) in the aftermarket, but I have since found several examples of folks acquiring VPA memberships via ebay and other timeshare resales.
5. I specifically remember seeing a piece of paper work during the sales presentation that had "del Arco" printed on it, they told me this needed to be submitted to the developer to reserve that inventory since it was our home resort. However I now cannot find anything in my paperwork indicating del Arco, and I think it represents more of the developer attempts to limit access to del arco inventory by members while indicating they will have some sort of "reserved" access to it.
6. Sales staff also told us they would rent our week to cover 2-3 years MF's
As you can probably guess, we now have a case of buyers remorse and feel that the sales presentation was less than honest. I wondered if you could help me with a few questions and some advice.
At this point I feel we could get a much better "deal" by purchasing a membership on the aftermarket as I originally suspected, even if we had to give up our $3756 down payment, since the resale values are so much lower than the developer pricing. We did enjoy our stay at the resort and do intend to use the membership, however getting a members in the aftermarket would help relieve a current member of a financial burden as well as prevent the developer from getting extra profits reselling surrendered inventory
-Do I have any options to cancel the contract at this point? Today would be the 17th day since our purchase (including weekends) as mentioned I would even like to do this if I had to lose our $3756 down payment (of course I would like to recover this or a portion if possible). Can you give me any advice on who I should contact in the club or elsewhere that maybe able to help me cancel the membership?
Would profeco help since it is after the 5th day?
Should I contest the charge with my CC company?
Thanks,
Drew
