Neil, I have "studied" timeshare for 5 years, and have seen the EAS name on a number of complaint sites. Normally, there has been a Vida Vacations reference, and someone is complaining that they got snookered. They thought they traded in an American timeshare (or 2) and they want to upgrade to the better Vida timeshare. Their American timeshares have been treated like a 5 year old car, and used as collateral to get a lower price on the Mexican transaction. It's that simple in their eyes.
When you contact people to tell them they have to spend more money to actually dispose of their timeshare, are they surprised that there is more money involved? They actually have to pay money to sell their timeshare when they thought it was a "trade-in?"
Also, why would you charge someone money to repurchase their timeshare when you are really only "not selling it?"
And, lastly, how do you get rid of timeshares that don't have any value? Wyndham and Diamond can be give back to the company, but what about those that are real dogs? Where do they go?
There are complaints on the internet associating Vidanta and EAS, as they have a long history with us. Read those complaints, especially scam informer, pissed consumer and what not. One I had removed, but it was identical. I can send the three links, and you will see there was a legitimate complaint in 2013 on Ripoff report that was satisfactorily resolved, but an ex-employee copied that complaint, changed the resort name and two or three other words and reposted it everywhere in 2014. There are other complaints, and I intend to address them all as they are presented. Above is not justification across the board, but does address the 3 most prevalent complaints.
When you contact people to tell them they have to spend more money to actually dispose of their timeshare, are they surprised that there is more money involved? They actually have to pay money to sell their timeshare when they thought it was a "trade-in?"
This does not happen, and there is no verifiable complaint that would suggest this does. There are two types of trade-in contracts, and usually, the fees are either a flat rate or case by case plus+plus model. In a Flat rate, the fee is preprinted on the trade-in agreement and that fee is final regardless of the intervals location. With Vidanta, they have used a Flat Rate model since the end of 2012. The Trade-in company must receive a reasonable volume of trades for this model to work, as some intervals are as you say real dogs, and others have value. Some are sold, deeded back, surrendered, or are still in inventory. The flat fee usually represents the relationship between, the volume of trades, the expected quality of the intervals being traded and the estimated cost associated with processing those trades. High volume resorts with a myriad of programs or tiers, don't have the capacity or time to calculate resort transfer fees from 6,000 other resorts to correctly price out an acquisition fee or transaction expense. To stay abreast of ever-changing fees and stipulations is difficult, hence what we are for.
The case by case basis is one of those cases where the administration fee, is usually less than a Flat Fee amount, but than there is verbiage such as customer will pay Resort Transfer Fee, Closing Cost and Recording. This model is normally used at resorts where sales activity is less, so to protect the trade-in company from losses they can at least net a small fee accross the board and pass thru other associated cost. THere will always be the profit on the retail side, but that is dependant on the interval quality. In this model, you will get those customers who assumed the administration fee printed was the final cost and never read the entire sentence.
In both cases, the fees are explained upfront, and once collected,
customers are not billed again. The only other fee that comes into play is maintenance dues. Some are billed at the end or middle of the year in full and some are billed monthly and quarterly. This is where a lot of issues arise. Some customers trade in August, Sept or October, looking to avoid maintenance, some want to just pay a quarter or a month until we are done, which I am sure you can imagine, puts unjustified pressure as they believe, they should skip the line. In trying to maintain fairness in business practices, we insist everyone if obligated pay their maintenance in full, whether monthly, quarterly or annually. That even across the board, no special deals. Then comes the cutoff date, 120 days, 150, 180 it's the same for all trade-in companies. That usually goes by invoice date, not the due date, because when it's invoiced it's due and regardless of due date, it must be paid at the time of transfer. So if its billed Nov. and due January, it will need to be paid in Dec if the ownership change is submitted in December. Trust me, that there are more customers who happily send their maintenance bill to us with the connotation that expresses it's your problem now then there are customers that we inform the bill is their obligation according to the terms of the contract. The trade-in agreement does its best to anticipate future scenarios, but the landscape is always changing and there are over 6,000 resorts, that simple contract needs to address. Ours is long, but we still find holes or abnormalities that were not anticipated.
Also, why would you charge someone money to repurchase their timeshare when you are really only "not selling it?" This comes up when customers read poorly written articles about a company selling you back something you already own.
Whats being lost is that the customer traded something and received something else in return. Thus they do not have rights to or possession of both.
Equitable title is transferred immediately at the commencement of the trade at the resort. Granting our company legal rights and interest. The only reason legal title is not signed at that time, is the absence of title being presented on the spot.
When a used car is traded, the customer usually comes to the dealership with the title in hand, unlike a timeshare most people don't walk around with their warranty deed or pack it in their luggage when they go on vacation.
In these circumstances the contract, "Acquisition Agreement" details the conveyance, the obligations of both parties and other terms.
If I were to put a deposit purchase on a house. I could then sell or assign that "Contract to Purchase" to another party under the same terms and conditions, even though the legal title has not passed, the contract grants certain rights that fall under having Equitable Title.
When customers trade their timeshare for a credit allowance against the purchase of a new timeshare, they legally sign over their ownership rights to our company.
So are we selling back to them something they already own or are they interested in regaining their ownership rights back? Are they looking to void the contract in its entirety to absolve themselves from the obligation of having to convey legal title as stipulated?
Only a small percentage take this route to regain their ownership rights, and as you can expect, most want to be absolved from the maintenance obligations associated with the timeshare hence the reason for trading it in the first place we suspect.
That aside, since we are not present during the trade-in process as it is handled by The Resort. We truly do not know what the inducement to trade was. Whether it was the credit allowance, the price was right, timing or the customer simply wants out of their ownership, who is to say. So inquire with the prior owner as to their disposition and determine whether or not they still have any interest in the timeshare and if so, whether they wish to retain/regain their ownership rights. This would equate to the timeshare remaining in the hands of a maintenance paying owner? Why is it so so far-fetched to inquire with them to see if they still have interest in the interval? They have the memories and best know the timeshare property.
So we do inquire whether or not they do still have an interest in owning that timeshare before we convey legal title.
We are not a high-pressure sales company and each and every customer can simply reply that they're not interested in their timeshare and they would like to continue with the legal conveyance "Deed Recording" of their timeshare and they simply pay the acquisition fee.
We honor all terms and conditions of our agreement, and we take Financial Obligations seriously and act in accordance with what is stipulated in the contract. Trust me, customers seeking to be absolved of their financial obligation have no reservations about citing every stipulation, milestone or date parameter in our contract that may benefit their position and taking us to task when necessary, in order to be absolved.
As some articles state, many owners get stuck with multiple timeshares. This is inaccurate. Some owners may have second thoughts about their earlier decisions, whether they were impulse decisions or not, but in the event that they still own multiple timeshares, it was a conscious decision on their part to remain, owners, as they are never coerced or forced into it and in most cases we recommend they go with their first impulse, instinct and use the judgement and intent that they had in their mind at the time when they traded the timeshare. To state a fact, when an offer is made for an owner to retain their timeshare rights, at that point no monies of any kind have been collected by us. So there is no double dipping as someone would suggest. Customers paying their Acquisition fee upfront and later being sold back their timeshare after they paid to have it acquired/transferred, costing them additional cost and fees is false. They are not charged anything but the Acquisition fee, and if they are presented with an option to retain their ownership rights, that option is presented prior to any fee being collected. So they would never pay twice, and if that was the case you would see hundreds of remarks affirming this, but as you know, those remarks do not exist.
And, lastly, how do you get rid of timeshares that don't have any value? Wyndham and Diamond can be give back to the company, but what about those that are real dogs? Where do they go? [/QUOTE]
We have sold several thousand timeshares, we would be happy to show those records, probably cant, for privacy reasons, but I do call on customers to come forward and support us if we did sell your timeshare. Others resorts take surrenders or deed backs. Sometimes, the landscape changes, some resorts open up to taking inventory, some stop taking for a while. Others I go and meet with, some we try to reason with, some we just have to pay an absorbent fee so they can have a cushion of their own to rely upon. Sometimes, when working with resorts, a little sincerity goes a long way. I try to tell it like it is.
If you research us, you see our chief complaint is probably we take so damn long, well those are the ones we didn't sell and probably cant surrender or deed back. But we didn't quit, cancel or give up. We still answer the calls and still are trying. We pay the maintenance, try to rent it to recover something and we will just carry the freight until something else opens up. We have contacts everywhere as everyone knows everyone, I have even found out stuff that was beneficial on this site, like everyone else. Sometimes is you can demonstrate to a resort the efforts put forth in marketing and your willingness to reach an amicable solution that mitigates financial harm to the resort, you can develop or cultivate new relationships. Some companies are super fast, are they doing the right thing? To each their own. There will always be difficult timeshare issues, we are doing our best not to add to that, but our impact is minor in the grand scheme of things. Are we a culprit, I wish I could answer, maybe we are an entity that addresses a problem and in the process adds to or creates a different unwanted problem by the sheer byproduct of the first problem. There is no simple solution, other than hoping resorts can do a better job of increasing value on the secondary market. They have the ear of support organizations and legislation.
I hope this information helps, everything seems manageable from afar,
