First Maint Bill after transfer- Much Higher than expected

[ExplorerII]

Hey all!

I bought a 551k Point Dessert Blue Resale Contract. Tonight I just got notified with our first paint bill and its $684.13. Any idea why so high? I plan on calling in the morning as I know they are closed but just wanted to see if anyone had any experience with this.

I was expecting something in the $2xx range. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[tschwa2]

My guess is the last owner didn't pay the last 1 or 2 payments.

 

[lotus921v]

I got a bill that was almost double for the first month. It was for the partial month before the monthly billing hit. Call and they should be able to tell you

 

[Jan M.]

Wyndham switched to Paymentus last August and there's been many issues. It's been a headache for many owners getting set up correctly with Paymentus.

Unless Wyndham's changed their policy, which I highly doubt, they won't complete transfers if the maintenance fees aren't kept current. Since your transfer completed it stands to reason that Paymentus has the amount wrong.

 

[tschwa2]

Wyndham switched to Paymentus last August and there's been many issues. It's been a headache for many owners getting set up correctly with Paymentus.

Unless Wyndham's changed their policy, which I highly doubt, they won't complete transfers if the maintenance fees aren't kept current. Since your transfer completed it stands to reason that Paymentus has the amount wrong.

See and I was thinking that with all the payment problems it is probably easier to transfer it with 1-2 payments not made than to hold up the transfer. I would double check to make sure the previous owner didn't pay and if they tried but the payment failed or for whatever reason, have the closing company collect that from the previous owner if possible to reimburse you if you have to pay it. If it hasn't been paid then the new owner will have to pay it and then try to get it reimbursed and if that doesn't work just factor in the extra $350 into the total cost.

 

[jules54]

Maintenance fees should be up to date paid by previous owner or resale company until transfer is completed. You wouldn’t have received a bill if the points had not transferred. I’ve dealt with this in the past and the seller has always paid me back for a month they didn’t pay.
200.00 per month for 551,000 pts seems way low to me. 2400.00 year for 551,000 pts? I would think it would be closer to 400.00 per month. I could be wrong It wouldn’t be the first time.

 

[WyndhamBarter]

Actually Desert Blue has some of the lowest MFs around. Check the
spreadsheet in the stickies - it has recently been hovering around
$4.15 per 1K points.

My understanding is that that is quite common for the more recently built
resorts since they have higher point costs per per room, so fewer
dollars of MFs per point needed to generate maintenance on, say, a 1BR.

 

[paxsarah]

Early last year (so pre-Paymentus), about a month after a new resale contract had transferred into my account, I received a bill in the postal mail for I think like 3 previous months of maintenance fees. I’d already had a bit of a fight simply getting the points into my account and the MFs weren’t that much, so I just paid it without pursuing why. Just another data point that this has been going on for at least a year.

My newest contract that just hit 3 weeks ago hasn’t been incorporated into my bill yet, so I’ll keep you posted on whether they hit me for any back MFs.

 

[1Melanie]

Wow! Lots of $$!

 

[ExplorerII]

Thank you all!

So just to update every one I called and was told it was an error and not to pay any mind to it. I was told that my account is noted that it is being corrected and should be updated within a week or two. I do believe my monthly maintenance fees should be around $228 per month. Desert Blue was on my short list of home resorts mainly for the low maintenance fees. The agent I spoke do did believe that there were an additional two months on their erroneously as the previous owner was up to date prior to the transfer. So 684 divided by 3 comes out to $228.

I'll update the thread once the bill is corrected. Thank you again for your help!

 

[Jan M.]

Paymentus strikes again!

Glad to hear it was just a Paymentus issue and you got it straightened out. You should check next month to make sure your payment goes through correctly. Sometimes it takes more than one month/one call to finally get things fixed.

 

[paxsarah]

My newest contract that just hit 3 weeks ago hasn’t been incorporated into my bill yet, so I’ll keep you posted on whether they hit me for any back MFs.

Pleasantly suprisingly, they didn't. To summarize, my new contract hit my account on February 28, evidently too late for my monthly payment in early March. My bill due early April has been posted now, and it only includes one extra month of MFs on the new contract (for March), which is correct IMO. As long as May drops that extra amount off the bill, I should be good to go.

Now, the only reason I knew the exact amount to expect is because I was able to independently verify the MFs on my newest contract here on TUG. Nothing in Paymentus or elsewhere on Wyndham's owner site breaks that out for me. (I suppose I could have called if I didn't have that info.) But that being said, it is the exact amount I expected (at least rounded to the dollar).

 

[altiste1]

I just got my first bill, also incorrect like the OP's. Wyndham wanted $620 for one month on a 564,000 point Bali Hai deed. That should be more like $230.

A call to Financial Services led to no result. They told me if I wanted to dispute the amount of the bill, I needed to speak with Owner Care. Like so many things I hear when I call them, I'm pretty certain that's not true, and my experience with the Owner Care rep confirmed that. She had no idea and was constantly putting me on hold so she could go back and talk to... Financial Services. Of course the information she was getting from them was also incorrect. They were saying things like "this is a carryover balance from the prior owner" and "you need to look at your contract with the seller because that governs in this case." Again, way off. Wyndham wouldn't transfer the deed if there's a balance owed. So I asked them to open a ticket and get back to me. Unfortunately, I'm afraid this is going to take more than one multiple-hour phone call to get resolved successfully.

 

[bnoble]

Try sending an email to this address:

Email contact for financial services

I recently received notice that my annual assessment was incorrect, and I will be charged a new (higher) monthly total as of my August billing cycle. I suspect this is correct (the assessment seemed low) but the letter offered no details as to how the new assessment was calculated. The letter...

tugbbs.com

I have not gotten a response to my question, but the auto-reply suggested they'd need at least 5-7 business days to get back to me, and we aren't there yet.