Need advice on canceling/selling/defaulting on Worldmark membership for my mom.

[sue1947]

Thanks for the info, all, especially this, Sue.

To clarify, my mom *has* used points in the last couple years: two vacations for my brother and his wife to Fiji and Mexico for a week or so each (plane fare + rooms), one for me to Hawaii for five days (plane fare + rooms + rental car), and most recently plane fare only for my mom to Canada.


Not sure if the above uses would amount to 202,241 credits. That's over two years worth of payments -- i.e. $50k+! Seems ridiculously steep. But I don't know, maybe you get totally ripped off when you use the points on plane fare?

A week in a 2 BR in prime (red) season is 10000 credits for the locations you mentioned. So at most, 3 reservations would use 30000 credits. Plane fare and rental cars are not a good value; typically the per credit price is less than maintenance fees. However, it's better than nothing and worth trying to get some value out of the account. The better option is to rent the credits out; look at the wmowners.com/forum thread on credit rentals to see what they go for. You can only rent out credits in the Available bucket not the available to use bucket.

I read that thread about WM possibly buying back accounts, but it sounded like it was only for those without outstanding loans, which makes sense. Now, we may be able to convince them to *take* it back. If not, sounds like she should just stop paying and take the credit hit. Maybe bring up the class action lawsuit linked by Beaglemom3 if they get too uppity.
The loan is the key, but if they think they won't get their loan payments anyway, they just might; again, it doesn't hurt to ask.

One last thing: I found this in our account details on the website:

DUES SUMMARY
Frequency Description Payment Amount Past Due
Amount Late Fee Total Due
Monthly WorldMark Dues $424.45 USD $0.00 USD $0.00 USD $0.00 USD
Monthly TravelShare Dues $0.00 USD $0.00 USD $0.00 USD $0.00 USD

The "WorldMark Dues" amount lines up within a penny to what you estimated the TraveShare dues would be... and yet those say $0.00. Confused on this.

Call and ask. They won't provide the info to anybody not on the account so your mom may have to ask; or somebody impersonating your mom. They ask for account number, name and zip code for identification. I call various businesses on my mother's behalf all the time and just tell them I'm her; it makes things lots easier.

See my comments above in red. I want to add to my comment about renting out credits. You can't do that now since all the available credits are gone; this is only an option if you end up keeping the account since you won't get anymore credits to use until next May.

Keep up the good work. Your mother has enough on her plate as a care giver plus the financial issues so getting her out from under this will be a huge help; your brother and you are doing a good thing here. Frankly, the bankruptcy laws were meant for this situation. Call Wyndham (the developer/manager for Worldmark and they run the sales liars) and see if they will take it back. Very firmly indicate the only other option is default. Then talk to a lawyer who specializes in bankruptcy to get the real scoop on how it will impact your parents. Let us know how this turns out.

Sue

 

[Taken]

Thanks for the support. I believe we shall indeed go down this road.

One other option -- I don't know how viable -- is to put the account solely in my dad's name, and *then* default. Right now it's in both my parents' names. He is well past the point of needing a good credit score.

 

[Rent_Share]

Depending on their ages when they were upsold, look for a consumer affairs reporter near the sales office or your locality/