Westgate is exercising ROFR on my timeshare sale

[AwayWeGo]

Letting You Exchange In Is Mandatory, Not Any Kind Of "Favor" -- Sheesh !

When I exchanged into Worstgates Lakes in Orlando, they too asked that I come to some sort of "maintainence" meeting. I did, but did so with a suspision that it might be a sales pitch. They bullied me, said that I should buy as they had done me a favor by allowing me to exchange into the resort.

Any time you exchange into somebody else's timeshare, nobody is doing anybody any favors, period.

The owner traded away the use of that week to somebody else, in exchange for something else, the same as you.

You traded away use of your timeshare & accepted in exchange the use of somebody else's timeshare week -- in that particular instance at a WestGate timeshare.

In checking you in at the resort for a week, WestGate was doing nothing for you it wouldn't have done for the owner, or for the person renting it from the owner if the owner rented it out.

In either case -- renter or exchange guest -- you are there as surrogate for the owner. Whatever the owner was supposed to get that week, you were supposed to get instead. As renter or exchange guest, you were entitled to receive everything the owner paid for that week, and every courtesy WestGate would have extended to the owner WestGate should have extended to you in precisely the same way.

I am a mild-mannered & forbearing man. But if some timeshare employee tried browbeating me into attending an "owner update" or some such because of the "favor" the timeshare company did for me in letting me exchange in, I would have been unable to keep myself from putting aside all mild manners & forbearance in explaining how it really is to that particular representative of the timeshare company.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[AwayWeGo]

Forget Geraldo. Go With John Stossel.

I sure wish I could get in touch with Geraldo.

Geraldo might get bored with all the timeshare ins & outs.

But if you got John Stossel interested in doing an expose, that might really be something.

If you call up ABC News in New York City, maybe you can get in touch with 1 of John Stossel's assistant producers. That would be a start, anyway.

Good luck on blowing the whistle on this via national media -- a job that needs doing if there ever was 1.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[LINAND]

I am a mild-mannered & forbearing man. But if some timeshare employee tried browbeating me into attending an "owner update" or some such because of the "favor" the timeshare company did for me in letting me exchange in, I would have been unable to keep myself from putting aside all mild manners & forbearance in explaining how it really is to that particular representative of the timeshare company.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

But what would you have done if they told you if you didn't attend that meeting they would charge your credit card for any and every little scratch they could find in that unit and blame *you* for it?

That happened to me. all on my birthday when I had plans to drive over to Tampa that day. they came up to my room and stood in the doorway telling me this. two of them.

I say in a very sarcastic way, "Thank you so very much for ruining my birthday plans."
the manager says "Lady you ruined your own birthday."
right in front of my daughter.

I promise, this is all true.

I will always regret not calling the police that day, and checking out and going to another hotel.

 

[AwayWeGo]

L'Esprit de L'Escalier. (Thinking Of The Perfect Thing To Say After It's Too Late.)

But what would you have done if they told you if you didn't attend that meeting they would charge your credit card for any and every little scratch they could find in that unit and blame *you* for it?

That happened to me. all on my birthday when I had plans to drive over to Tampa that day. they came up to my room and stood in the doorway telling me this. two of them.

I say in a very sarcastic way, "Thank you so very much for ruining my birthday plans."
the manager says "Lady you ruined your own birthday."
right in front of my daughter.

I promise, this is all true.

I will always regret not calling the police that day, and checking out and going to another hotel.

I don't know what I would have done -- thinking about it at home while participating in TUG-BBS is far from the actuality of being there at the time & trying to come up with some fitting way to handle the awful situation you described.

I would like to think I would have raised hell, demanded to see the general manager immediately, got in their face, gone down to the main lobby & made a scene, tape recorded the whole encounter as documentation, & generally stood up for Truth, Right, Freedom, & The American Way.

About the best any of us can do from here is heed all the warnings & 1st hand accounts of unacceptable practices & policies & ways of treating owners & exchange guests -- & stay as far away as possible.

If not, we have only ourselves to blame after being warned by you & others.

I don't even think I want any more of their timeshare tour freebies.

Sheesh.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[teepeeca]

It would have been nice (quick thinking) if you would have started yelling---"quit assaulting me" ---"someone call the police" !!! Do that at the top of your voice/lungs.

I bet they would "be gone" in a flash. BUT, anybody nearby would have heard it, and would wonder/question "what happened", and then you could tell "anybody who would listen"

And, like a ripple in the pond, it would go "further and further".

Tony