Oh, the drama (no, for real)
I wanted so badly to stay in a good mood; the weekend absolutely rocked, and I wanted to ride the contentment out as long as I could… but, as tends to happen, life has conspired against me. Most things I could have blown off- and a lot of the work!drama I had- I really don’t care that much about it anymore- but there are some things that just make you sick to think about, and one of them just happened. It all started with a call mum made yesterday. We’re pretty sure we just got screwed BIGTIME by Starwood.
Firstly, for those who don’t know, my parents have a time-share in florida; we’ve had it for a while, and for the most part, we’ve been happy with it. That’s where we take the yearly family vacation, and while we don’t do much else while we’re there anymore, its generally very relaxing.
For the last several years, we’ve been avoiding going to the ‘owners meetings’ where they try to hard-sell you more time/upgrades/services- because really, we weren’t interested. This year (in January) they really pressured us into going, going so far as to mention that if he couldn’t get us to make an appointment, he’d probably have trouble with his manager. He continued to promise that there wouldn’t be any attempts to sell us anything if we said we weren’t interested in the meeting, and they just wanted to go over the new features of our membership, etc. Ok, fine; it was easier to go and take their money (a $50 compensation for them wasting our time) than to have people keep calling us to harass us about it on our vacation.
Fast forward to the day of the ‘meeting’. Originally we had all intended on going, and then starting with our day, but the time had to be pushed up to around 7am due to travel changes with April, since she had to leave earlier than us. So Mum and Dad end up going down on their own without waking us up. Later we get a hold of them via cell to find out that they were talked into buying an extra week, and it was a hard decision, but sounded like a good investment. Of course, April and I rushed over to check things out before anything was signed, and we get this whole song and dance about how great it is, and all the features, and that the second week can be split up- since it was an upgrade- into to weeks with a lesser-room (one-bedroom); and all this for about $11000 (roughly), and an addition of about 30% of our yearly ‘maintenance fee’. Ok… that doesn’t sound horrible- I wouldn’t have gone for it, but I can understand their reasoning; they’re thinking about ‘after they die’ again; and while I don’t appreciate the sentiment, I can see their point of view on that, as far as April and I go.
Now, at this point I feel the need to point out that it was reiterated multiple times that this was a second week in addition to our current week, and that implied, among other things- that our current week wouldn’t change. You can imagine where this is going.
So Mum calls Starwood yesterday with some questions about how to use this next year, and the points system that they are currently using when transferring time. She finds out that we’re not listed for two weeks- only an upgrade on our current week- and that we weren’t even in the same section anymore, but the older, more run-down area. Also that they had sold our previous time-share (in the area we actually liked) to move us into the older area. According to their system, all that money was for an ‘upgrade’ that we didn’t need or want, that moved us out of the area we liked into the shitty-side we always avoided; also that we no longer had an annual, but to bi-annuals. This was verified by three different people.
At this point, Mom is alternately livid and sick over it, and she spends most of the day yesterday trying to get a hold of someone to try to work things out. I would say ‘fix it’, but I don’t think that’s possible, since our previous time-share has been sold. She goes home at lunch to find the paperwork to go over it- not that she expects to understand the ins and outs of it, but at that point of ‘sick’, there’s nothing else you can do. Ends up being on the phone (I had gone with her, because I needed to do something over there) for the better part of an hour with another lady there (she’s put in two or three calls already that day, trying to get anyone who could help) and its verified that ya, what she was told earlier was what they had us logged as, and we’ve basically come to the conclusion that the salesman lied to us. Even the lady she was talking to said ‘who in their right mind would DO this?’ in regards to the changes made to our account; they make NO SENSE. It comes down to us paying a lot of money for very little change at all for the better, and a lot of change for the worse. She takes our information, and promises to pass it on, and we’re supposed to hear back from someone there in the next two days.
I have to keep reassuring mum that, no, you didn’t misunderstand things; the deal we thought we were getting was REITERATED after I got there at least three times; I’m anal retentive about things like that, I want to check again and again to make sure we’re on the same page. The problem is, that’s what he TOLD us; the paperwork could very well have been set up to sell us what we’re logged for, and he could have just outright lied to us; and I should have know better, and checked over the paperwork, because this feels so much like how Ameriprize first got their claws into me with their initial bait-and-switch routine. And THAT I agonize over- because if the paperwork is accurate to what they say, what can we do about it? They’ve got signatures on the agreement, and they’ve already got our money.
And I’m just going to ramble from this point on if I keep going, because I’m so sick over it that I can no longer articulate proper concepts- so I’ll leave it at this for now; He lied to us, gave us a huge run around while we were there- hours long in fact, screwed us over- and we can’t see how to fix it, or if we even can. On top of that, I can’t see how we’ll move on from here; we’ve been taken for a great deal of money - both the initial payment, and the yearly fee’s they will expect, and the quality of our future vacations will be diminished by the fact that they moved our area to a place we NEVER would have gone, had we been made aware of the change. That would have settled us to a ‘no’ flat out in the beginning, second week or not.
Sick. I’m just sick.
Firstly, for those who don’t know, my parents have a time-share in florida; we’ve had it for a while, and for the most part, we’ve been happy with it. That’s where we take the yearly family vacation, and while we don’t do much else while we’re there anymore, its generally very relaxing.
For the last several years, we’ve been avoiding going to the ‘owners meetings’ where they try to hard-sell you more time/upgrades/services- because really, we weren’t interested. This year (in January) they really pressured us into going, going so far as to mention that if he couldn’t get us to make an appointment, he’d probably have trouble with his manager. He continued to promise that there wouldn’t be any attempts to sell us anything if we said we weren’t interested in the meeting, and they just wanted to go over the new features of our membership, etc. Ok, fine; it was easier to go and take their money (a $50 compensation for them wasting our time) than to have people keep calling us to harass us about it on our vacation.
Fast forward to the day of the ‘meeting’. Originally we had all intended on going, and then starting with our day, but the time had to be pushed up to around 7am due to travel changes with April, since she had to leave earlier than us. So Mum and Dad end up going down on their own without waking us up. Later we get a hold of them via cell to find out that they were talked into buying an extra week, and it was a hard decision, but sounded like a good investment. Of course, April and I rushed over to check things out before anything was signed, and we get this whole song and dance about how great it is, and all the features, and that the second week can be split up- since it was an upgrade- into to weeks with a lesser-room (one-bedroom); and all this for about $11000 (roughly), and an addition of about 30% of our yearly ‘maintenance fee’. Ok… that doesn’t sound horrible- I wouldn’t have gone for it, but I can understand their reasoning; they’re thinking about ‘after they die’ again; and while I don’t appreciate the sentiment, I can see their point of view on that, as far as April and I go.
Now, at this point I feel the need to point out that it was reiterated multiple times that this was a second week in addition to our current week, and that implied, among other things- that our current week wouldn’t change. You can imagine where this is going.
So Mum calls Starwood yesterday with some questions about how to use this next year, and the points system that they are currently using when transferring time. She finds out that we’re not listed for two weeks- only an upgrade on our current week- and that we weren’t even in the same section anymore, but the older, more run-down area. Also that they had sold our previous time-share (in the area we actually liked) to move us into the older area. According to their system, all that money was for an ‘upgrade’ that we didn’t need or want, that moved us out of the area we liked into the shitty-side we always avoided; also that we no longer had an annual, but to bi-annuals. This was verified by three different people.
At this point, Mom is alternately livid and sick over it, and she spends most of the day yesterday trying to get a hold of someone to try to work things out. I would say ‘fix it’, but I don’t think that’s possible, since our previous time-share has been sold. She goes home at lunch to find the paperwork to go over it- not that she expects to understand the ins and outs of it, but at that point of ‘sick’, there’s nothing else you can do. Ends up being on the phone (I had gone with her, because I needed to do something over there) for the better part of an hour with another lady there (she’s put in two or three calls already that day, trying to get anyone who could help) and its verified that ya, what she was told earlier was what they had us logged as, and we’ve basically come to the conclusion that the salesman lied to us. Even the lady she was talking to said ‘who in their right mind would DO this?’ in regards to the changes made to our account; they make NO SENSE. It comes down to us paying a lot of money for very little change at all for the better, and a lot of change for the worse. She takes our information, and promises to pass it on, and we’re supposed to hear back from someone there in the next two days.
I have to keep reassuring mum that, no, you didn’t misunderstand things; the deal we thought we were getting was REITERATED after I got there at least three times; I’m anal retentive about things like that, I want to check again and again to make sure we’re on the same page. The problem is, that’s what he TOLD us; the paperwork could very well have been set up to sell us what we’re logged for, and he could have just outright lied to us; and I should have know better, and checked over the paperwork, because this feels so much like how Ameriprize first got their claws into me with their initial bait-and-switch routine. And THAT I agonize over- because if the paperwork is accurate to what they say, what can we do about it? They’ve got signatures on the agreement, and they’ve already got our money.
And I’m just going to ramble from this point on if I keep going, because I’m so sick over it that I can no longer articulate proper concepts- so I’ll leave it at this for now; He lied to us, gave us a huge run around while we were there- hours long in fact, screwed us over- and we can’t see how to fix it, or if we even can. On top of that, I can’t see how we’ll move on from here; we’ve been taken for a great deal of money - both the initial payment, and the yearly fee’s they will expect, and the quality of our future vacations will be diminished by the fact that they moved our area to a place we NEVER would have gone, had we been made aware of the change. That would have settled us to a ‘no’ flat out in the beginning, second week or not.
Sick. I’m just sick.