As faithful readers may have noticed, Lee and I bought into a timeshare, after swearing we’d never do that. But, we reasoned that by paying into it, we would be more likely to take the time out of our schedules to go travel, and it would be like having a second (okay, third) home without having to maintain it ourselves.
We (or I) have enjoyed visiting various spots, like North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and Utah. We also had a fun trip within Texas through the system. I have no complaints about the facilities or staff, and was really impressed by how careful they were when I went to Utah and managed to avoid humans and their diseases.
But, it turns out that the resorts and amenities are a small part of the operations, which really seem to be focused on aggressively pursuing late payments and trying to get people to default on their loans. If a payment isn’t received immediately, debt collection calls start. I’ve never had debt collection calls from anywhere, ever before!
It turns out that our problem is that Lee prefers to make payments by postal mail, using the coupon books provided by the company and personal checks. That’s a legitimate way to pay, and I used to pay for things that way, too. This does make us dependent on the US Postal Service to get our payments to the company on time. Payments sent a week before due date were a few days late a couple of times since we got the timeshare. As soon as I realized the calls were legit, I always paid the bills by credit card. They kindly took the checks, too, once they arrived. I guess it applied to principal.
But then, around Christmas/New Year’s, I kept getting calls and calls. It seems that they didn’t get TWO payments. Lee swore he’d paid them. Well, ha! He had sent the payments all right, but they got RETURNED to us for sending them to the wrong address (the address on the payment coupons). Well, changing your address and not forwarding mail to the new one sure is a way to get lots of late fees.
I called their debt servicing folks, and a lady gave me two entirely different addresses to send payments to. She said she never heard of the one on our coupons. Uh huh. Too bad, so sad.
I sent their email address proof that we DID make the payments and that the postal service had returned them. I asked that they not report me as not paying my bills.
So, beware. Timeshares can be fun and simplify travel, but I’d pay cash up front if I ever did it again, which I won’t.
Horror stories of your own are welcome!
The Hermits' Rest 