Diamond Resorts-is it a scam?

BFG_2

Errrrr, lets see......

littlegoth - a newbie, 3 posts every single one of them pumping up diamond resorts

Gee, that's not suspicious at all.

To re-cap - Diamond Resorts equals scam.

BFG_2

From the Daily Mirror today....

Diamond Resorts shuts out maintenance fees debate

Least surprising news of the week is that Diamond Resorts will not buy back timeshares from its beleaguered members.
In a deal that would make Kafka proud, the company has ratcheted up annual maintenance fees and it's impossible in practice for members to get rid of their points, leaving them with rising bills and no way out.
Members can only sell to other members (who presumably are already only too aware of the pitfalls) or to friends and family (and who would inflict a deal like this on their loved ones?).
You'd expect this to be a hot topic at Diamond Resorts' annual meeting on Tuesday. But, in another Kafkaesque touch, the firm - with 40,000 European members - limited the debate to an informal Q&A after the meeting.
"We had a two-hour session in which Diamond told us what was going on rather than listening to our concerns," one member complained.
Company chairman Alan Bentley insisted that the higher fees - many members now pay around £1,000 a year - were due to sterling's fall against the euro.
But he was told by another angry points holder: "Everything you say is challengeable but we do not have the chance to challenge it."
We've received hundreds of comments on our blog from angry members, many saying they're refusing to pay. A motion to bar members who go on a fee strike provoked this angry response: "People who have defaulted are dissatisfied. You are keeping dissatisfied people from here because you do not like what they might say."
In a final bizarre twist, Diamond director Sarah Hulme urged members to switch off lights and re-use towels to "go green" - just as the company announced members would be able to fly to resorts in China and Thailand on the other side of the world.
Eco-friendly it ain't.

barry37

I have been reading the posts here with interest, having stumbled upon the thread whilst searching "selling diamond resorts points" on google...that should tell part of the story! Given the various arguments being advanced I thought I would add my own version of events with the benefit some hindsight borne out of my reasonably long membership.

I joined the Company way back in 1996 when it was originally Grand Vacation Club. We went along to a presentation after being promised a free holiday whether we signed up or not - I suspected a scam - as it all seemed a bit too good to be true. Cutting a long story short we ended up buying 20 points (now thats 2000 points) - there was a reasonably hard sell but we ended up "giving in" after getting our "free" holiday was upgraded to two holidays including flights plus our management fees paid for the first year. At the time I was young (early 20s) and the final sell was "you are getting two years "free" holidays here and we are only charging you £2499 for the points and you would spend that on two holidays anyway, wouldn't you". We signed up, left, worried about it for a while, thenthought what the hell and went on the holidays.

The resorts were as promised for the first two years, then we realised actually our 20 points got you absolutely nothing so we started saving points and using them every two years...that worked until the first of our 3 kids came along a couple of years later. By then we decided to buy another 20 (2000) points...and managed to get them at £2000 which we could afford at the time...that worked for another few years as the kids were small so we could all cram into a one bed unit. Management fees back then were about £500 a year so effectively we could get a weeks holiday for about a £800 per year all in if we got decent cheap flights (ignoring what we had paid for the points - back then they still had a value of sorts so we really an asset!). Following year bought another 40 points for about £3000 this time (I was getting to be one of their best customers!). We managed to make the 80 (8000) points work for a good few years and have been to lots of DR resorts - most of the UK ones, Spain, USA, Canaries etc - (I have to say our only bad experince was at Pike Lake in UK which was not up to the standard in my view).

Whilst on one of these holidays (in Spain) we happened to meet someone who was a timeshare resale agent - got talking to them and they were selling some Sunterra points for a client..190 (19,000) to be precise - they were dirt cheap (which tells its own story) around £3000. We thought about it for a few days then decided with that we could get about 5/6 weeks a year...by then we were taking at least 3 sometimes 4 holidays a year so it worked for us. That was back in around 2003. Total management fees were around £1200 a year which for 4 holidays was decent value - by then we needed 2/3 bed units. So in total I have spent about £10,500 for 270 (27,000) points which was reasonable value as I knew people had paid a lot more to GVC/Sunterra/DRI for half the points we had.

I have had dozens of holidays with them and having so many points we can go pretty much anywhere as long as we book a year in advance which is the ONLY way it works - if you can't do that then all the BS about last minute half price breaks etc is just that, BS- - only one or two resorts are only ever available 56 days before.

So now you are asking...why are your trying to sell your points then!!

Well the crunch is, over the last couple of years my management fees have doubled to about £2500 a year, redundancy coupled with the general financial climate means that the good old days of 4 holidays a year are well gone...it will be a tent in the back garden this year.

Do Sunterra/DR care...not a jot...will they give you a wee holiday (pardon the pun) for your management fees whilst you get back on your feet...no chance...I am about a year in arrears at the moment and suspect they will try and take my points off me soon. To be honest that's the least of my worries.

So my message is...these people sell you a dream and yes we all like to believe in our dreams...and in the goods times when we are all out spending and holidaying its great. But what you are entering into is a long term commitment that also needs paying for in the bad times as well as the good . What many seem to have forgotten (me included) is that holidays are a luxury not a necessity, you take them when you can afford to!

All told I have probably given DR upwards of £20k in buying points and paying managment fees for around 13 years - money well spent...mmm not sure... decent holidays definetely but could I have got the same shopping around and putting together the package my self...almost certainly - back in 1996 the web wasn't what it is now.

The big differnence is that I could take each trip at a time and do it when I could afford it. Not sit at the beginning of every year and write a cheque for £2500 whether I want, or can afford, to take them or not!

Timeshare is a very emotive issue...and I would agree with the few posts who say it works for some people...it does...but it doesn't work all of the time. So if you are thinking of buying points now, my advice would be simple. Don't.

Well I think that is more than enough from me!

yorksrabbit

Welcome to MSE, barry, and thanks for contributing to this thread!

The more who post the better, but I have to say there are two sides to every story, and many people who continue to remain outside the Diamond Resorts privileged community of members may still not realise all the things they’re missing out on (though all those posts on here from Diamond Resorts employees have been, in their way, informative.)

Anyway. We’ve just had a couple of weeks in a luxury gite by a vineyard in The Dordogne, £680 all-in. The accommodation was of the standard we’re used to at home otherwise we wouldn’t have booked it. We flew to Limoges at £69 return each and incurred £220 on car hire (well, it is France after all, not Spain or the Canaries where car hire’s cheaper. And there’s still the lousy £GBP to Euro exchange rate, too.) Base line cost therefore: £1,038, £519 per adult.

But there's another side to this story, and -- shockingly -- it's this:

1) Prior to our departure, the gite owners never had the courtesy to invite us to a flooded gravel pit outside a Lancashire railway town for a not so brief encounter with their representatives;

2) The gite owners never gave us the chance to win a fifty quid Fuji camera or a cruise for 1 to Mexico City with face mask in exchange for having our senses assailed and our intelligence insulted for hour after hour by illiterates steeped in moral bankruptcy;

3) The gite owners entirely failed to supply us with insights that might have led us into querying why the hell we should spend £519 apiece for a marvellous holiday in a location of our choosing at a time of our choosing when for only a mere £10,000 to £20,000 more – available on finance from Diamond Resorts at only 22% APR -- we could instead have a life-time of not knowing whether we’d ever get a holiday at a location of our choosing at a time of our choosing;

4) Yes, the owners did charge us an additional one-off £15 for linen hire but totally refused to commit us to permanent, ongoing linen hire/management fees, £880 next year, £1,000 the year after and ever onwards on pain of being taken to Court, this on top of the £10,000-£20,000 already “invested”;

5) And at no stage was our sojourn helpfully enlivened by the arrival of a psychotic Neanderthal seeking to part us from a few thousand quid more of our savings on the basis that as we really are very special people, his manager has just authorised him to offer us a Truly Special Deal available for the next five minutes only.

Finally: as to “points”. . . there weren’t any. Never offered. Never available.

We have, therefore, just had an utterly pointless holiday.

By a vine yard.

In The Dordogne.

At £519 apiece inclusive of accommodation, flights and over-priced French car hire.

With no visits by any management representatives other than, er, the Chief Executive Officer herself with a complimentary bottle of plonk and a welcome pack of basic groceries (my God, how's that for cunning blackmail though? Diamond Resorts would never dream of luring anyone in with a baguette.)

Now. . . if it's theorised that we might be doing exactly the same thing every year for the next 10 years (we won’t, but let’s stick to theorising anyway) then omigawd, we will chuck away the best part of £13,000 (accounting for inflation). . .

. . . When in that same ten-year period we could have benefited from the life-affirming experience of being a Diamond Resorts investor at an additional cost of around only, er, £20,000 (but hey, what’s twenty grand? Anyone can afford to lose that, surely!) AND “won” a fifty quid digital camera to take pictures of all the places we’d no intention of ever being at because we couldn’t get into the places where we did want to be.

So there it is.

I agree with all those on here who say Diamond Resorts offers every consumer the most unforgettable experience they’re ever likely to have – not only year after year after year until death, but month after month after month when they look at their bank statement.




PS: I’m now off to Tesco’s to say, hey, I’ve worked out how much I’m spending on shopping with you, so how about a new arrangement whereby I spend what I would have spent anyway but I also commit to paying, for the duration of my life-time, an additional £1,000 a year towards your Business Rates, this amount to be ratcheted up to whatever amount you like whenever you like?

Trouble is, Tesco’s local management may not give me the equivalent of a £50 camera to take piccies of what I see on a free stay in a flooded gravel pit by a roundabout outside Carnforth, Lancashire. They might instead suggest I talk to their in-store pharmacist. Or even: call a doctor.

:eek:

terryw

Superb! Post of the year.

terryw

CHR15

Good post yorks, somehow I don't think the Diamond Resort spammers will understand it and consider it a complement

BFG_2

terryw wrote: »

Superb! Post of the year.

terryw

terryw

your name appears on the LHS of the posting, so you don't need to sign off each posting as terryw

yours

BFG

terryw

BFG wrote: »

terryw

your name appears on the LHS of the posting, so you don't need to sign off each posting as terryw

yours

BFG

BFG

your name appears in the LHS of the posting, so you don't need to sign off each post posting as BFG

yours

terryw

trisontana

That Mirror article in full:-

http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2009/07/diamond-resorts-shuts-out-main.html#comments

yorksrabbit

CHR15 wrote: »

Good post yorks, somehow I don't think the Diamond Resort spammers will understand it and consider it a complement

Hell's bells: if they do that, and also give me a cheapo camera, then that might be it. All over. I'll be holidaying in a gravel pit for eternity. :sad: