Diamond resorts international Pressured sales Las Vegas Nevada

We went to Sedona to spend a week at the Ridge on Sedona Golf Resort. Our week ran from Saturday, January 25, through Saturday, February 1. 2014.  This is a Timeshare property of Diamond Resorts International with corporate offices in Las Vegas, Nevada. This timeshare was booked through Interval International by me as part of the agreement between Marriott's Timeshare program, of which I was a member, and Interval International. Before arrival, I was contacted by Diamond Resorts in Sedona offering a deal of  a prime rib dinner Tuesday night, a trip to a local winery Wednesday and lunch Thursday for the low price of $99.00 as long as we agreed to attend a one and half hour presentation of Diamond Resorts Timeshare Program.

I've attended these many times with Marriott but have never had any complaints about them. You pretty much know what to expect. I've owned my Marriot Timeshare week for about 13 years. When our appointed time came, 1:00 P.M. Thursday,
January 30, we went to the sales office, met our sales agent and went into the presentation. We were taken into a large room filled with other guests staying at the Timeshare and many other sales agents. We were served lunch, after lunch our sales agent started the presentation. When we thought the presentation was coming to a close we told our sales agent (Mark Alagna) we were not interested.

At this point, he kept adding other aspects of the program that was only available for owners of "premier property" such as Marriott. We told him we were not interested. Before he would let us go, he wanted us to listen to one more aspect of their program. In this aspect of the program, they would buy our Marriott week at "fair market value" and convert it to Diamond Resort Points and there again we would have more weeks to use each year. We would not have to pay Marriott's maintenance fee but we would have to pay theirs ($847.12 annually), but we was not ever told how much the maintenance fees were only that they wouldn’t be as much as Marriott’s.  

Actually all these options were worth much less to us in travel benefits than our Marriott week. They continued to apply pressure by reducing the cost of buying into the program and by adding financing incentives. After about 4 and a half hours of this we told him we were very satisfied with the Marriott program and since we had had it for 13 years we felt we had certainly gotten our money's worth out of it. That’s when he called in his sales manager, Reuben Philo. so they could double team us. This was a small room and we and the new sales agent were the only ones there. We were tired, we were hungry, and ready to leave. It was now about 5:30 P.M.They weren't through yet. The new guy sat down with us and pulled out one more offer.

Little did we know that this was the worse offer of all, but as I said we were tired, hungry and ready to get out of there. The dollar amount was less to buy into diamond resorts and they were offering us what we thought was a good price for our Marriott timeshare. So they had finally broke us, we gave!! What a mistake! The agent took it, got it approved and we signed it. We both had initialed and signed the contract. I know you are supposed to read contracts in their entirety before signing but it  was now about 6:30 P.M. We had been beaten!  We were exhausted from the previous presentation and was definitely ready to get back to enjoying our vacation, as we had already wasted the whole day on this presentation.

Little did we know they had screwed us out of are Marriott timeshare and stuck us with only 3000 points that we can not do much of nothing with, but never fear MARK ALAGNA made his sales quota on that 30th day of  January 2014. We thought we were dealing with a reputable company who had fully disclosed all portions of the contract. There were no verbal disclosures about any content on the contract. We were not explained to how to use Diamond Resorts points system or any of the other programs we had supposedly said no to. The worst thing not disclosed to us is how can they sell me 3000 points but I am unable to get out of this “timeshare point system” or whatever you want to call it, because I don’t have 7500 points I am unable to sell out. Therefore I feel as they took us for our Marriott Timeshare, $13.527.00 for 3000 points  and 847.12 in maintenance fees.

I figured all this out this past weekend, August 2, 2014, when we went for our new member orientation trip to Branson, Missouri. When we walked in for our orientation, instead of them wanting to show me how to use my points, he asked me “What was we there for?” I am guessing they already knew that I didn’t have enough points to be used for anything anyways. What was really strange and this is where it really gets good, they wanted us to spend more money for more points so that we would be able to travel to more places and also you really can’t do much with just 3000 points, so how about spending another $16,000.00 and we can bring you up to 7500 points, that way someday you might be able to travel some where and maybe, just maybe you can find another sucker to buy all those points for $39,527.00, as that’s what we would have had in it at that point.

Oh and also don’t forget those maintenance fees they would be up to $1.600.00 per year, as they are based on how many points you own! I just hate to admit that I have lost my Marriott Timeshare and $14,374.12, but as I always I try to look on the bright side of things, at least they didn’t con me out of another 16,000.00.

VERY UNHAPPY