Lifestyle Holidays Vacation Club Fraud, Bait and Switch, lied during sales consultation Confresi Beach Puerto Plata

Lifestyle Holidays Vacation Club lied to us about taking over ownership of our existing timeshares. They are supposedly an unlimited reservation provider of vacations once you join. They are much more expensive than a typical timeshare, but with unlimited vacations and great perks, it made sense they would be more pricey. The only way we could afford it was for them to buy out our existing timeshares. The sales guy "Mark" went back and forth about how difficult it would be for them to sell our timeshare, and how he couldn't really give us a great price for them, but something fair because then LHVC would be responsible for selling them...blah, blah, blah...

A few weeks later, after not getting any of the reservations we wanted, we find out that they are not taking over our existing timeshares, and that we are still responsible for them. So, now we are stuck paying for two vacation clubs.

In addition to that, we have caught them in several lies:

1. Taking over ownership of existing timeshares.
2. Website accessibility - during the sales consultation, they should you all these different websites that show the hotels and resorts that are available to you. "Annie", our consultant, said that we would have access to them to plan our vacations easier. This was a lie. You do not have access to them. You need additional memberships to gain access.
3. Availability of Resorts - Annie told us it would be easier to get the resorts and hotels we wanted with this membership because they are more eager to work with this vacation club than we a typical timeshare. After becoming members, we find out this is a flat out lie. The availability is SEVERELY restricted for the vacation club.
4. Response time - Annie told us that we would get an answer within 48 hours. This is key because with the "unlimited" vacations for family and friends, they say that you can essentially become a travel agent through your membership, start up a website, etc because you have unlimited reservations. The problem is, sometimes it takes a week or two to get back to you about a vacation...and what friend or customer is going to want to wait a week to find out if they are going on vacation.
5. Time to plan the vacation - Annie told us we would be able to book vacations anywhere from a few days (for spur of the moment vacations) to years (vacations you really care about). As it turns out, you only have a window of 8 months to plan (four months to a year prior), which might not sound that bad...but when availability is so limited, it is terrible.

They are a fraudulent company, use bait and switch tactics, and flat out lie to you during the sales consultation. If anyone has advice on how to get your money back from them, I would really appreciate it.

Jim maltese
Fresh Meadows, New York
U.S.A.