Marriott Ownership Resorts We were deceived and make false promises by the Marriott Vacation Club Timeshare Sales Team. Lakeland Florida

This complaont is for Marriott Vacation Club, the timeshare, not the resorts themselves, which iare beautiful places for a vacation. Below is the occurrence of events that has given my wife and I a lot of anxiety after being suckered into a timeshare with the Marriott Vacation Club.  

We can start two weeks after we signed the contract and before we made the first payment. We called the salesman, Tiago Monteiro, to tell him that we had serious reservations about the timeshare purchase and wanted to cancel. He kept saying that there was no way to terminate it and we would lose the money we had put down, go into foreclosure, ruin our credit.

Maybe three months in, we called and spoke with a rep to ask how in the world to get out of it. He told us he’d put us on a list of the people who wanted to sell. Obviously, nothing came of that and we never heard anything about it again.

You understand that we have wanted and tried to get out of this from the very beginning. The document package came after the rescission period and we were unable to look it over in time to make a timely decision to cancel.

We were on our honeymoon in Hawaii, thinking about starting a family and future vacations. At that time my wife was considering taking a trip to Italy with my brother. The salesmen zeroed in on those feelings and plans and told us it was all possible. They raved about how it would be paid off before we knew it and we wouldn’t have to shell out any extra money at all. She could go to Italy solely on the points we had.

They told us that the points could be used for cruises or airfare.

These statements are not true. The Italy trip would take a lot more points than we have. We can’t save the points for future use because they expire every year. Cruises and airfare are possible but only by paying extra and heavy fees to do so. We looked at a Carnival cruise out of Tampa and after spending over an hour on the phone with multiple agents we booked the cruise. We had to pay $1000 in fees – fees we weren’t told about – and found out the points we had amounted to almost nothing.

The sales presentations we attended were hours of fast talk, confusing marks on a whiteboard, and industry jargon we didn’t understand and wasn’t explained to us. It was high pressure sales and we fell for it. We never have made an upgrade but attended the mandatory owner update meetings where we heard the same promises and lies that are meant to coerce the owner into buying more.

The promises of using points anywhere and anytime are not true. We went to New York City for one night on a day that wasn’t our first choice.  In Orlando 2016 the sales reps told us that the number of points we had was so low you don’t even offer that any more. They are “pretty insignificant” was the phrase they used. They wanted us to buy more; we didn’t fall for that again.

The promises of easy selling and tax benefits and minimal fees and availability – all not true.

The maintenance fees alone are crippling and come at the end of the year; we have had to add to our credit card debt to pay them. All in all, the monthly payments are way too much and not the amount talked about at the closing. The timeshare was presented as a great deal and a financially wise one and that is not the case by any means.

We have reached out Marriott the last few months to cancel the timeshare but have received nothing but response letters ignoring the fact that the entire contract and process was deceitful.  In addition to multiple letter to the Marriott Vacation Club, we have reached out to the Better Business Bureau and the Attorney General's from each state involved in the sale.

In conclusion, we wouldn't recommend anyone to attend any sales meetings for a timeshare. All it has left us with is a big hole in our pockets, stress and a bunch of empty promises from a deceiving sales team. Avoid at all costs!