Resortcom International Tried to charge a late fee when payment wasn't late. San Diego California

Resortcom International receives maintenance fees for Club-Cala de Palmas in Humacao, Puerto Rico. According to our bill, a late fee is charged if the payment is received after Jan 31st.

We attempted to remit our payment on Jan 31st as we have around the same time every year and were charged a late fee. When asked why, they indicated we were late!? How so, since our statement clearly says the fee is applied after Jan 31st (which would mean effective Feb 1st).

"Well it takes us 24 hours to process and your fee will be late by then"...so explained "Oscar" (wink) and again "Ryan" (wink, wink), the two reps we spoke with. When asked to speak to a manager, "Oscar" and "Ryan" placed me on hold and quickly came back on the line explaining the managers refused to speak to me because the fee is charged by Club-Cala and not them. They had no control over that.

We requested comments be placed in our file log, stating that we had attempted to pay the maintenance fee on time and wanted an email showing this had been done. Needless to say, "Ryan" got testy. He even went as far as to request I hold while he did this otherwise he'd hang up since he had other customers to attend to also. No problem, we explained - we'll hold as long as he liked since it was their 800 number we had dialed. Quite a few minutes later, he came back on the line and explained "while we were on hold, he had also contacted Club-Cala directly and they confirmed we were late with the payment and therefore we had to pay the late fee". **NOTE...we confirmed Club Cala accounting was closed at this time.

Meanwhile, we contacted Club-Cala directly. Club-Cala confirmed the payment wasn't late until Feb 1, 2008 and that they weren't charging a late fee until then. They had been dealing with this very same issue from other owners all day, they confirmed. They immediately offered to take our payment - minus the late fee - right over the phone and even gave us our payment confirmation.

Well, well! Not being able to resist, we called Resortcom again (all these calls within an hour mind you) and this time spoke with "Berenice". We asked to speak to "Ryan" since we hadn't received our email. "He's not here right now, he went to lunch or something" she said. We explained we were waiting for the email he was to send us and she checked the log and said, "there is no email to be sent - I don't know what you're talking about." We had been lied to...really...surprise, surprise!

After asking for and being refused the higher ups, we were reluctlantly given the info we requested, all the while assuring her it's really not a good idea to continue to lie. She then explained she could take care of this whole matter - all she needed was a copy of our bill faxed over to her showing the due date and we wouldn't have to pay the late fee...WHAT! Why didn't "Oscar" and "Ryan" give us the same info we asked? **NOTE: ironically one of the owner names we were given was "Ryan Holder", along with "Rico Rodriguez".

In all fairness, "Berenice" was the most helpful and she genuinely seemed confused. At that point we let her know we had contacted Club-Cala and they payment was already processed. Just out of curiousity, we asked where was this call center located...Mexico City...she responded.

As confirmed by Club-Cala, there were others this happened to. Also, if you were charged more than the $960 prior to Jan 31st, you unknowingly paid a late fee if you didn't question you're charges. Look forward to hearing from others.

Gmama
Wesley Chapel, Florida
U.S.A.