Silverleaf Resorts Billing unauthorized payments and incorrect amounts. North Richland Hills Nationwide

The back-story:

My wife and I have two children and were interested in having some fun family vacations.  We were taken on a 'tour' that was said to be only 90min long, but which proved to be over four hours.  There was loud music and many different sales techniques which were used to entice us to purchase an expensive investment.  After getting my wife to break down and cry with the constant high pressure selling tactics, they pushed a 'deal' our way and we signed it with the promise of finally leaving the premise.  My dear wife had a migraine for the next three days.  That was the beginning of our sad relationship with Silverleaf.

We were quite busy with life and raising the children, so it took about a year for us to actually use the product.  We became familiar with Silverleaf's phone numbers during this time because they called us in the same fashion as creditors do-constantly.  In the first several months, we thought it was interesting how they would keep saying that, "Things have changed at Silverleaf and now was the time to upgrade our product."  The phone conversations didn't change.  I started telling them that I'd call them when I was interested in upgrading, but they persisted.  Eventually, I stored their numbers in my phone and just quit answering, after all, why would I upgrade something when I hadn't used it yet?

When we were finally able to visit a location, we found Hill Country Resort and picked a weekend to use our 'bonus time'.  Traveling there was interesting in that we felt we were really far from civilization, but decided that wasn't too bad.  The resort was advertised as having an indoor swimming pool, and we intended on using it since the weather was somewhat cool.  What we found was similar to a greenhouse placed on top of an outdoor pool.  The whole area was in disrepair and the sliding door kept falling off the track and getting stuck open!  The water was at least heated, but as soon as you felt the 'indoor' air, you froze!  We weren't able to enjoy any of the amenities that were offered.  Our room felt quite the same.  Everything was very dated and random utilities were not functioning right;  A couple burners weren't working on the stove, there was a drippy faucet, etc...  We did have some family fun together, so we don't count the experience as a total loss.

The bad-story:

It was Feb 2013 and we went in for one of the 90min visits. After 4hrs we walked out with one of their 'upgrades'. At about this time we were given our maintenance dues in the mail.  There was an offer to pay all yearly dues up front for a reduced price ($38.22/mo), so we took it.  They tried to charge us an extra month, but a phone call to their billing corrected it.  Another year of busy family living took place and we weren't able to fit another vacation in.  That didn't stop them from calling us constantly. The kept offering to, "have us come in and learn of all the new great changes that were taking place at Silverleaf." They promised to only take 90min of our time and give us a gift card and a free stay somewhere.  We weren't interested.  The maintenance dues came in the mail again, but they held the promise of going up this time.  We got the same letter in the mail offering to pay the year in full and receive 10% off and once more paid it.  This is where billing started getting out of control.  We decided to pay off our entire balance and only have the yearly dues to pay.  After paying the whole year of dues, we noticed another $38.22 charge on our account the next month.  It took several hours of calling Silverleaf's billing department to have them credit us back an amount close to what they mischarged us, but we did get them to admit fault and credit most of it back.  We hoped it wouldn't happen again, but sure enough, it did.  At the end of the year, they began charging 38.22 again for what we'd already paid for!  We disputed two months of charges with our credit card company and fought Silverleaf to try and help them understand what pre-paying for a whole year meant.  They sent us the same discount letter with a bill for $509.64 Our bill now showed our monthly dues were raised to $43.65/mo and that we had a past balance of $38.22.  Where did that come from??

My wife and I were fed up.  We sought legal counsel.  They advised us to try to peacefully resolve our concerns and so I gave them one last phone call.  They explained away the billing errors and I told them I was very dissatisfied.  I spoke with Barbara, her superior Josh Waters, and Yvonne.  Barbara listened to me explain my billing issues and came back telling me where their numbers were derived.  She conceded that I should not have been charged for one of the months, but insisted that the calculations were correct for the other. I asked her if they would do anything to help me to be satisfied and she brought Josh onto the phone.  I told him of my frustrations and he said they could do nothing further.  Silverleaf constantly lures people in with promise of $40-$100 gift cards to have their time wasted during high pressure sales visits, but spends nothing to maintain the satsifaction of their owners.  I expressed to Josh that I wanted both parties to be satisfied and for my account to be in perfect standing.  I asked him if Silverleaf could do anything nice for us to make up for the hours of wasted phone calls, and he summarily refused.  After that he transferred me to Yvonne to take my payment. I made it very clear that I wished to only be contacted via email or postal services, and that the payment information I used over the phone is never used again.  Time will tell if I've fallen for any more lies from Silverleaf.

The summary:

I cannot recommend Silverleaf to anyone.  As an owner and experienced user of their timeshare locations, the value of their product is minimal at best.  Their customer service is truly horrific and without empathy.  Their initial lies to entice me to purchase the timeshare I have were found out months after the transaction.  The hours of phone calls spent (and those likely to be spent in the future) in trying to correct their mistakes are very taxing.  When I asked Josh Waters to help me to feel like a satisfied customer by doing some gesture of kindness toward my wife and I, he flatly rejected me as though my opinion of Silverleaf made no difference.  This is what I have come to expect from Silverleaf now.  You are just a possible source of cash-flow from which they can extort a supply of revenue through increasing maintenance dues and constant badgering phone calls.