Complaint Review: Bushkill Group Inc.

My wife and I originally purchased a membership in Outdoor World when this unit was run by Rank Ahnert. Our stake in this membership was compromised when we had to upgrade to a Villas at Treetops time-share, or lose our investment, altogether, at an additional cost of $6,950. Rank phased out the Outdoor World program. We stood to lose $8,000.

On March 6, 2005, my wife and I met with Jeffrey Poloway, Sales Supervisor, to enlist his help to market our Villas membership. He stated that it was illegal in the State of Pennsylvania for Resorts USA to be in the timeshare resale business. He referred us to independent Internet resellers. These third party resellers were the very same ones that successfully scammed, or tried to lure, us out our money with having to pay them upfront.

On June 28, 2005, I wrote a letter to Andrew Worthington, CEO outlining our quandary. He replied on August 9, 2005 by saying Mr. Poloway was correct. He suggested that we consider another vacation program that that they marketed.

Since Mr. Worthington's reply, we have received countless phone contacts from time-share resellers who want to receive money upfront. There is now a bolder scheme to scam time share owners like us. A company with three different names (Transfer Smart, Transfer America and Transfer Relief) wants upfront payment of $3,900 for transfer fees so that we can surrender for free our ownership back to the people that sold it to us in the first place.

There appears to be collusion among Bushkill Group, time-share resellers and time-share transfer companies to scare us into giving up our ownership while paying them a fee to do that.

Frank Greendell, NJ