Complaint Review: Diamond Resorts International Previously Sunterra Resorts

I have been reading many complaints about DRI, if you still have concerns about DRI please go to http://www.diamondresortsowners.com/.
Thanks
Gbert

DBL,

Please utilize my contact information and feel free to reach out to me.

Thank you,

Patrick Duffy

So, if I read Mr. Duffy, the CEO (Chief "Experience" Officer) correctly, we should feel GOOD about the fact that Diamond (DRI) made $5.2 million on "Inventory Recovery Income" in 2009, even though the owners (like me) are still being saddled with nearly $7 million in bad debt.

It seems to me that the way DRI does business is that you guys make vague and misleading promises to get people to put thousands and tens of thousands of dollars in your pocket, then you yank the reality curtain away, leaving us to deal with the impossibility of USING that ownership (which really isn't an ownership, BTW, anybody got a deed that's any good AFTER DRI goes out of business?), to deal with the high interest rates for financing the purchase (16%? REALLY?), and to deal with the unlimited and ever increasing annual fees and club dues.

THEN, just when they cannot take one more month's payments or another annual dues bill, they find out they cannot sell it back to DRI at all (forget the reasonable amount) and you are on your own trying to sell it.  Oh, by the way, the Club membership, the Interval International membership, even though we paid for them, cannot be sold when (IF?) we sell our DRI ownership.  With the economy the way it is, many of us end up LOSING our DRI property, DRI takes it back (for free - much better than any "unreasonable" offer), and then sells it again, realizing some, "Inventory Recovery Income."  Then the entire process above starts again, right?

What part of this should we, "... be pleased to know," about?

Because, as far as I can tell, DRI still passes the "bad debt" of us poor schmucks that lose our property on to their remaining servient owners through increased annual dues and fees (until a bunch of them cannot take it anymore - see above).  So, we customers get shafted coming and going (literally), and DRI gets paid whether we stay or go.

Why not give all the information up front about the difficulty of use of the ownership options?  Why not give decent interest rates for financing?  Why not let people actually use their resorts as they are lead to believe they would be able to?  And why not let DRI corporate office - you know, the one that gets the big profits from selling the timeshares in the first place (last time I estimated, each unit of a $30,000 timeshare brings in $1.5 million - multiply that times all DRI's units).

Let me out of DRI!  I am done being bled - no blood left.  Just take back my membership, keep the thousands of dollars I've paid you so far, and skip the "collections agencies" that you threatened me with earlier today.

DBL

In reaching out to further clarify the mis-perception you will be pleased to know that;

"Bad Debt" for 2009 was offset by $5.2M from "Inventory Recovery Income". Which is the monies the Developer pays for current year maintenance fees when an account is cancelled due to delinquency.

Patrick C Duffy

Diamond Resorts is the management company....The various HOA Board of Directors determines the budgets, hence the bad debt calculation.

As to affiliates, they are a cost effective answer to what our members are looking for by way of additional resort destinations......Costing Diamond Resorts nothing by way of expense to "rehabilitate".

We are always looking for additional US based affiliate resort destinations to add too the portfolio. This offers an exciting option to what our members want, and where thay would like to vacation. If you are interested in a certain area in the US, please drop me a note or call me.

Patrick C Duffy

Chief Experience Officer

Diamond Resorts International

702-823-7660

patrick.duffy@diamondresorts.com