Complaint Review: Sapphire Resorts Las Vegas

My partner and I were in Las Vegas for a conference and were approached by people who offered us free tickets to shows (our first mistake) if we attended a short presentation supposedly only 90 minutes long.  The presentation was held at The Jockey Club which is either between two buildings or underneath the Cosmopolitan building (couldn't quite tell).  The presentation: for a fee, we could access vacations around the world at a discounted price.  Some of the prices for a full week's vacation were $299-$499 a week.  Some of these vacations were at RCI resorts (full kitchen, multiple bedrooms, etc).  They offered free trips to Hawaii for anyone who signed up.  

The Presentation:

You are attached to a sales rep who takes you into a room with all the other victims to listen to their team leader make a presentation.  His jokes are bad and so is the music but all the sales rep laugh like they've never heard the jokes before and dance in their chairs to the music (I looked around the room...all the sales reps do this).  You are told things like: vacations for $399 for a full week.  Anywhere in the world...access to RCI properties...etc.  Don't call RCI, just call Sapphire and they will handle everything for you.  

They take you on a tour of the building to see the rooms/apartments.  The Jockey Club is an older renovated builing that seems to sit between two buildings and practically underneath the Cosmopolitan building.  The materials in the units seemed somewhat newer but the walls, doors, hallways and ceillings seemed very dated.  One of the units had a view of a cement building with no real sunlight at 2 in the afternoon.  The pool area was surrounded by tall buildings so there will never be any direct sunlight (no sunbathing).  

They then take you to a large room where they try and sell you the deal. The room itself feels cheap; loud music is playing (probably so you can't hear the other tables discussing anything), it is filled with balloons and all the sales reps going on about how this is a family and they want you to join their family.  The Closer comes and presents the deal. 

Because we were Canadian, he offered us a discounted rate because apparently one of the owners of Sapphire Resorts is Canadian and he likes giving us deals.  $5,995 USD at a monthly rate of $123.  One maintenance payment a year of approx $400.  You can pay off the $5,995 at any time you want and this gives you ownership for 45 years which you can will to your kids. 

Your purchase gets you 23,001 credits which gives us access to all these premium resorts all over the world - both with Sapphire Resorts and RCI Properties.  That would unlock the access to condo units for a week at $399.  They also threw in a free trip to Hawaii (from anywhere in the US...Canadians had to get to a US airport before the trip became "free"). 

You can also sell units to your friends and family and make some money - example,  your friends say they are going to Disneyworld, you can look up a vacation for them at $399 a week and give it to them at that rate or charge them more and make a profit as it would be cheaper then your friends or family staying in a hotel.  So not only are you enjoying access to cheap vacations, a free trip to Hawaii but you now also have the ability to use your investment to generate revenue for your family.  

I excused myself to use the restroom and to get a drink of water so that I could secretly google search the company.  I wasn't able to as my sales rep followed me into the bathroom and followed me when I went to get something to drink.  I did manage at one point to search Sapphire Resorts but not much came up - it wasn't until later that I realized the legal name is Starpoint Resort Group formerly Geo Holidays (there is a lot of information on them).  

We signed the deal and they had us ring a large bell (I hadn't heard anyone else ring the bell yet during that session...).  They take us into another room to sign the paperwork - you do not have time to read anything.  We signed and went on our way.  That night we reviewed the contract and did some research - we had made a big mistake.   

1) $5,995 is the cost to everyone (not just Canadians...although I figured that at the time).

2) 18% interest rate so if you only ever made the monthly payment of $123 to pay it off you would be paying upwards of $10,000 USD give or take by the time your done. (So, that's why they told us we could pay it off faster if we wanted). 

3) 23,001 credits are given to you at the time of the contract signing but they do expire and you can only roll over credits for a year.  After that you are getting approx 5000 credits a year (that expire) but you need upwards of 25,000-30,000 credits to get any property anywhere.  That means it would take you approx. 5 years to accumulate enough credits to access a property but the credits expire before that...so you can't access anything.  But hey - you can buy more credits if you want (more $$$)

Then we did some research online - reviews indicated some of the following (although please do your own research)

1) Free Trip To Hawaii - isn't all that free...some have said with all the taxes and fees that they could have rented a place online cheaper or for the same price as their "free trip". 

2) No or limited access - A lot of people were struggling with Sapphire (StarPoint and Geo) in terms of trying to book a vacation.  They either couldn't get a vacation or if they did it was to some obsecure place at a low travel time.  Those who could book a vacation stated that they never could get Disney or Hawaii or anything popular.

3) One review mentioned the individual contacted RCI directly to book a vacation and they laughed at him when he said Sapphire told him he had access to RCI properties (Sapphire stressed the point that we were to call them and not RCI).  

4) Some reviews indicated when they tried to cancel their contract (after the 5-day cancellation had passed) they were hung up on or ignored.

5) The so called "free" stuff that is given to everyone for just listenig to the presentation isn't all that free or or is so restrictive that your better off doing your own thing.  

These reviews, the interest rate and lack of credits didn't sit well with us so we decided to get out. 

The Cancellation:

Nevada law states that there is a cooling off period of 5 calendar days (not business days) for any timeshare deal.  In the contract we signed, there is a "Timeshare Notice Cancellation Letter" that they are legally required to have in the contract.  You have to either hand deliver it or send it by mail that allows you to get a signature of receipt (in Canada it would be registered mail - I don't know what the term is in the US).    We decided to hand deliver it.  

We took our cancellation letter (that was inside our contract) and went back to Sapphire Resorts the next day.  The front desk had us fill out a recission form and the guy said someone would be out to talk to us.  We were taken into another room where a Sapphire Resorts employee tried to find out the reason for us cancelling.  NOTE:  Here's the thing - his job is to make you keep the timeshare.  If you say the reason is cost - he will lower the cost.  If  you say you lost your job and only have $5 to your name, he will do a deal for $5.  If you say the reason is the interest rate - he will lower the interest rate.  If you say it is not enough credits - he will give you more credits.  If you say anything about their product or money...he will offer you something better....until you decide to keep the timeshare.  So we decided before we went in that we weren't going to talk about their product or about money...we talked about us.  We said that we aren't married yet and we don't live together yet and the idea of entering into an agreement together when our personal lives aren't together yet didn't sit well with us and we decided not to do any joint investments together until we've ironed out our relationship. (Our relationship is fine).  There is NOTHING he could come back at.  When we left - he said, if we wanted to tell him the real reason then he could help us (we did tell him a reason...it was just about us and not about Sapphire).    IF YOU SAY ANYTHING ABOUT money or the product,etc. you will be there forever discussing it.  We didn't care about what other offers they could give, we just wanted out.   

We were told that our agreement would be cancelled within 48 hours.  The next day we received an email saying it was cancelled and to please tell them why we were cancelling - we declined to respond.  It took 18 days for my deposit of $600 to be refunded.  Nevada law says they have 20 days to refund the money from the date of cancellation (you have 5 calendar days - not business days - from the date of signing to cancel the contract).    

Mail (with signature receipt) or deliver your cancellation letter to:

Starpoint Resort Group

3700 Las Vegas Blvd. South, Ste 200

Las Vegas, NV 89109

Attn: Sapphire Resorts, a Timeshare Offering

For those hand delivering - the Starpoint address I just listed above is the Jockey Club - 2nd floor. 

Good Luck to all.