Complaint Review: silverleaf resprts

my husband and i bought a membership with silverleaf in september of 2007 and were called for a "members meeting" in march or april of 2008, and like a young naive couple we bought into the scheme of actually purchasing a "timeshare" at piney shores resorts. like two dummies who thought we were doing something good for our daughter to inherit we purchased a "bi-yearly" timeshare, which means you can only use your week every other year. in may of 2008 we were called for another "members meeting" and free weekend. after we again drove 4 hours after a day at work, and an intense migrane, we had to sit through another sales pitch, and also telling us that they had changed lenders...wooop di do. finally the salesman got the hint and we were given our key for the night.

in september of 2008 hurricane gustav hit, and my husband who worked for an offshore company was laid off, and for four months i struggled to keep making payments on the timeshare, so our credit wasn't effected. and in january of 2009 my husband, who has been in the national guard for the last 11 years and has served a tour in iraq, was put on active duty orders as a full time employee of the government. with him going active duty our interest rates were put at 6% due to a the "sailors and soldiers act" (silverleaf employees really need to read up on this federal law). when my husband went active duty it took almost 3 months for them to actually fix the account to the 6% interest rate. but then i later found out that the change in the rate didn't affect my payment but the payoff balance. ok, no big deal.

then only a couple months ago, my husband and i came to the conclusion that we just couldn't afford the timeshare anymore and asked that they take the timeshare back. they told us that until the timeshare account was pastdue there was nothing that they could do about it. we then asked if they knew of any reputable companies in which we might list the property with to sale it, we were then told that it would be a conflict of interest for them to give us that information. okay i'm trying to get out of a situation before it really gets bad, help me out here. so last month my husband and i decided to cancel the card that the pymt was coming off on, and not pay for the timeshare, beings we were told they couldn't help us until the account was past due.

then today as i was home with my sick daughter i received a phone call from a cell phone listed to the texas area, so i answered it and low and behold it was a silverleaf representative. now don't get me wrong i work in finance and i understand that you have  to do your job, but come on try and be understandable. i told the lady that we stopped paying on the account due to the fact that we couldn't afford it anymore, she then asked when we would be able to send a payment. i told her that i had no intention on continuing to pay on something that i could not use. also i had recently gotten my credit report and silverleaf had pulled my credit 4 times in 3 months. when i questioned her about that she said that they can pull my credit when they want. ummm in march of 2009, april of 2009, and twice in may of 2009 i did not apply for any kind of credit with silverleaf so how is it that they can do that.

i plan on reporting them to the credit bureaus for that, also they do not report to the bureaus either. and i will not pay them for something that i cannot use. silverleaf is a ripoff, when a customer is calling you to tell you that they cannot afford it and would like to return it, help them out. at least my husband and i were making an effort in trying to hang on to it as long as we could. and i am sorry but in these economic times a vacation timeshare is not a nessessity.