Complaint Review: Westgate Resort

My husband and I attended a sales presentation in April, 2011 after paying $20 for dinner and a show for two.  Most expensive dinner and show I will ever have the bad fortune to experience.  We declined the time share for the Las Vegas location at Planet Hollywood, but, to our "good fortune" a resale from Orlando just became available from someone who supposedly wanted to upgrade.  Lies.  I am now aware that you can hardly give these timeshares away and you are stuck in a perpetual contract forever.  There is no equity in this as the salesman claimed.  The reason we bought is because he said that in addition to our week of vacation at Westgate Lakes in Orlando (for only $24,000!), we could book "getaways" for $49 for three to six days each. 

As it turns out, the get-aways are through Interval International which is an exchange club at $149 per year.  The various get-aways vary in price and average around $300 more or less.

The $49 offer was really just for paying ahead two extra years for Interval Internatonial, a one time occurance.  Being semi-retired, we thought these extra vacations would justify the horrendous price of the Westgate unit and the $615 yearly maintenance costs and taxes. 

Now that I realize there is really just the one week, and because of my husband's and my ages, we should get ten years use and not be able to get much when we sell, if anything.  That amounts to about $500 a night for our resort expenses based on 70 days of vacation in all.  A person walking in off the street can rent overnight for about $150.  What a nightmare. It took me six months and $16,000 paid to realize that we had been lied to, when I called Interval International to begin booking vacations. 

I was told this Florida-based company continues to get away with all of this fraud because the taxes generated from this nonsense supports the state.  This is really a crime.  They claim to be the third largest time-share resort company in the world.  Wouldn't you think a company this big would be legitimate?  A person on vacation in Las Vegas is not likely to have done their homework when going to one of these sales presentations.  We were caught off guard.  Now with internet searches, I am aware of the millions of people trying to get rid of timeshares.  Some have to just give them away.  This is a national disgrace.