Timeshare Scams and Fraud

My husband and I attended a timeshare presentation which lasted more than four hours and ended with us signing a contract with Gold Key Resorts/Ocean Beach Club/Diamond Resorts.

The presentation started with a young saleswoman who talked about the resort’s Ocean Beach Club. She then shared her life story: how she was jilted at the altar and how she was dealing with that by using her timeshare to vacation on some island. The second salesman joined in on the conversation. He talked about how the timeshare was a good real estate investment and how it would save us money on vacations because we'd only have to pay a $100 fee to book our week. He didn’t touch on the maintenance fees at all. I think the saleswoman’s sob story and the salesman’s divorce were tactics because the... Read More

In 2010, we purchased a timeshare with a company called Island One while visiting one of their properties in Florida. When they were purchased by Diamond Resorts, we were immediately hit with a 70% increase in maintenance fees! ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS!! For the next 8 years, we were continually asked to attend Diamond’s “member updates”. It didn’t take long to realize that these were just additional sales presentations where we were continuously pressured to purchase more and more points. Every time we declined and left these meetings, we were rudely dismissed. On one particular occasion, we were FORCED TO WALK BACK to a totally different resort because they had sent a car to pick us up earlier in the day. What kind of company treats people this way???
When we start... Read More

When we arrived in Branson, MO, at Diamond Resort’s Fall Creek, we had no idea that we would need to attend a sales presentation. At this presentation, we spoke to countless members of their sales staff who continued to tell us all the “amazing” benefits of ownership with Diamond. In an effort to leave, we purchased a sampler package. Once we returned home, we tried to use this to travel, yet every time we went on the website, nothing was available. We met with the staff a second time to try and resolve this issue. We were assured that if we purchased enough points to get to the next membership level, all our problems would be resolved. THIS WAS NOT THE CASE. Again, we went to meet with the staff to discuss. At this meeting, which lasted over 7 hours, we were adaman... Read More

Paid for two trips 1 ways to do a timeshare II was called a bonus trip I never received the bonus trip.

We were asked to attend a meeting with Diamond Resorts in late August 2020. As Monarch owners, we were told that we needed to upgrade into the Diamond system in order to keep the equity that we had with our prior purchase, that we would never pay maintenance fees and that we would never be called to attend another meeting. There appeared to be no downside! It was not until a month later that we started to see the lies that had been told to us. We never received any paperwork or billing information and when we called no one knew anything about it. In November, we drove to Las Vegas to try and figure out what was going on. When we met with the finance department, they claimed they had no paperwork from August and had us sign new paperwork, again reiterating that there would b... Read More