West Gate Travel Club rip-off
I recently got an invitation to attend one of those “travel club” presentations. In return for hearing the salesperson’s pitch, I would be awarded “4 wonderful” gifts that included 2 round trip airline tickets, a 4 days cruise, a 3 nights hotel stay and finally a $1,000 gift certificate to buy thing from an website where I would have to pay only “shipping and handling fees” The travel club was owned by West Gate Resorts, the time share resort.
Since we had some time off to spare, my wife and I decided to go to the presentation last Saturday.
What a rip-off!!!
According to the salesperson, West Gate Resorts was doing this “pilot program” that allows them to sell unused weeks at their resorts to people who enroll on their travel club. In return for $6,900.00 you would have the right to purchase 2 weeks at one of their resort every year. Each week costing $500.00, plus you have to pay $199 every year in club membership fees.
Of course, after we refused the offer, the “manager” came over to lower the price. According to him, West Gate Travel Club was doing yet another “pilot program” that gives timeshare owners the opportunity to buy the same club at a discounted price of $3,900.00
I hate dealing with people that lie to me. To begin with, I did my homework before I even got in the car to go to the presentation. This WGTC is not a pilot program. It has been operating since 2006, It was the creation of David Siegel, the same timeshare mogul that recently got sue by his employees when he refused to pay them overtime.
But the biggest rip-off was the so called “gifts” that lore people into the sales presentations. Those gifts were nothing else but a certificate that you must activate on a website called http://www.tripleplaytrips.com/ where there is a long list of terms and conditions that you must meet before you can even book a trip.
To begin with, the “free airline tickets” are not free at all. In order to get the tickets, you are forced to stay at an overpriced hotel or resort a minimum of 7 nights. Most resorts cost around $299 per night, so you ended up paying $2093 for a week, much more that if you would book the hotel and the airline on your own.
The “free cruise” is only limited to departure in September, October and December (excluding holidays) Any other time of the year, you must pay up to $199 surcharge fees per person.
And the “shopping certificate” is a joke. There is no “shipping and handling only fees” What the website does is to show you an item with a Manufacture Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) (that is the price a manufacture suggested an item could sell for, but has no real meaning in the retail world), then the site gives you “their price”, which of course is way more expensive that the same item sold everywhere else. The coupon gives you the “discount” between the MSRP and the site price. For example, the site was selling some binoculars, where the MSRP was $120.00, but if you use the coupon, you could buy the binoculars for $41.00 (this is the price you must pay) A quick search online, showed me that the same binoculars were selling for $27.00 everywhere else. The same thing happen with all the items I compared priced with.
I have been to plenty of timeshare presentations. I know how the game is played and I know how to get very quickly out of any high pressure sales techniques they use. But in all those presentations I have never being lied about the gifts I would receive at the end, which is what really bothered me with West Gate Travel Club.
I believed they lied from the beginning, and especially they use false advertisement to lore me into their presentation. I do plan to write a complain letter to West Gate Resort (not that I plan to hear back from them as there seems to be plenty of complains already ) but just to let them know that I would file a formal complain from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs, which is the State Agency in charge of regulating travel agencies.
So, if you ever get a call from West Gate Travel Club, promising wonderful gifts, be aware and don’t waste your time.
Update: Please read this entry for a follow up on what happened after I sent a letter to West Gate executive offices
March 29th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
You sir are either very confused or you really know very little about travel and what it costs. If you are such an educated consumer why would you go to the trouble to drive all that way for a cert you doubted from the get go. I might add that if you were to arrive today you would see that Westgate is providing a full disclosure of all certs being offered by the independent brokers to insure that the consumer is not being deceived prior to the presentation.
As far as how long this pilot program has been around, it officially began on February 9, 2009 at 11:00 am at Westgate South Beach.
The Westgate Travel Club is backed by 25 years and 28 resorts and all the get a way weeks of Interval International and ICE Gallery. Two of the largest exchange networks in the industry. If you were not so close minded and looking for a rip off you would have realized the benefits.
With the creation of the Travel Club, Westgate can provide usage of excess weeks for pennies on the dollar, if that sounds bad to you I am not sure what would sound good.
A timeshare might very well cost more than 17,000 at a Westgate, Marriot, Hyatt, Disney or other timeshare company and that is for one week, not to mention the maintenance fees, and taxes. The Club is a third of that cost and you only pay when you use it.
Not a rip off, but a great deal for someone that likes to travel and stay in nice accommodations.
Westgate also has been hiring employees since this new program started where other companies have been laying off employees
March 30th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
I went to one of those events, and it was a waste of my time and it took 4 hours to get a bunch of junk.
April 20th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Rick, I am not sure if you work for Westgate or not, but I have the feeling you do, since you seem to be very knowledgeable of Westgate dealings, but in any case, I have taken the time to upload a copy of the certificate I received with the invitation to show you that nowhere in there it provides any type of disclosure about the “gifts” I was going to receive. It only mentions the free airline tickets, the free cruise and the $1,000 gift certificate. I even took the time to contact the independent broker and she assured me that the only condition the certificate had was to reserve 45 days before I would travel. Take a look by yourself: http://www.placesandtrips.com/images/westgate.pdf
Also, I don’t know where you are getting your numbers, but you can get a second hand timeshare ownership at Westgate for under $3,000. If you don’t believe me, just check eBay or some of the other timeshare resellers.
June 12th, 2009 at 10:10 am
[...] Following my own advice, I decided to send a letter to West Gage Resorts corporate offices to complain about what happened when I went to their sales presentation. [...]
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:49 am
You wrote “I have been to plenty of timeshare presentations. I know how the game is played and I know how to get very quickly out of any high pressure sales techniques they use”
Why do you go to these presentations then? You are no better than a prostitute. A scammer getting scammed, you deserve what you got.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
I’m very interested in this story as we have just had an experience very similar to yours and would like to pursue it further. Can you contact me via email?
November 14th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
I went to the same presentation while in Miami. The lady was very rude when I only mentioned that I like to make my plans without the club after she gave her spill. She hadn’t even talked price yet. It got very tense and made my wife upset. She will never go to one of these again.
They did make a very good offer at the in for like 1,500 trial, which if I could validate the dates and hotel ahead of time, would save me a lot of money.
I refuse to buy something without researching it in detail.
I was wondering how good the “world class condo vacation” is. You didn’t mention that prize. 7 nights throughout the US for the cost of taxes.
Is it any good?
They said several times there were no blackout dates but there is a week blackout around every holiday.
December 17th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
I also went to a sales presentation after receiving an invite by a telemarketer. (He told me the presentation would be about the mall. what?)
The “one hour” presentation was actually about 2x that long. The pitch made the package tempting, but I resisted buying into something before I could research - or gain some perspective! (it’s compelling in the moment).
The free gifts included a $1000 shopping spree PLUS 2 of the following 4 choices: a High Def TV, $1000 cash, another $1000 shopping spree or a free vacation package, depending on what showed up under the rub-off spot.
You can guess which prizes I won. I left with 2 shopping sprees and one vacation gift.
As described above, the shopping spree is your chance to access a website where you can pay considerably more than retail for any of some dozens of items.
The vacation gift provides a form you must send in which must be received within 30 days with a Money Order payment of 4.95 per person, to then receive a “travel certificate that will include instructions on how to redeem it.” I am warned that I have the right to cancel my contract without penalty within 30 days of contracting with a provider.
Looking through the brochure for more details on each of the travel options I see that there are significant restrictions and requirements including fees and “refundable” deposits (which you can request, in writing, to have refunded only after successful completion of your trip or if you cancel via written letter more than 30 days in advance, or by forfeiting your travel offer). Block-out dates are for the week before and week after any of up to 12 holidays per year. Sounds like about half the year is blocked out.. Once you receive your certificate, you must send your contract, fees etc with selected dates within 30 days of “issuance,” so you may be selecting dates up many months in the future.
I’m going to let thess gifts slide.
February 3rd, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Feb. 3, 2010. I went to one of these presentations with my wife right around New Years. I was greeted very cordially by one of their salespersons. After he tried to establish rapport, he then asked me why we were there. I let him know that their representative at Publix invited us to sign up for a free raffle which would entitle us, if we were picked, to 2 free airline tickets to anywhere in the United States. We were then contacted a few days later stating that we had won and to come pick up the tickets.
The gentleman at that point seemed upset and said that we had to sit through a 1 hour travel club presentation. I said it was fine but I wasn’t going to purchase anything. He got got more upset, not losing it, and began the presentation.
At the end of all the BS session I said thank you but no thank you and I would like my airline tickets. Well, I was given a certificate in which I had to send $4.95 USPS money order per person within 30 to them for them to release the tickets. I did that and then I received another certificate stating:
“This certificate is for the purchase of the vacation certificate and puts all assignees on notice of the consumer’s right to cancel under section 559.933 Florida Statutes. You may cancel this contract without any penalty or obligation within 30 days from the date of purchase or receipt of the vacation certificate, whichever occurs later. You may also cancel this contract if accommodations or facilities are not available pursuant to request for use provided in the contract. If you decide to cancel you must notify Horizons Rewards in writing of you intent to cancel by returning the certificate and sending notice to Horizons Rewards at: Division 360, 478 E. Altamonte Dr. # 108, Altamonte Springs, Fl. 32701. No purchase should rely upon representation other than those included in this contract.
The required trust account under California Statute 17550.25 has been established. Registration as a seller of travel does not constitute approval by the State of California”.
I believe that this is the back door to having you sign a contract to their club. I believe that this as all the other timeshare “USED CAR SALESPEOPLE” is a way of scamming and ripping off the public. I will call the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs and relate to them all that I have been promised and not given. I will also call the T.V. station and let them know what is happening. Maybe they will see s news story and expose them for what they are…SCAMMERS. I thank the gentleman that started this blog.
March 18th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
We went through the same crap with West gate. They suck. They promised us hotel rooms, Disney passes, etc. and completely welched on the deal. Their 90 minute presentation turned into a 4 hour high pressure, arm twisting, nightmare. I was physically threatened by one of their “managers”.
Do not trust these people!
March 18th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Read the comment by “Richard Brookman”. I’m willing to bet he’s a Westgate salesman. The tone of his post is representative of their attitude toward potential customers.
April 14th, 2010 at 8:47 am
I “won” a travel certificate in a raffle yesterday while on a boat tour of Miami with visitors from Germany. I was very excited but smelled something fishy and googled it. I got your link. Thanks a lot for the warning. You saved me from wasting my time in such a rip off. The travel certificate is now in my circular file (trash can, i.e.).
April 18th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Hello and good afternoon, “fyi” I just recently purchased at the Westgate Travel Club, I dont know what kind of bad experience u guys had, but i really got a great deal for my money. Actually i just came back from cancun for an entire week 8days 7nights. It was a package that i got through the travel club. So far so good!!! i have no complaints.
Now if u just went to the presentation expecting everything free, basically your consider to be a “MOOCHER”. Did you really think they were going to make you stay at the WESTGATE PLANET HOLLYWOOD which is the tallest building IN THE STRIP OF LAS VEGAS FOR FREE, because u were a nice guy, COOOOMMMMMMEEEE OOOOONNNNN. They explain to me why people like you guys complaint. Is just simply because they didnt get a free gift.
COME ON GUYS, THE ONLY THING FREE IN LIFE IS CALLED GOODWILL,FIMA, WELFARE AND WATER….NOT VACATIONS, BE REALISTIC AND STOP MOOCHING!!!
June 14th, 2010 at 11:54 pm
24 hour payday loan no hassle fast loan within 24 hours…
We provide no credit check payday loans online. It’s easy and quick….
July 15th, 2010 at 12:27 am
Princess Belle…
Disney Princess Belle is an official Disney Princess, Belle Beauty and the Beast and its two direct-to-video sequels, Belle Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas and Belle’s Magical World are very popular….