1 Jan, 2018 → by ClaimboUser820419
Loan interest

1

My Wyndham failure Newly arrived in the Florida seaside resort of Panama City Beach in early December 2017, I took an evening stroll and saw a sign saying Tourist Information. I got information about sights and forthcoming events and then the male clerk said that he had an interesting offer to me. If I wanted to attend an information meeting with breakfast at the nearby Wyndham hotel then I could have a free week at one of their facilities. The only thing needed was to pay 75 usd in taxes and fees. I negotiated these to 50 usd and paid it. The meeting at Wyndham was led by Tom Aiello and Dustin Leonard became my assistant during the day. Tom said that Wyndham had revolutionized the time-share industry. It was no longer about sharing an apartment with other owners. But to have access to a hotel room or apartment at maybe 70, 000(?) different locations at the world's largest hotel chain - Wyndham. They had recently purchased RCI, where owners of apartments could submit their apartment and instead get access to everyone else's apartments all over the world. (Wyndham owned a number of other hotel chains such as: Ramada, Howard Johnson, Days Inn, Caesars & Harrahs and many more and they were highly rated ethically, etc). A 1, 5 hour information meeting soon became a full day sales session. And by the end of the day, I was the owner of a Club Wyndham Silver membership that cost 58379 usd. I paid it through my American bank account. I was given a contract that included 40 plus pages. I read it carefully. But it never said that I was also a member of RCI - which had been promised. This member ship was important as RCI had many vacation facilities outside of the USA. I had ten days to cancel the agreement without penalty. And a day or two before the expiration period I met Tom Aiello and asked him about my membership with RCI. He said that I was a life long member with RCI. I wanted to have more information about web pages, booking and how to find a way in the complicated network of Wyndham. It seemed to be a kind of patchwork where Wyndham had thought of everything except perhaps to make it easy for the members. There were also a lot of added fees that I wanted to avoid. Dustin Leonard did not think I needed any extra training. After all, I had taken notes from the meeting, and seemed to know it all, he said. He also said that spirits were high in the office and that they recently celebrated the success of recruiting many gold and platinum members in the past year. Dustin helped me to book a week in Nashville in January 2018. (Only 6 days were booked initially and I had to extend it by one day….). In Nashville, I was invited to attend a Wyndham "Owners Update" information meeting. I said yes because I did not yet feel fully learned. This meeting was almost immediately transformed into a very intensive sales session. An Afro-German woman (born in Germany on a US military base) was in charge. Many with military experience or raised in military families appear to work at Wyndham. They have experience from foreign countries and of large, hierarchical organizations. (Dustin Leonard had just finished military anti-pirate activities outside Somalia). She thought I had an insufficient membership. For travelers with a focus outside USA the "Rewards" system was the best. And a gold membership would get me everything I wanted. It became a long day. The light breakfast started at 10.45 am. And it was over circa ten hours later - without any more food being served meanwhile. My US bank account had been almost emptied for the Silver Membership. Now the hard working Wyndham staff tried to find different ways to sell me 300000 points (Points is the Wyndham currency) to get an "everlasting" gold membership. My assistant this day was Jennifer Starkey. And the one who arranged the final contract was Joey Spite. 300000 points cost 46, 779 usd. And after making a downpayment of 4704 usd I owed Emerald Grande/Wyndham 42, 074 usd. It became a loan with 16.99% interest. (or 735.67 usd/month) . They had done a "credit survey", but without contacting a Swedish credit research institute - (I have all my funds in Sweden). I was not satisfied with the "loan shark" terms. When I picked up a check from my American bank in my hotel room, to make a first installment, Jennifer Starkey followed me there, obviously worried that I would not come back but instead departing before the negotiations were completed. However, if I made a full down payment of the loan within a month (latest February 9th 2018) there was not going to be any interest payments at all. Back home again on February 1st, I immediately sent Wyndham, Las Vegas a 25, 000 usd personal check and bought a "bankers check" of 20, 773 usd that was sent by Deutsche Bank to Wyndham Las Vegas. (This included a final down payment of the loan plus 10 months of Wyndham Home Owners Association maintenance fees as my USA bank account otherwise might be emptied or even overdrawn). The letter to Wyndham in Las Vegas with the 25, 000 usd personal check also included information about my membership number and contract numbers from Panama City Beach and Nashville. And info about the 20773 usd check that was arriving by separate mail from Deutsche Bank. On the 13th of February 2018 the 25.000 dollar check was cashed. I had bought my 300000 points to get the Gold membership from the hotel Emerald Grande in the seaside resort of Destin, Florida. According to the contract, the debt would be transferred the same day (Jan 10th, 2018) to Wyndham, PO Box in Las Vegas. And Wyndham Las Vegas was supposed to collect the interest payments as well as the downpayments. I was very surprised to see that that Emerald Grande on the 26 of February and March 26th and April 26th via an automatic payment plan took 735.67 usd per month in interest. Without deducting the 59 % down-payment of the loan (via the 25.000 usd personal check). I was paying interest to Emerald Grande who no longer had anything to do with the loan / debt / interest according to the contract. And they even took an interest on the full amount (42074 usd) without reducing for the 25, 000 usd that had already been cashed in. It was a total back office failure. There seemed to have been no communication between Wyndham Nashville (that had written the loan contracts) and Emerald Grande and Wyndham Las Vegas. And when I tried to contact Jennifer Starkey and Joey Spite in Nashville office via email, their email addresses had stopped working... I had to start an investigation about what had happened to the 20773 usd check. I learned that this check had not been cashed. And Wyndham Las Vegas confirmed that they could not find this 20, 773 usd check) - via a very short 3-line unsigned email message. In fact this was the very first sign of life after waiting for 2 months for a reply from Wyndham…. (This check had so far cost me 141 usd; (buying, investigating, killing). 3 parties were involved: 1) The Nashville office that was responsible for the terms and conditions 2) Emerald Grande who should not have any interest payments - but did. 3) Wyndham Las Vegas who had not booked my 25, 000 usd down payment. Meanwhile, I had to blacklist Wyndham / Emerald Grande at my US bank (E-Trade), and stop all interest payments. The money went to the wrong recipient. And it did not take into account the downpayment of my debt. And even worse was that the interest payment of 735.67 usd/month was not at 16.99 % but at 20.98 %!! (12 monthly payments of 735.67 = 8828.04 usd and the initial debt was 42, 074 usd. Which makes 20.98 % yearly). Someone in the Nashville office didn't even have a basic 4th grade knowledge of math! And Emerald Grande and Wyndham Las Vegas hadn't even noticed it. The fact that Wyndham's back office was dysfunctional was further confirmed by RCI when it turned out I was not a member of RCI. A helpful Wyndham employee at "Owners Care" promised to fix this immediately. But nothing happened and I had to remind him again. Finally after three reminders No. 1; in Panama City Beach in December, and No. 2-3 in February-March 2018, I became a RCI member. I also tried to register my Nashville contract number to receive Electronic Statements. But it was impossible. But I could register the contract from Panama City Beach. (Is this another aspect of the "cover up" of the Nashville contract situation?) * Wyndham's business model disadvantages the Wyndham Club members. Wyndham receives all payments in advance, or charges a very high interest rate. All effort is committed to selling membership and, afterwards, Wyndham's commitment has disappeared. All back office functions since then appear under-dimensioned, insufficient or avoided. In addition, there is an unpleasant lack of respect for the customers. When Wyndham sellers have been successful they seem ashamed as they know the promises given will not be kept. So they avoid further contact with the customer. Like never respond to an e-mail. Or sending unsigned replies only, after months of waiting. I also question Wyndham's ability to be able to supply what the customers are expecting. Comments on the internet talks about long waiting lists and that it's almost impossible to get what is wanted. Has the business turned into a pyramid game where all employees are focused on selling memberships and get bonuses? And where the most popular resorts are never available. After 3 months of waiting for a reply to my letters and messages I was finally contacted by Wyndham Las Vegas (Patrick Wolford) and Emerald Grande (Ed McMullen Jr). But it has been messages without substance. No promises or a plan. I have asked that the Nashville Contract should be terminated and money returned because Wyndham has broken so many of the contract terms. Instead I was recently transferred to "Owners Care" (Christopher Dzierbicki). What I have experienced with Wyndham is similar to what I experienced when I examined Swedish listed companies as a financial journalist. The Swedish companies showing the same type of back office failures or customer dissatisfaction were usually bankrupt within a short time. Or the share price had collapsed. Jonas Bernholm (Stockholm, May 26rd, 2018, Sweden) [protected]@yahoo.com
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