Update by user Dec 16, 2019 No Original review posted by user Dec 14, 2019 My husband and I were lured into this called mandatory member meeting while we vacationed in Virginia Beach in 2017. We already owned a Condo and we were there on an exchange with Interval International. We were not interested in buying. But Diamond got us good that day. The meeting was supposed to last a couple of hours, but it lasted almost a whole day. The pressure and drills from the sales representatives were so horrible: promising all these great deals (luxurious, money-saving, blah blah), and showing beautiful places one can visit (that those places actually cost a lifetime of points to book one), and all the garbage they pull off to finally make you giving in after a whole day sitting in there and say ok let's get it over with. If you haven't seen a sales boot camp. This is one of those. You can't think of the details of what you really need to ask before you sign off and before you leave the place because you have been tortured and pressured to just buy! buy! In the end, you don't really know what you are buying and what are you getting into. Unlike our other Condo, there is no physical location of the place you are buying. It's just paying a share" of this development here and there--just making the rich richer! Something we would have loved to ask if we were given another day to think and discuss and could have made a better decision the next day. Everything had to happen right then as they don't want you to be sharp to ask about all the hidden costs, and the "devils" in the details, and the fine lines. We were even told to leave our paperwork in the car, not take it to our Condo room. We realized afterward that they don't want you to read and know that we have 7 days to cancel if we change our mind--something they never discussed during the sales. Just couple months after we paid off the Condo, we were offered this weekend getaways to Williamsburg, VA. What a waste of time and energy that was. Got there on Friday night, and the whole Saturday was more pressure sales: upgrade of Silver Member to Gold, buy sample collection, and buy more points if we want to enjoy life and retirement as Ms. Bernie stated. They made the deal sound so sweet and made us feel like it was a special offer only for us. Then we had to leave Sunday morning. What kind of "getaways" was that????? They got us to buy these sample collections, but we were quick to cancel the darn contract. Then came Spring 2018 and we were invited to this Dinner called "member updates." Oh boy, wasn't that a mistake. The whole evening was all about the same garbage "sales" again. The same whole thing and even to ask us to pay more to get more "privilege" because, apparently, nobody told us that we bought the Condo during TRANSITION. Whatever that means: we, the customer, must pay the price????? Diamond Resorts and its representatives are not honest in what they are selling to people. It's like a business, no other but, ripping off people. This is a place I, personally, would like to see it go out of business. It's a SCAM! you are not investing in anything. I guarantee you if we sell what we bought for $35 K; Diamond will only give us $2K for it. Most of the places Diamonds own are these far remote, cheap places in the Mountains, the rest are always affiliates and we must have so many points to get into or pay more if you really want to go. We were told during the Sales meeting that we won't pay Interval International fees anymore if we buy but what we are experiencing now is that we still have to pay fees through Interval International and hotel exchange fees on top of the hefty membership fees if we want to go to a popular place, city, and country. We can't even go to New York City on a weekend with our points for crying out loud!!!!!! Really, what's the point of owning this so-called wonderful "vacation" Resorts. We could have just been better off without it. All the big talks, getting discounts on hotels, tickets, and so on are just empty promises as they always require so many points or pricey additional money. I am so sick of Diamond Resorts garbage, and what really made me write tonight is that I called the Finance Service about my membership. I tried to pay on the Website and there are two options for doing so: one-time payment and scheduled payment. I did the schedule one before where I can set up my own date under the Make Payment" link. This time I got an error, so I called the Customer Sce. I know I can use the Surepay too, but that schedule is forcing me to use the 1st or the 15th of the month. I can only make the payment on the 28th so to choose my own schedule payment is the best way for me. The two are the same method allowing people to pay overtime. But when I asked why I am getting an error in setting up my own date; the answers I got was that if I want to use that choice; Diamond has to do it for me with one condition that I won't be able to use the Condo for 2020 until I pay. WHAT!!!!! did I just hear I said. You are telling me Sure Pay is not the same thing even though it's payment overtime as well??????? OK whatever the explanation is I don't want to hear it because we are at the mercy of Diamond Resorts, we don't have any rights, no choices, nothing but got stuck with this useless and expensive SCAM!!!! I am sure what we paid is nothing compared to other people but, regardless, it's not right to treat us this way. It's too late for the people who are in this Member Forum to hear my cry out about my experience. But I am going to publish this post outside the Diamond website because I feel the obligation to speak up and prevent others to get ripped off. All I can tell the members are please don't go to those "MEMBER UPDATE" dinner, nor the "GETAWAYS" if you don't want to waste your time and pay more money of something that's not worth it. Please don't write back and say you are sorry to hear about our experience because you are not. The damage is already done, and we are just going along with it.