I am including the two letters I have sent by certified mail to DRI demanding answers "in writing" since calling me on the phone does not give me proof of what they say. I don't trust them one bit. Contrary to my instructions, DRI calls me at least 2 times each day which I refuse to answer. I demand all correspondence be "in writing." Here are my two letters. January 21, 2019 Diamond Resorts International 10600 W. Charleston Boulevard Las Vegas, NV 89135 Consumer Advocacy and Hospitality Question: Do you have a habit of preying on older adults who are easily confused by your never-ending marketing pitches? I feel that you do after experiencing hours of agony which we consider to be elder abuse. From the time we decided to sit through a “90-minute” sales presentation in Las Vegas and were forced to endure the continued high pressure sales pitch which turned out to be five hours plus, we strongly believe that we have been mentally and physically abused by your company and its representatives. We were 77 and 74 at the time and found the presentation unusually mind-wearying. There are surely laws against the coercing the elderly from unwanted or unwarranted purchases. During our first meeting in Las Vegas, those attending were asked by the DRI welcoming person, for a show of hands and estimate of how long we would all continue vacationing. Most replied 15 years, 20 years, and even 25 0r 30 years. I (Terry) raised my hand and said maybe 2 years! The DRI lady laughed and said how my wife and I were going to be able to travel for more years than I knew. She ridiculed my answer without even knowing how old we were or health status in front of the rest of the room. We are not sure how she came up with such a statement based on no knowledge of our status. I then told her that I did not expect to live that long to travel. We strongly believe that should have been a clue to the DRI lady that our purchasing a time-share would be out of the question since our life-spans would not be worth the expense. The pressure upon us continued after we moved to the back room to talk to a sales specialist including a lot of figures being thrown at us with nothing to back them up. By the time after a couple of hours, we were the most tired we both could ever remember being in our lives. We just wanted to get the *** out of there, so without thinking, we signed the documents to purchase. No clue was given to us as to how much money such a purchase would really cost us over time and how our children were expected to pay in their lifetime. We explained that both of our children were not wealthy and could never afford such payments. Increasing maintenance fees and how much were never discussed. If we would have been given the potential over a lifetime would cost, we would have definitely not signed any documents. But, as we state here, we were exhausted and just wanted to leave. We are not wealthy. We live on a fixed income. Terry retired from the United States Air Force and his pension rarely keeps up with the cost of living. We find it hard to believe that DRI treats elderly veterans in this manner. We are expecting DRI to rectify this situation. We have not been able to use this waste of money so far and really have no intention of using it. Please respond to this issue at the EMAIL addresses below. March 4, 2019 Diamond Resorts International 10600 W. Charleston Boulevard Las Vegas, NV 89135 Consumer Advocacy and Hospitality Dear Sir or Madam: Since DRI has failed to answer my original letter of complaint sent January 21, 2019, we will hopefully gain your full attention with this second letter of complaint. We have been treated very poorly by your company and its representatives. We have been worn down both mentally and physically by being forced to sit through hour upon hour of your sales presentations. We were told our first meeting would last only 90-minutes and we would not be obligated to buy anything. This initial sales presentation was very mind-wearing to say the least. We were 77 and 74 in age at the time. There is surely some law against coercing the elderly from unwanted or unwarranted purchases. We consider what you put us through to be elder abuse. I am demanding that Diamond terminate, in full, our contract. We strongly desire no further dealings with Diamond. We are also demanding to be refunded for the thousands of dollars we have already paid for this “opportunity.” We have been treated poorly, took advantage of, coerced into purchasing a product we did not want and cheated out of the limited funds we have as retirees. Please terminate our contract. At first in Vegas, all of the sales pitch attendees were gathered in a room to be welcomed by one of the DRI marketing staff. She asked for a show of hands and an estimate on how long each of us would continue to take vacations. Most replied 15 years, 20 years and even 25 years. I was the only attendee who raised my hand and said 2 years! The DRI person laughed and said how I was going to be able to travel for more years than I knew. I told her I did not expect to live that long to travel since by the time the membership contract would be fully paid, I would be in my upper 80s and my wife in her middle 80s. We believe that our age circumstances should have been a clue that purchasing a time-share would be out of the question since our life-span would surely not be worth the expense us. Since we were obligated to sit through the 90-minute sales presentation we stayed and were ushered into another room to meet our designated sales rep, (name removed). Of course, the strong sales pitch continued and how we could use our points to travel anywhere to hundreds of DRI-owned properties. She told us we would receive an additional 7500 points if we purchased the initial 7500 points. We were told we could reserve any place in the DRI system with our Silver status and that we could do it earlier than those members of lower status. We have since determined that many of the sites are either filled sometimes a year or more in advance and many could only be reserved during the week and not on weekends. At our age, our status a year in advance is tough to determine. We were also sold on the fact that if we placed our down payment of $5200 on a DRI Barclay credit card that day, the expenditures on it would give us more points that could be used to help pay our yearly maintenance fees. The interest was/is 16.99%. So, not only did we go into debt for the down payment, we also had exorbitant interest fees. After more than six hours, we relented and made the purchase. (Name removed) told us we could call her at any time if we had questions. We called her three times, left messages and received no replies whatsoever! A short time later we were notified that we had the opportunity to take a trip to Sedona, AZ for three days where we were told that to take advantage of this “free” trip we would have to again put ourselves through another sales pitch with no obligation. Again, it was hours of agony! The condo and a jeep ride were included in the package, but all meals and transportation to Sedona was not included. That was additional money out of our pocket. We had no contact with DRI other than trying to make a reservation we were told we have to make reservations mostly a year in advance. We called 6 months in advance. Sorry, nothing available! Later in 2018, we were notified we could have a free trip to Hawaii to stay at a DRI property…including a room and air transportation. Good deal! Points we had acquired would be used to pay for the condo. This we took advantage of, but again had to labor through extended sales pitches by the sales rep (Name removed) in Maui. We had all intentions to dismiss the strong sales pitch since we really didn’t want to continue to pay monthly contract payments and maintenance fees for Las Vegas (national) properties. (Name removed) told us after long discussions on how great Hawaii was and the DRI collection there, we later found out there were only two or three DRI properties in the whole state! He also “reviewed” our contract that we signed in Las Vegas and that there was a huge mistake in it and that we could transfer our ownership over to the Hawaii sector without paying an enormous amount of money. I remember seeing a document he laid on the table that said the cost for purchasing Hawaii would cost us $136,000! But, if we transferred and wrapped our original contract into the cost, he could knock off about $100,000 from the price. He said, and I quote, “This is gold!” Their mistake was too good to pass up! We would have all the advantages of being a Hawaii member since the maintenance fees would be a lot less than the national membership we previously purchased since there were a lot fewer properties in the Hawaii collection. We were also told that we would always be upgraded to a 2-bedroom accommodation and only pay for a single bedroom automatically when we booked. So, we left Hawaii not owing about $20,000 at $375 per month, but $50,000 $785 per month! I also found out when billed that my cheaper maintenance rate in Hawaii was not cheaper than what we paid for Vegas. Last year the Vegas maintenance fee was $1740. The new Hawaii maintenance fee is $2923. Does that sound less expensive to you? We should have known better, but being now 78 and 75, we didn’t and we succumbed to the Hawaii siren call, our weariness and the “golden” opportunity to move our ownership to Hawaii for greater advantages which were not forthcoming. There is absolutely no way that our children could assume our purchase responsibilities. Both live on extremely low incomes. I remember distinctly telling (Name removed) that they would be unable to continue the payment on this “legacy.” The only legacy would be that they would have to renege on their (our) our obligation. In both Las Vegas and Hawaii, neither sales representatives gave us any clue as to how much over the span of the purchase contract and maintenance fees would add up to. Or, even how much they were. We believe that if this item had been discussed up-front, we would have left the sales pitch right then and there, but was continually pulled back to purchase. In summary, we were overcome by the potential “golden” opportunity which we now do not believe is that golden and should have walked out without double the money owed on the contract and over thousands of dollars more for maintenance fees. We firmly believe we were hoodwinked by overzealous DRI sales reps who failed to provide us the entire story and responsibilities of purchasing, and then upgrading a DRI membership. IN WRITING! We expect your answers to be delivered via mail or by EMAIL. I want something in writing from you and your explanation as to your conduct and concerning the full refund. Please do not call us. Thank you,