RCI

I bought the cruise and resort package which they made it sound like a good deal at the time. With RCI, everything is difficult, there are fees that were not previously mentioned, the employees lie. I would never buy anything from them again. I booked a cruise date yesterday, their brochures say one thing, the person on the phone says another.

Purchased a time share from Coral Sands. We were told that we had no maintenance fees for any of our timeshares and traded in a time share for it. They took possession of a timeshare we owned and we had no idea of trading it. The price was $12,000, none of it was true. None of the people will return my calls.

Made reservations in advance for a trade show at the Worldgate resort, Kissimmee, FL. 1/19/12 -1/22/12 . Drove 7 hrs, went to check in, resort didn't get the confirmation. Called RCI, person said they would fax it there, no good, the resort was booked solid. After a 2 hour run around, GM got involved, mind you the town house they wanted us to stay in wasn't clean, single beds were not changed, same sheets from someone else, bath room was used, no clean towels, all used left on the floor. Finally got a 1 bedroom hotel room, which was for the handicap.

The room was still not clean, no AC til 2sc. The day my daughter said our confirmation came 1/21/12 to my home, hooray? The staff here acted like they were doing us a big favor, the GM, Rob ** helped ss much as he could, but my wife, myself and others we talked to at the show were so disgusted with the staff, from the front desk, to the restaurant, bar and gift shop, The people selling tickets didn't know where anything was, at the bar, we were charged on our drinks with tip included, this also got everyone *off, when we go to these shows, we all over tip because everyone wants to out do the others [big shot complex].

Overall, we have never been treated with such disrespect at any other resort we've been to. Now, to RCI pts. Called, got the same treatment no respect, finally they would give us 1 week vacation, for $249.00, plus a trans fee of $189.00 to another resort. No good, I want the 15,600 pts. put back in my account. I'm not going to pay again for their screw up .

I paid $3,000 for Cruise and a week. I booked cruise after I paid the $3,000 for the certificates. They wanted an additional $2,000 for the Cruise for the time period we wanted. They said the $2,000 had to be paid in full 90 days prior to the cruise. When I recently called to pay the balance, they told me the cruise was cancelled even though they gave me confirmation numbers for my 2 cabins. They said someone called my house asking for a deposit. I never spoke to anyone from RCI. I did not receive any email or mail correspondence stating that they cancelled my reservation. They want me to pay $398 to reinstate 2 certificates and an additional $200 to get the cabins back that they cancelled. This is ridiculous, someone please help. How do I file a lawsuit?

We were scammed! We were first invited to a free meal and had a presentation about moving our weeks into points. So, we paid a fee and thought that our now weeks were permanently moved into points with RCI. What they did not tell us is that it is good only for a year. The following year, we would have to pay again to move it into points. We feel that we were scammed. I have learned that if you have to decide now, do not do it! That is a pressure sell, so you cannot think it through. No matter how good an offer they make you, do not do it! When we called them, all they said is "sorry that is how it is". If you cannot go home and think about it, then they are scamming you.

When I bought my timeshare, RCI assured me that availability was not a problem because only members of the program can access the timeshares. I have since learned that availability is a serious problem. RCI engages in the practice of skimming a large percentage of the timeshares from the system, including many prime timeshares and renting them to the general public at a profit to RCI or selling them to vendors who then rent them to the general public. As a result, no matter how meticulously one follows RCI's rules and procedures and no matter how far in advance one begins looking for a desirable exchange, one simply cannot find available destinations. Since RCI does not allow extending points into the following year without a $99.00 payment, one is forced to either forfeit the points or pay an additional $99.00.

I bought a membership in Gold Crown at a resort in Mazatlan last Nov. The salesman, Brad **, lied to me about what my membership included when he saw I wasn't interested in what they had to offer. He said I could use my weeks for airfare. It was a total lie. It wasn't until I got home and received my password that I discovered the scam. Customer service said they had nothing to do with the sales people and what they say. Everyone I talked to said I "misunderstood" and cannot get a refund. My girlfriend and I both know what we were told. In fact, we went over several ways in which we could use the airfare with Mr. Brad ** and assured by him that was included.

RCI has now started basing "Weeks" trades on trading power and offering "Trading Power Credits" when you trade to a lower value unit. They then turn around and require you to pay $109 to combine your own credit (that you received after paying $199 to exchange your week for one at another resort), then you have to another $199 to exchange the now combined trading power for a new week.

Essentially, you have to pay to exchange for a vacation, then if you have a credit, you have to pay to combine it and then pay again to exchange the combined value for another vacation.

I have owned it for 4 years. I tried numerous times to get it started. Today, another several hours put in, only to be given another number to call. The last call to 800 832 8033 cut me off every time I got to a real person. We have yet to recover one minute or penny from this company, $18,000.00 later. I guess we're either out the money, or I'll pursue the Mexican government route to fraud suit. I chose a rating of zero, but it won't register less than a one.

I urge all of the people who were misled, or felt they were scammed by RCI to contact the Arizona attorney general's office. They have a complaint form on their website. I have been an RCI member for a long time. The one time I was able to exchange my gold crown resort, I ended up in a roach infested resort in isle Margerita, where wild diseased dogs and cats were wading and drinking out of the swimming pool. When we called to complain, we were told there were no other resorts available. If you read the posts on this website, you can see that there are far more complaints than positive reviews. I wonder if some of the positive reviews are posted by RCI employees.

I've read the comments going back about a year from 1/1/12. My wife and I have been a condo owner and a RCI member for about 14 years. We ask questions, prepare ahead, plan our options and have never had a poor vacation exchange due to any negligence on RCI's part. For example, if you wait until March to look for a condo/resort exchange on the Outer Banks of NC for that summer, it isn't going to happen. On the other hand, if you wait until March to look for a nice condo/resort exchange for that summer in the interior USA, such as Branson, MO or Gatlinburg, TN, you'll have a grand time with numerous possible selections. You may get some good spots still in Orlando, as the economy has caused that vacation wonderland to have an overload of empty condo rooms.

We've been to very nice spots in Phoenix, Cape Cod, the Outer Banks, Myrtle Beach, Orlando and have had very nice vacations. Once again, we realize that those kind of spots, especially along the coast, are in high demand and we plan on out 9-12 months. Neither my wife nor I are employed by any resort, condo owner, RCI or any affiliate.

In October 2010, my wife and I banked our week at a 5-star resort in hopes of exchanging for a week at Disney. Within one week, we received a call from RCI stating that we could go to Disney's Old Key West resort. Unfortunately, we were not able to travel during the week that was offered, so we declined but RCI continued to search for us. A few months later we were offered the same resort but at a time that did not work for us again. After over a year of waiting, I checked the RCI website to find that Disney resorts are available in early January (when we want to go). We contacted RCI to inquire about this and are now being told that we don't have enough exchange value for any Disney resorts. The rude customer service reps claim that there is absolutely no possible way that our banked week will ever qualify for an exchange to Disney. When we informed them that we have twice been offered Disney resorts (but had to decline because of scheduling issues), we were called liars!

The reps claim there is no record of any offers and that we are mistaken! RCI has apparently made recent clandestine "enhancements" to their Weeks Exchange program and will not own up to their misgivings. We have been waiting for the opportunity to take our children to Disney for more than a year and are now being told by RCI that we've wasted our time. Therefore, we will no longer waste any money on RCI. If you're reading this, you shouldn't either. RCI is shady at best. Save your money and plan your own vacations. Something smells at RCI!

My wife and I were talked into buying a Points membership while on vacation at the Sunset Beach Club in Bellamadena, Spain. We have two children, and we were told that if we purchased 30,000 points, that would guarantee us a week's holiday anywhere, anytime at high standard accommodation. We were foolish enough to purchase, as the pitch sounded great, and we paid the 4,500.

We did get a free week the following year. And again, there were representatives from RCI that called on us, and they told us that 30,000 points was not enough for our needs and tried to sell us more. We got worried that we had made a big mistake. But the next year, I was able to book online a week's holiday in Holiday World, Spain which was great but it cost us 57,500 points. But we had carried over a year's worth of points, so we had enough.

We now realize after trying resorts in the RCI site, that our points will only get us a week's holiday every two years, if we are lucky enough to get where and when we want. We have decided that this is now not suitable for us, as paying the annual membership fee of $450 and points maintenance of 150 each year and having only a one week holiday every two years means we could put 1,200 towards holiday accommodation of our own choice.

Accommodation is really all you are getting with RCI. I contacted RCI to cancel our membership and was told that it takes twelve months, yes, twelve months. So we still have to pay the 600 for this year's membership and points which we will not use. We were told lies right from the start about what we would get for our money. And now, we want to get out, and they still want money from us for nothing.

RCI, please inform new members what they are really getting for their buck. Please be helpful in dealing with member's issues and stop ripping people off. I am sure that membership of the points scheme is suitable to some people, if you are free to travel often and at short notice and can get flights suitable at the right price, etc., etc.

But it is definitely not for all, and RCI should be ashamed of the way they treat members. Their behavior is why they are getting such a bad name as a scam company when all people want is to be told the truth and treated honestly right from the start. Take care out there.

I received a call from RCI about a cruise and resort package. I explained to them that I was in an unsure financial situation and did not know if this was a good time to buy a vacation package. I told them I would know better in a week or so. The supervisor got on the phone and assured me I could call her next week and cancel with no problem. (She did not tell me I had 10 days to cancel). When they sent me the package with the cancellation requirements, they sent it in my daughter's name. By the time my daughter (who does not live with us) came and opened it, it was too late to cancel. They refused to give me a refund stating that they were under no legal obligation to tell me about the 10 day policy over the phone.

Purchased 30,000 points of supposed timeshare locations to vacation. Since our purchase in September, we have yet to be able to book a date. Have complained to RCI and RCI is "trying" an ongoing search with no results. We have requested a refund but of course they will not process one. We have not been able to book anything. We have asked our credit card company to reverse the payment and they attempted to do so, but RCI submitted a copy of the contract stating that there is a 7 day cancellation period. We have received nothing from them and our "year" time frame will be up soon and I would like to receive something for the money we have paid.

I must comment to Chase from Longmont, Co. If RCI is asking you to pay a reinstatement fee for your points, you were canceled for non-payment of your membership. You didn't pay for your membership for at least 3 years. RCI did not sell your points. They revert back to the resort that you own. And RCI has no control over the points. They are administered by the resort. If you let your membership lapse and you pay the reinstatement fee, it is up to the resort whether or not you get your points back. You have 3 years to the use the points: the first year you get them, if you do not use them, you pay a $26.00 fee to "roll them forward" to the 2nd use year. If you do not use them the 2nd year, you pay a $99.00 fee to extend them to the 3rd year. If you do not use them during the 3rd year, they expire.

RCI has it's good and bad points. Having been a member for over 20 years, we have never had a bad vacation because we book early, or if it is a "last minute" trip, we take whatever is available. We keep close tabs on our membership, if something does not sound right, I call and get clarification. When you buy your timeshare, or are thinking of buying a time share, do some research first. The resort sells the condos, not RCI. Most of the salespeople do not know who RCI works, and they tell you that you can do anywhere in the world by exchanging through RCI and they are correct, but they fail to add "if there is availability". Don't blame RCI, blame the salesmen!

My wife and I were on vacation in New York and were approached in the lobby of our hotel about RCI's Manhattan Club. We went to the sales pitch and when we said that we needed time to make up our minds and needed a few days to research and think it over, the salesman who had been insisting that this was a 'no pressure' sales pitch got nasty with us and called in his boss who attempted to insult us by saying 'you only came for the tickets.' The sales desk in the lobby had a big sign offering persons Broadway and other show tickets to listen to the sales pitch.

The irony was that we did not go to the sales talk for the tickets. But any company that needs to rush you into entering a contract after 90 minutes is not above board. And reading about the persons who have actually been scammed by this company, we are lucky we got away! What RCI is doing is not right. They are posing as a legitimate company when they are really big time con artists and the US government should do something to stop this. It was the only sour note in an otherwise wonderful vacation.

I ordered an RCI cell part for my air purifier and it didn't work. I got permission to send it back, which I did, and now the company is saying that they never received it. I tried calling them and a recorder is on and they won't call me back.

When I didn't have their phone number, I tried getting it from the yellow pages and they're not listed. Then I found out that they're not allowed to sell EcoQuest products on eBay, which they did. I think they're a fraudulent company and I want to report it so they don't do it again to anyone else.

When purchasing the Travel Certificate, all of the hidden costs are not exposed until you have purchased the package. I was up front on what I was trying to accomplish. Now, all the parties who contributed to pay for this certificate are told to stay in the place they have listed for the amount of people, it will cost more money. I find this to be false advertisement.

All cost should have been put on the table. I cannot use the certificates, unless I want to lower my expectation. I am very disappointed, and I am deciding on what steps I should take. $3,000 for a family trip is a lot to just end up being disappointed.

Thank you to all of you who shared your experience with RCI.

My husband lost his job eight months ago. We took our very first vacation ever (by ourselves) to Las Vegas this past weekend. It was a birthday gift from my parents. We've been together for nearly five years and have a typical "Brady Bunch" with my family, his and ours, totaling seven of us.

My oldest just joined the army and his first duty station is in Italy. I travel three-four times a year for work and family. I thought this was an answer to "how am I going to afford a trip to Italy to visit my son next year?" We had a great salesperson. With all of the bonus points we would've earned if we signed up "today" and the "free weeks" thrown at us, my trip to Italy would've been practically paid for.

My husband, always skeptic, was almost sold. Thank goodness for iPhones and the capability to Google right there on the spot. When we were given a few minutes to ourselves to talk it over, we typed in RCI and this page was the first link on Google's front page.

This could have and would have been a huge financial risk for us. But, again, I thought this was my affordable way to get to Italy next year to see my son. I am truly sorry for your bad experiences. A lot of you said if you can prevent this from happening to just one person it would be well worth it. Well, consider this your reward. I can not thank you all enough for remarks and sharing your experience. My husband and I said "thanks but no thanks" and were immediately shown the door.

Wow. I am truly grateful that we were able to pull this up, read your comments and check it out before signing on the dotted line. What a relief! And we got to enjoy the rest of our vacation with $250 of their money for only three hours of our time.

We purchased a California timeshare after explaining that we would be trading it the first 10 years and using it thereafter. We were assured it would get us a 'red' week top US or international RCI resort anytime.

We tried to get a week in Florida, which seemed like a simple, easy trade. But it was not so.

I have been an RCI member for 13 years. My family and I went to book our vacation with RCI. We were told that our member ship was overdue and they had sold all of our points over 100,000.00 because we let our membership go past due.

We could become a member again, but we had to pay $300 and we would not get any of our points that we put back in. We love our time share but going to the same place every year was not working, so we went to the point system.

It is wrong that RCI can take your points that you banked with them and sell the points for its own gain. It was over $1,000 worth of points. My goal is to get my story out on the web.

and they rented my week and i am sitting here with nothing . this has been going on for a long time.

Me and my boyfriend at the time (we weren't married, didn't have the same address or last name-requirement is to be married for the timeshare) were in Vegas and got a timeshare, because we thought it would be a good idea to have something we could travel with and keep after we paid off. However, when I went to use the points the place was booked 5 months in advance and there was only 1 place in San Antonio? Anyways, finally used it to stay in Galveston for a Family Reunion. I put up my immediate family and they said it was going to be 60,000 points for each room (which later on found out it was 60,000 total for the stay). Which sounded like a lot and it was. The place was not that nice.

A few months after I called RCI/WHYNDAM to see how many points I had and they said I had none until 2012. I asked why and they said my points had expired for the 2 years lapse (keep in mind I just purchased it a year ago) and that I would have to pay a transfer fee in order to use my points now, than in 2012. I was never told my points would expire. I was actually told that I would Never Lose My Points. One person says something, you call back and talk to another person and they say something else. I asked what the value of my 120,000 points are that I get each 2 years and they said it would be the value of paying all the maintenance fees of the year. Which comes out to be $372.00. I'm paying close to $200.00 a month.

I don't understand how these corporations can take peoples money and lie to them and never give them what they pay for. I guess grandma was always right about "If it is to good to be true, than it's to good to be true."

My sister and I purchased a timeshare through RCI at Blue Bay Resorts, also being told we could use points and pay only $49.00 for airline tickets. Like many of these other complainants, we were misled and told later on that they were restricting us to 60,000 points per year which isn't even enough for even one of us to use for airline travel. While I'm still making payments on the original mortgage for the past 2 years, I have refused to and will continue to refuse to pay the maintenance fee for something I cannot use. We have used none of our points since buying this useless points timeshare. We really wish someone would put a stop to this ripoff and get back at least some of the money we have paid to them.

RCI list resorts in its resort directory that are unavailable for trade. My concern is that they use these names to attract people to join and then it is too late to discover that they cannot go there. This has happened to me twice in the last 3 years, when I offered my timeshare as a gift. It seems to me that this can't be legal and should come under some consumer protections.

I need to respond to Cindy of Pueblo, CO. You read the complaints and don't see the problem. Really? We are capable of real time road conditions and even accidents via Navi. The systems in our personal vehicles but Worldwide RCI has no way to inform members of remodeling going on at the resorts during their stay. This is not something you may like to know before you lay out a bundle of money to relax and have fun one week a year, say they were repairing the chimney on that cute Smokey Mountain cabin next to you. Have you ever had to listen to a gas cement mixer and banging of hammers for hours on end? Guess what? It's not relaxing!

Shame on RCI for being ambivalent with resorts they book with. They need to admit they are just a broker for the resorts and have little or no interest in assuring the comfort of the paying members that trust them. My condo, Perennial Vacation Club, has rules for the company they keep. If an exchange resort does not live up to the standards set by the club, they don't get any more business from them unless corrected. Period! One lady had problems with a San Diego resort and RCI didn't return her call for 5 days. Don't you see the problem with that? You sound like a DCM to me, "damage control mole". It's one thing to express your experience as positive. But to say the rest of us are winners who don't take the time to learn to work the system just shows you haven't read the posts here from real people with legitimate issues.

I hope someone who hasn't mailed the check to RCI will read this forum and make up their "informed" mind as to if they want to dive in. I didn't. Never again. Learn from others' experience for piece of mind without surprises. One more thing: What is all that stuff concerning the amenities? I've stayed in the French Quarter at the 200 yr. old ammo depository of Jean **. There isn't any dishwasher, disposal pool, or even a fountain to dip my toes in. I knew this before I booked. All resorts have an amenities section in their description. It's not an issue in the posts I read. It is the surprises, deception, and rudeness people encounter that seems to drive these posts. Yet, I don't see anyone reposting that their problem was cheerfully resolved by RCI. Cindy, I apologize if you are not a DCM. But please, don't be naive. P.S. My experiences with RCI are listed in earlier post below.

R.C.I. timeshare exchange is a rip-off. R.C.I has over three million customers that pay an annual exchange fee (resulting in millions of dollars for R.C.I.) for the right to exchange your timeshare for a vacation at another location. The only thing we are getting for our annual fee is the guarantee my husband I and will not be taking a vacation through R.C.I. It is next to impossible to use the exchange to take a vacation when and where you want to go.

My husband and I have a signed contract that reads "I have purchased a one bedroom unit that accommodates four persons at Grandview and qualify for an exchange through R.C.I for four persons. On or around Nov. 2010, R.C.I. put a new system that makes timeshare exchanging next to impossible. R.C.I. now rates your timeshare. For example, if R.C.I. rates your property as an 18 and you want to go to a property rated 25, forget about going. You can get a week in the middle of nowhere. Our contract has no rating or point system. In the past, it was very easy to exchange our week for another one bedroom timeshare when and where we wanted to go-now it is next to impossible. Most Americans and companies abide by their contracts, but not R.C.I. This company is deceitful. All the reports from people stating it is impossible to find an exchange at a desirable location at a desirable time of the year are true. The best thing any consumer can do is not enter into a contract with R.C.I.

Their sales pitch says, last minute reservations 45 days or less from check-in will be 7500 points. After waiting and waiting this fall for the points to come down to 7500 points on the website, I called and was told that it had been changed in November and is now 30 days before check-in. I called again because this is still not happening. I was told they were having trouble with the system. I told the representative that this was a scam and he said it was not. I had tried to give my timeshare away and have looked into selling it, but the options don't appear honest. This is certainly a scam industry.

We arrived at our hotel, tired but grateful we dodged a scam at the airport! We checked in at the front desk where we were told, "Yes, your room is ready but please see Caesar, your concierge, for more information. Caesar began by getting somewhat, we thought at the time, was harmless information from us like single or couple, age, reason for vacation and then it got funny when he asked what type of credit cards we have. He gave us a coupon for $5.00 off at the nail salon and told us he would meet us tomorrow for our first free breakfast to discuss the resort.

The next morning we ordered free continental breakfast delivered to the room. The phone rang around 0930, it was Caesar insuring we would meet him for breakfast. We went back to the front desk area where we were then introduced to Mike and we were told he would show us around the resort. Mike escorted us to our free breakfast (the free breakfast buffet at this all inclusive resort). We had a few meat items as these are not available on the breakfast in room menu. He then encouraged us to drink mimosas. I had about 3 and my husband had about 4. During our walk around, a young gentleman interrupted our conversation with Mike and told us that upgrading was the best thing he ever did (We now think he was an actor).

This young man also was a few years younger than me and my husband, same race, and we believe to be a US citizen. After showing us around the resort and inviting us to the VIP room for drinks (Jack Daniels) and other upper cut drinks that you will not find in any of the bars, Mike began to explain a Vacation/Time Share deal. Honestly, I can't remember all of the details, he sketched some stuff on a yellow note pad and talked about 2 different packages ranging between $5k and $10k. Mike stated it was not a timeshare but a vacation package/plan. I literally mentally checked out of the conversation 2 times and when I left to go to the bathroom, Mike also excused himself to go as well.

When confronted with this were told we could put down a deposit and pay the remaining balance later.

We stated we had money in our safe but did not want to go through our vacation money for something we had not discussed and budgeted for; we were then told we had to make the decision that day. That same day, our safe malfunctioned and we had to have someone come up to unlock the safe. The bell person brought the keys but the safe would not unlock. He had to send maintenance who opened the safe with a screwdriver and reset the safe with new batteries. Needless to say, we did not use the safe after that. When we arrived home there were 3 inquires on my credit report. One from the credit bureau and 2 from American credit card companies: Bank of America and Chase on the same day we toured with Mike RCI.

I have called both companies and will send them a copy of what I am typing here. Fortunately I have been accomplishing credit repair for the past 2 years and in early November, I noticed a fraudulent address on my credit report so I requested a fraud alert on my credit report that requires anyone seeking to extend credit take further steps to verify my identity. I believe this is what stopped these fraudulent charges. I don't believe these guys are associated with RCI although they used the name repeatedly. I did manage to walk away with a card that stated powered by original RCI was nowhere on the card.

I think perhaps RCI is a legitimate company but the people we ran into pardon me, we were sent to by the resort front desk staff, are part of a terrible scheme that I will see one day on the show American Greed.

This was the letter I sent and it took many days for it to at least be looked into and now they are trying to deny me of cancellation and they also have the facts wrong according to my membership. Please read on. Good afternoon, on 12-04-2010 I spoke with a very nice customer service rep name Jamie ** at lifestyle VIP customer service and I told her that we've just received our first bill just a few days ago and I was very, very upset seeing the fact that we are being charged an APR of 2.99% and not only that but an APR Balance Transfer rate of 16.99%.

When we sign up for the vacation club, my wife and I were given "ear candy" verbally stating that the Bank of America credit card would have no APR and 0% on Balance transfers as well for 7 months, then after 7 months the sales team at Puerto Plata told us that was could transfer our remaining balance to another card (the example given to us was a Citibank card.) for another duration of 11 months of 0% APR. It all sounded well but to my knowledge my wife was told to sign a piece of paper with nothing in the back stating any contact so they can check her credit score and limit.

The paper was just an application with front page only, back page blank! After she was approved they gave us back a copied version of the "RCI Elite Rewards World MasterCard" application with now an agreement, absolutely nothing they said was written down. When we were there they seems like nice people with great ideas and very caring of our needs, if that's the service of lifestyle, we have nothing to fear, so I took the liberty of believing them and signed on.

Now with that all said who in the right mind would sign up for something so expensive and actually have APR? There are many credit cards out there with an introduction APR rate of 0%, so logically we wouldn't have signed up if there was a rate other than 0%. So please look into this because I am very unsatisfied and will not just take this without a fight. I feel very taken advantaged of and lied to and I would very much like to cancel my membership and be refunded of my fee's, the person I spoke to I don't particularly remember his name, but the name on the authorization form, his name is Thomas ** or something of the sorts, the hand writing is hard to decipher.

I haven't used any of my weeks/time yet and if more needs to be said I can be reached via email (**) or called at **. My phone number is also in your files so there should be no reason why we cannot be contacted. We've also called many times since receiving our bill and only once they called back during a weekday in the morning where people have jobs to do and no one is home to answer, so logically the right thing to do would be to call at night after hours or on the weekend where you can actually reach someone.

I would very much like to resolve this matter quickly and painlessly so please look into this. If this is how the people are being taken advantage of, to join your membership, I am very sure you will lose many customers due to "un-professional" employees with their tricks up their sleeves. I really am not trying to be nasty or hasty here but this kind of customer service the world can do without. If any of this needs to be referenced or followed up you may talk to Jamie ** about the conversation we had. Thank you for your time.

I received a phone call from someone purporting to be with RCI. Since I had missed a local meeting by RCI to members, I was being invited to lunch so they could tell me how I could make RCI work better for me and new features. I arrived at a Ft. Lauderdale restaurant and was greeted by one of 4 people, given lunch and then the pitch. Since I had weeks, which were a pass way of getting timeshares, I should get points. But in order to do so, I had to buy into a Timeshare that offered points. Then I could convert my other 2 timeshares to the point system. They offered a resort in Palm Springs, believe it Club Trinidad, at a price of around $10K.

By the time I was ready to leave without buying, it had been reduced to about $6K. There was a man, Jim ****, standing by who was a travel agent and in such need of my many points that he was willing to offer me ten cents per point. All I had to do was put the purchase on the new RCI card I had to get and then within about 2 months, I would have all the money from Jim that I could pay it off. I reported them for fraud with State's Attorney General. First, I was induced to come under false pretenses. I doubt they were realtors licensed in Florida and found out that Jim had been ordered by North Dakota to cease and desist same practices there. So apparently, they travel about the country swindling seniors!

I have read all of the complaints, and I am not sure what the problem is. It is really quite simple. RCI does not own the resorts. They do not control the availability anywhere. If you want Hawaii, you have to have a member that owns in Hawaii to trade their week. I spent nearly two hours on the phone with new member services finding out exactly how this works.

If you own a timeshare, you give that week to RCI and so does everyone else that is a member. There are 2387 condos that are owned in Hawaii. There are 5000 members that are trying to get to Hawaii. Do the math. There are only 1500 members that "deposit" their week for Hawaii. Do the math. Florida in the wintertime? Forget it or book early. Anywhere southern coastal during Spring break? Forget it or book early. Take your head out of your backside and try something new so what, you have a "gold crown resort"

Are you too good to accept anything less? One of my favorite resorts is in the Smokey mountains. I stayed in a 140 year old cabin! I slept on an antique brass bed that was almost as old as the cabin. I was on vacation. It was awesome! I do not have to have seven pools, a game room, etc., etc., etc. I can find something do do wherever I go. Your vacation is what you make it so keep your gold crowns and keep complaining about how you cannot get anything. I always trade my gold crown and never have a problem finding anywhere to stay!

I have a 3BR week in Lake Tahoe that I traded during my 3-year membership with RCI. First I traded down for a one BR in Vegas because they said it was all they had available. We arrived to a regular size hotel room with two walls built around a queen sized bed in the corner with a window and door to the living area. Mind you, there was just enough room to walk around the bed to change the sheets, not a bedroom. We immediately went to the front desk to complain and they upgraded us to a beautiful 2-bedroom unit for an extra fee.

The next trade was in Miami, FL for a two-bedroom. A week before we left, I called to confirm the reservation with the condo resort and they told me they only had one BR reserved for me. I called RCI and they said it was their error and offered me another BR in addition to the first one that was 5 mile down the beach. I guess the kids would love having their own private room away from the grown-ups, but that wasn't going to happen. I refused the offer (it had horrible reviews). We went to the one BR with the intent to "shoehorn" the 4 of us into a cramped vacation. We got there and lo-and-behold, they had a two BR available for an extra fee. Huh? Beginning to see a pattern here?

The next vacation to Brownsville, TX./S. Padre Island was a 2-bedroom that turned out to be an aging apartment complex converted to condos. Some owner occupancy mixed with timeshare weeks. I went to the manager to ask why there were no 3 BR units available in such a large complex and he said there were several available to RCI but they cost more than the 2 BRs. He said they never request the 3s and his hands were tied.

So the bottom line is: if RCI would spend half the time on service that they spend on figuring out ways to bleed extra money out of these condos, they could be a stellar company. Instead, they come off as shysters and money grubbers to the discomfort of their paying customers. I feel like I gave them 3 chances. 1st try: failed. Second try: failed. Third try: failed. RCI continues to send membership offers. That'll be a cold day in hell!

PS: On one occasion, while my wife was making a reservation, the operator frustrated her so bad she handed me the phone. I listened a little to the long winded sales pitch before trying to interrupt him to let him know I was not interested in the offer, but he just kept on talking. I finally had to scream into the receiver several times before I could get his attention and he acted miffed that I would scream at him while he was talking. I said I was sorry that I had to resort to screaming to get his attention. Maybe he should keep the headphones on while he reads prepared sales pitches to humans (not sure, he might have been a robot).

I have quoted a couple of the comments I saw posted on this site and caution readers to be wary of these type of postings. For instance, the one from Alisa of Street, MD on August 29, 2010: "I have yet to have a bad experience with RCI." Linda of Carmel, IN on August 29, 2010: "I think if these complaining members of RCI would spent just 5 minutes with the New Member People who call out to all the new members to learn how to use the system, then they would see how easy the program works. My experience has been good!"

Obviously these people are fictitious and their stories have been planted on the web. My wife and I have had little or no success in the past 5 years dealing with RCI while trying to find accommodations. Let me add we have tried up to 10 months in advance in some cases, as is recommended, to find accommodations in the desirable locations, such as beach front in California, Texas, Florida, and Mexico.

We have never been successful in any of our attempts. It is very frustrating. Suddenly, this year we thought we had finally found what we wanted. My wife booked a beautiful condo on the beach in Pensacola, Fla for April, 2011. We paid the reservation fee and made sure our maintenance fees were up to date and then told our kids we were taking them there during the Easter break. Or, so we thought. We found out this week that there is no record of our transaction and we have no condo reservation booked there or anywhere with RCI.

We even had a confirmation number for our reservation. A representative from RCI told us this was not the correct amount of digits to be a proper confirmation number. My wife dealt directly with RCI for this reservation! When attempting to find out what was happening with our vacation, we were told a supervisor would be calling us back within 24-48 hours. They never have.

We again are left in the dark, which it seems is where you usually are when dealing with these people. Fortunately we had not booked airline tickets yet; but we are out the money for the reservation fee. And of course our RCI points keep mounting, yet we can't use them. Last year some of our points lapsed because we couldn't find a location to use them before their deadline. My advice to you is this: if you want to waste your money, buy a fractional ownership with RCI. Otherwise, keep your money and take 5-6 nice vacations over the next 10 years and consider yourself lucky that you didn't fall into the trap that we have found ourselves in. We lost our reservation fees. We had our holiday plans cancelled. We were unable to use our RCI points, which we pay for to extend each year. We pay maintenance fees for condos which we never get to use.

Members of Vacation International used RCI in 2010 on exchange program, using points and cash as well as paying fee to be a member of RCI. RCI booked my wife into the Lafayette Hotel and Suites of San Diego, CA, a Ventana Hotel and Resort for five days in June of 2010. Yes, I went online and printed a copy of Lafayette's amenities, bar and patio, two cafes/lounges, heated pool, spa sun deck, a/c in the room. What a surprise to show up on June 9, 2010 to construction and no lounges, no bar, pool in need of refinishing, carpets wet and mole smell throughout. My wife called me upset with these issues and I started that evening to inquire to RCI.

Someone returned my call five days later. My wife was only staying five days. In my research, I found out through old newspapers that a major updating to the Lafayette would be taking place from late 2009 thru 2010. You can be sure that RCI said, "Mrs ***, the Lafayette will be under some remodeling at the time of your stay and some amenities may not be available. Not! Two months after I filed a complaint, K. *** and Christy M. replied, RCI is largely dependent upon staff at affiliated properties to advise us when construction and/or refurbishment activities take place. I think a projected 2-year project constitutes knowledge.

In an effort to cover their statements, next reply, "RCI with the construction and cost involved in the exchange, we, RCI, took that into consideration when pricing you vacation thru us." RCI forgot one problem, I decide if I will book a reservation at a resort under construction or remodel. Never would I have paid $124 to join RCI. Given up point and paid another $200 + in fees to stay at the Lafayette under construction and lacking in amenities.

My wife took pictures of the conditions and had friends come by, stated, "This is ghetto." It is easy to pick out a lie in written form. Letter from RCI K. *** 08/04/2010, first stated you are not aware of affiliate properties construction unless they advise you. And later stated even knowing about construction any and all fees charged took construction and or remodel, lack of possible amenities into consideration, attempt to cover up through writing. I am the one who need to decide how my funds are spent and what value it's worth, not by items withheld by RCI or Lafayette Hotels.

My wife ordered a package from RCI Cruises about 10 days ago. She had to give a credit card for $99 deposit. The trip is supposed to be cancelable and the $99 is to be credited back to our Visa. On 9/8/10, I canceled the cruise by phone. On 9/9/10, I canceled the cruise by fax and on 9/10/10 I sent a letter of cancellation. According to the people on the phone, two days ago, I was to receive a call from customer service within 24 to 48 hours to verify the cancellation. It is 10pm PDT on 9/10/10 and I have yet to hear from anyone. I am beginning to get a little nervous because of all the hoops necessary to do a simple cancellation. If anyone has had experience with this cruise organization, I would appreciate hearing from them.

Good luck, I'm not unhappy yet!

I think if these complaining members of RCI would spend just 5 minutes with the New Member People who call out to all the new members to learn how to use the system, then they would see how easy the program works. My experience has been good! I let RCI teach me how to use RCI and did not rely on what the sales person told me at the time of sale. RCI tries to teach every member, but most only buy and pay no attention to how the system works. It is their own fault that they can't find their vacation.

They prefer to play the victim role, instead of taking responsibility in learning that they bought something valuable. It takes some important information from RCI to be followed by the members if they want the vacations, when and where they want them. Hey, members, own up to learning you are not the only member. We are all in this same boat, learn how to master your ship, learn the rules and follow them. If you're too late one year, start earlier the next year. Grow Up, and be accountable for your lack of interest in learning the RCI system at the start.

I am never able to find resorts where I want to go with my points, but can find them if I purchase them under "extra vacations" which I have done several times. So my points are accumulating because I haven't been able to use the points and now I have to pay $99 to extend 111,000 points. I want to use them for airfare which I had done about 15 years ago, buying three tickets for my family. Now they say I can use a minimum amount of points to use for air, which doesn't even pay for half of one ticket. I pay high maintenance fees for my resort plus a first time refurbishment fee which was unexpected. Why have points if you can't use them? Anyone have a suggestion?

We signed a contract on June 15, 2010 for fractional time share. During the signing of the paperwork, I was told by Rafael ** that Mexican law allowed five business days in which to cancel a contract. We decided to cancel, and on June 18, 2010, sent an e-mail, a fax and a registered letter to Francisco **, the developer's agent, notifying him that we wanted to cancel .He replied to our e-mail, wanting to call us and get details as to why we wanted to cancel. He never called.

In addition, the saleswoman, Marisela **, lied about the foreign exchange transaction fee. After we were told we needed to apply for an RCI credit card through Bank of America, my wife asked about the fee and was told that "the company would absorb the fee." Residence Club La Jolla is defying national law by refusing to cancel our contract, and Bank of America has added a $233.75 transaction fee to the charge.

We have contacted PROFECO, the Mexican government's consumer protection agency about Residence Club La Jolla and are waiting to see what action they take before we look at other possible actions.

None of the credit card companies involved, Chase, Bank of America and Capital One, are helping with our dispute. Bank of America has a vested interest in keeping the $7125 (plus foreign exchange transaction fee) because it owns an interest in RCI! And, by the way, there was absolutely no need to have another Bank of America card because my wife has three with no balances on them. So, Bank of America and CIA Holelera Nadia, dba Residence Club La Jolla, are "partners in crime. "

RCI website and process for finding available timeshare units is not functional. It is impossible to find available units and their selection criteria on the website do not work. I think they do this on purpose so people have to call them to book units. I wrote a lot in my previous attempt to submit my complaint to Consumer Affairs only to have everything lost when I entered the wrong encryption code. I want to say that there is something terribly wrong with this company. They website does not work and the search functions also do not work.

Lost time and money, I have to take a day off work tomorrow to call RCI and troubleshoot why their website returns no units available for Taiwan/Singapore all the way up to July 2012, that is unbelievable. I tried e mailing RCI helpdesk only to be told to clear cache and cookies and use the 3.5 version of Firefox which I did but the website still does not work. Is there some clause that stipulates that if a company advertises that their website will allow users to search for units that they company therefore must provide such a service? It's like they promised something that they cannot deliver.

I lost money on having to extend my points to Feb 2011 (this costs money to extend). But I had no choice since I could never find any available units online and I'm extremely busy at work and cannot spend an hour on the phone with RCI while they look into which units are available. Plus I don't trust them and would like to see the units myself online to see if I like them or not. This has taken an emotional toll on me as well being stressed out about having to try to book something before my points expire in Feb 2012. Also my hand is killing me having to keep clicking and searching the RCI website only to keep getting "no units available" notifications. I looked for units in Singapore and Taiwan up until July 2012 and RCI website told me no units were ever available. That is impossible or this is a huge scam.

I bought a timeshare in 1994 in Carlsbad, California for one week every other year for $9000. It was a 700 square foot unit with a private bedroom and a private jacuzzi tub in the bathroom. I received my first exchange in Cancun with just a room on ground level with a tree in front to obstruct the view. Every room had a view except ours. There was no private anything! Exchange for tiny studios.

There was a $20 charge per person per night. I brought my daughter and her friend. This was an additional $420 in addition to the $1280 already paid for resort assessment, membership for two years in RCI, exchange fee, taxes and maintenance fee. They gave me a place in Belize which can be rented on the street for only $42 a night. That is only $294. I paid the regular $1280 for this. Now I finally got an excellent exchange into a Mayan resort in Mexico. I chose Mexico because many people are put off by the drug violence and the flu problems. This was followed by a letter saying that they were remodeling.

We have reservations for Wyndham Nashville, TN. They are not taking any reservations until Sept. 1st. We have reservations for 7-24 thru 7-31st. No pool is open. No workout room is open. RCI called and changed my room to a smaller room which I have four people coming and this will not do. RCI will not give me my exchange fee back even though they are not open until Sept. 1st. Construction will be going on with all this. This is not my idea of a vacation I planned on and want my money back along with my week so I can plan somewhere where I can enjoy my stress-free vacation with a pool and workout room.

I continue to receive calls that there is something happening with my account and I should contact RCI. When I do, I get a person who cannot describe how the system works nor can she actually book a reservation, manipulate my account in anyway or assist. She can only describe that the computer "did something" but it will not show her. Why then should I call? The website routinely cannot locate any matches, claiming that locations are sold out. However, if I contact the preferred location, rooms become available. But if I just need to call, what service is RCI providing? Why not have the timeshare location "hold the week" and have the exchange location verify it? RCI continuously obfuscates the mechanism is effectively use their preferred services.

I am a long-standing member of RCI and I believe I am a victim of a scam perpetrated by an individual who claimed to be an employee of RCI.

On 6/16/10 I was contacted by Greg Kendell who identified himself as a employee of Rci and informed me that he had a buyer for my timeshare at Berkshire-By-The-Sea in Delray Beach, Fl. He said he would forward to me $19,000 for the time share sale if I agreed to wire $150 to his associate(who I assumed also worked for RCI) named Jason Anderson at 3028 S. Military Trail, West Palm Beach, Fl. 33401. I felt that the gentleman was acting in good faith and knowing that RCI is a reputable company, I wired the money. The next day Mr. Kendell called and told me the money had been received and I would be receiving necessary paper work and a cashiers check for $19000 within two days. After several days I called Mr. Kendell for a status report on the sale and he told me he was working on it, but would send a check the following day. Of course, I'm still waiting and have made several attempts to contact Mr. Kendell since then. All to no avail as he refuses to return my calls. I even tried to call his associate, Mr. Anderson, and got no reply from him either.

I know that I may have been quite naive and gullible in this matter, but I wanted you to know that if these individuals are indeed employees of RCI, they should be taken to task for their unscrupulous actions. If they are not employees of RCI, you may want to take action against them for tainting the reputation of RCI.

I hope something can be done about this matter and I appreciate your cooperation in dealing with these scam artists.

On line, I held a 2 bdr resort in the Caribbean for Dec 24, 2011. I received a confirmation of the resort on hold which I still have in my files.

When I went into my RCI account, the resort on hold appeared as a 1 bdr. which i did not want so I released it thinking I made a mistake. But, I did not. The computer glitched. I got absolutely no accomodation, and a lot of repeating, "But you held a 1 bdr" when I spoke to 2 supervisors, one in web technology and the other in personal assistance, as if it was my mistake. I even emailed them proof. So HOLDING A RESORT DOES NOT MEAN HOLDING A RESORT

My complaint against RCI is that they are charging double the fees for members. I own two separate timeshare resorts that use RCI as their exchange network. I should only have to pay one RCI annual membership dues per year. However, RCI is double dipping and charging me an annual membership for each resort. This is unacceptable. RCI is one company, one computer system. I should only have to pay the annual RCI membership fee one time, regardless of whether I own one timeshare resort or ten timeshare resorts.

I have tried repeatedly to use their website for vacation booking, past 2 years always nothing available. Finally was guaranteed a $179 exchange fee for 24-hr hold and transferred to a technical support person, who shared with me RCI does not support Mac computers. That's why I was having trouble. RCI phoned me within the 24-hr hold, clipped me for an additional $89 annual membership and told me I could not use the web-reduced rate. It took 2 sessions with a supervisor and I was spoken with very harshly, told them to keep it. They finally gave it to me. Was I was told 5 times, this was a one-time favor. RCI needs to retrain their entire staff to stop using "boiler-room" tactics on clients. We have been RCI members for 17 years! No wonder they are in a huge lawsuit.

With the economy being as it is, we anticipated difficulty in renting/selling our timeshare. Within 24 hours, we had 6 people contact us about purchasing, and even more for rental. We had priced it fairly based on market research, and sold it for the asking price within days. Thank you for a job well done!

I made a reservation in March 2010 for a resort in Mexico and my credit card was charged and I received a confirmation email. I thought everything was ok so I made flight arrangements. RCI cancelled my reservations and did not notify me and said that this is their policy. (Crazy)! So, they canceled the trip, but did not refund the money until I called. They said that they do not do a refund until you call, but they cancelled without notifying me. This makes no sense! So, I spoke with the supervisor and she was very rude and did not apologize or anything. She just said these are our rules and left it at that.

In late Nov of 2009, I notified SSA via their 800# that I wished to cancel my Medicare Part B coverage effective1/1/2010. I received a form within a few days, completed the same and returned to address given. 800# had indicated that it would take 45 to 60 days to process. In mid Feb, I called SSA 800# and was informed that it was being processed. I explained that premiums were being withheld from my Civil Service Annuity and premiums were scheduled to be withheld from my Mar 1st check.

In mid March, I again called SSA 800# and was informed it was being processed. I explained premiums were scheduled to be withheld from my Apr 1st check. 800# advised me to call OPM. OPM informed me that until they receive notification from Medicare they cannot stop withholding and advised me to call Medicare.

Medicare informed me that until they receive notification from SSA, there is nothing that they can do. I have since contacted SSA via their website and was informed the process take from 90 to 120 days. Meanwhile, I had medical services performed and I told providers to bill my FEHBP. Since everything indicates that I am still covered by Medicare Part B, they will not pay bills. One last thing, Medicare Part B premiums are scheduled to be withheld from my May 1st check. Aggravation! The Economics should work out when this is finalized.

With the economy being as it is, we anticipated difficulty in renting/selling our timeshare. Within 24 hours, we had six people contact us about purchasing, and even more for rental. We had priced it fairly based on market research, and sold it for the asking price within days. Thank you for a job well done! I will be using them again!

I bought a timeshare from Nantucket Bay or so I thought. I spent all day saying no but to no avail. I signed all the papers and was told that no matter where I went in the world, no matter how many times I went, it would never cost me more than 249.00 on the extra vacation getaway. I have yet to get to take a vacation anywhere for any amount. I was told that I didn't really own a condo in the lake of the Ozark condos, that they only put it on paper so they could enter me into their system for the RCI points membership program.

I called the finance company for Nantucket Bay and they said, yes I do own. RCI won't let me reserve a condo anywhere in them at all. There is nothing available, none of the time. The vacation guides are the most hateful and rude bunch I have ever dealt with. One lady told me I would never get anything and she is right. What they have done is stole from me along with thousands of others and there is not one thing we can do to recoup our money.I gave 6500.00 for that time share plus three years membership fees and three years maintenance fees for the condo and now I find out there is no such condo in Ozark mo.

I suffered great financial hardship because of this and I cannot tell you how much I have been humiliated and degraded by these people. I am having a hard time making these payments to keep my credit clean and for what? All I wanted was to take my Grandbabies on a nice trip before I die which isn't looking good.

I called RCI to confirm information I was given by my resort on exchanging my timeshare for certificates that can only be exchanged with RCI. I started with a young lady that said she had been working with RCI for about 3 months. I said maybe I need to speak to someone who has been there longer. She said she would help me with my questions. So I said here are my questions: (1) What is a certificate worth with RCI. She said one week exchange (which is what I thought); (2) If I exchange 3 certificates, can I get a large unit exchanged such as sleeps 6 or 1 or 2 bedroom. She checked with her manager and said that I could do that; (3) Do I pay an exchange fee for one week or am I to pay 3 times that because of the 3 certificates. She checked with management and said that one week exchange fee of $194.00 would be all I would pay. Past experience with RCI told me to question and want to speak with a specialist on certificates so that I won't get a different result when I decide to change to certificates to save myself the $1,140 a year maintenance fee.

So a supervisor came on the phone. I asked about the exchange fee of $194.00, which she agreed was the only fee. Then I asked her about using 3 certificates to get a better exchange and she said absolutely not. They would only take one certificate per week and it would give me a studio or motel room size unit that is what Mexican properties certificates trade for. If a larger unit is available, they would give it to me. So that you understand, I have been trying to get an exchange for 2 years with no matches to what I want. Florida on either coast, or Cape Cod for anytime in the summer of 2009, but nothing, not even a phone call.

What they are doing is selling points to people who do not even have a property and give them the exchanges, which leaves someone like me out in the cold. I tried to sell my timeshare back to the Mexico property owners, but I cannot get past one person to the right people to get a reasonable answer. They do not want the property back, they want to rent out my unit and still receive my $1,140 a year, or give me certificates to go away. My problem is I'm still stuck with RCI. I have to pay them a membership fee plus exchange fees on top of my maintenance fee. I need some help here. That is my complaint that RCI does not deliver what has been promised and neither does the Mexico property deliver either. I need help. Any suggestions?

I booked airline tickets and car rental (budget) through RCI travel. We have a condo in Maui and RCI administers exchange etc. Our flight was cancelled due to weather (Feb 13th). United Airlines got us another flight the next day but I needed to change the car rental pick-up time (I had already paid for all of this on credit card).

I called budget and they said they couldn't modify the reservation because it was booked by a third part (RCI). I am going to make a long story short. I had to talk to seven (7) different people (with 3 call-backs by me) in order to get to the right department to help. I was on hold much of the time and their automated menu had no choice for my situation. I finally had to pretend that I wanted to book new travel arrangements and that person finally transferred me to the correct department. Hitting 0 does you no good at RCI. Pleading with a human when you finally get one does no good, getting upset does no good. The humans are automatons just like their phone system.

For five years now, every time we bank a week or two or even three sometimes, we can never use them because they cannot find a place for us in any of the places we want to go to. At times, I would list dozens of resorts in each of seven cities in Southern USA and they claim they do not have availability in any. In about 70 resorts, they cannot find any unit! According to them, you have to book months in advance. I am trying to book eight months in advance and still does not work! Who having a family with kids can plan vacations more than 8 months in advance? I have never felt robbed and disappointed as I was with RCI. Never use them again. They cheat you, take your annual registration and give you nothing in return. Nevertheless, they let your weeks expire. You do not use them, you lose them!

I have deposited my two weeks of time shares with RCI for the past 3 years. I do not have words to describe the frustration I have experienced in trying to exchange my weeks for the weeks I wanted to use for my vacation. Even though I am paid up for two more years with RCI, I will not deposit my weeks with them again. It is very expensive to have them "book" a resort for me (nearly $200.00 to book a week). I still have three weeks on deposit and will lose them if I don't use them within the time limit.

I have wasted so much time (usually late at night or in the wee hours of the morning) searching and searching for an exchange. It is not worth it. In the future, I will use a different exchange company. Some exchange companies do not even charge a fee to join and very low fees for booking your choice of resorts. I have not actually lost money, but I have become very frustrated over never finding what I am looking for a week's timeshare exchange. I have settled for a place or a week that was not what I was looking for. I have lost all confidence in RCI. After reading some of the other complaints, I feel more than justified in discontinuing doing business with RCI once I have used my remaining 3 weeks now on deposit.

I own a timeshare condo in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico at the Buganvilias Resort. I have been a member of RCI since buying the timeshare in 1999. Although I pay my maintenance dues and RCI membership dues, I have never been able to obtain an exchange for an RCI resort of my choice. Unfortunately, you must deposit your timeshare week with RCI prior to even obtaining any information regarding availability at other resorts.

So after I deposited my week with RCI, they informed me that my desired destination is not available. Nor was my second or third choice! Then they "banked" my deposited week and fail to inform me when the deadline to use it was about to expire. So when I called them to actually use the week that I had already paid for, they told me I was two weeks too late. I recently discovered that there was a class action lawsuit against RCI that was settled in November of 2009, but although I was an RCI member, I received no information whatsoever regarding this lawsuit until I found it on the internet.

My annual RCI membership dues were $89.00, which I have paid but got absolutely none of the promised services, i.e. vacation exchanges. The resort maintenance fee I paid was $615.00. But now if I wish to use a week's vacation time, I must pay that amount again because someone else was sold my week by RCI. Thus I am out over $700.00 for a vacation that I never had, not to mention the emotional distress and mental frustration of trying to deal with the rude people at RCI.

We were cheated out of our exchange week because they said they couldn't find a vacant in the place where we wanted to go. We are trying to sell our timeshare because we can't use it. They they told us we could.

RCI is basically nothing more than a third party central reservation system. Is the service they provide really worth $179 per reservation made? Break down the exchange fee and for a weekly exchange RCI is charging $25.57 per night for processing a reservation for members. That's a pretty steep fee for making a reservation. The members provide the weeks so RCI does not own the inventory. All they do is manage the exchange of member deposited weeks.

My yearly maintenance fee is $716 for my resort. RCI exchange fee costs amount to a additional 25% of that maintenance fee. What is RCI doing for me that is worth that much money? If you have to cancel your reservation/exchange fee after 24 hours, you lose the fee you paid and must pay another $179 to make a new reservation. Wow! That's really a great reservation service were getting from RCI.

On top of this outrageously high exchange fee and cancellation penalty, members must also pay a yearly membership fee of about $80 per year just to belong to RCI. We pay and pay again so RCI can turn around and rent the weeks we deposited out to non-members for less than we paid in yearly maintenance fees for our weeks.

There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that RCI is exploiting members and the weeks they deposit. We have the power to stop giving RCI our weeks and our money. As soon as my deposited weeks are used, RCI will not receive another penny of my money or any of my weeks.

The way that the resort's sales people explain things is boarder line deceptive. They stated over and over that for only 9,000 points or $249.00, you could travel to any of their resorts. They never really explained that it must be with in 45 days! I'm sure that they did state that fact once or twice but they keep your mind on the low costs and do not reiterate enough that the popular resorts are seldom or never available in that 45 day travel window! They will show you places overseas that show a points value of 27,000 points and tell you that you can go there and your cost will be only 9,000 points! What they don't tell you is that that resort most likely will never come up on the 45 day travel schedule.

Bottom line, when you go to a sales pitch opportunity, do not agree right a way to anything! Be sure that you make them show you step by step on the PC how to book several different vacations that you want to take. Space them 6 months apart or so. Don't forget to allow for flying and a rental car.

I have 3 weeks banked with RCI. I paid extra to extend one week for 6 months so I wouldn't "lose" it. I searched for a timeshare in the Costa Del Sole area of Spain for the week of 8/16/09 - 8/22/09 for 9 months and constantly found only "Extra Vacations" offered at the RCI resorts. I had a continuing search going and still nothing was available. Finally, with a week to go before my vacation (I had flights and a cruise booked), I caved and purchased an extra vacation for $700. I kept my continuing search going until a day before my flight, at which point I cancelled it so it would not come through while I was traveling and I might owe for 2 facilities without even knowing it.

Upon arrival at the RCI "extra vacation" facility (an RCI member resort), I received a telephone call from the local or on-site RCI representative welcoming me and noting that I had exchanged my unit in order to stay there. I advised her that I had attempted that for many months but had been unsuccessful and had in fact purchased my week because I had been told there were no available units for exchange. She stated that there were many available units. I made an appointment to meet with her the next day and then went to the car to continue unpacking. While I was out of the room, she called again. My daughter answered and the representative canceled my appointment with her. Since I was exhausted (been up for over 20 hours) and wanted to start my vacation, I decided to take it up with RCI upon my return.

My flight returned to the US on 8/31/09 and due to the time difference, sometime thereafter I contacted RCI and informed them of their representative's statement and offered to use one of my available units in exchange for my week and to pay the exchange rate. The RCI representative on the phone refused. I then contacted American Express and advised them of this case and asked them to dispute the difference between the extra vacation rate ($700) and the unit exchange rate ($189). RCI never responded to American Express's dispute and in fact, refunded the full $700 and advised American Express that they would simply put me into collections. Since then, the one week I wanted to use to exchange for this week has expired (unused) and I cannot use the other 2 weeks I have banked because RCI has my account flagged as owing $700.

RCI is still depriving the consumer from using their timeshares and instead, redirecting them to purchase extra vacations. Please assist me in directing RCI to treat the consumer fairly and to require RCI to release the other two weeks I have banked before they too expire. So far, RCI has profited from my annual fee, the fee charged for the extension of the week that has since "expired" since I could not use it and has my two banked weeks which for all I know may be sold to some other poor RCI member as an extra vacation.

When I asked our salesperson to turn the music down, she said that her manager would shoot her if she asked him to do that. So we asked the manager ourselves. He said we could move to another table that wasn't right under the speakers, but the new table was right under another speaker. We were embarrassed when some manager stopped everyone to announce that someone had purchased some RCI points and that they were going to Hawaii.

Our salesperson stood up and applauded, as did all the other sales people. What a joke. It was like Amway convention. I felt sorry for the poor couple. They obviously were made numb by the loud music and duped by the sales staff. When we told our salesperson that our 90 minutes were up, she kept talking! We asked to see her supervisor, and told him the same thing. He went through his spiel, so we said that we are finished. Just give us our Hawaiian trip. By the time we walked out of that hell hole, we had been there more than two hours! I have become so mistrustful of RCI that I am afraid to use our Hawaii and Las Vegas tickets for fear that some RCI salesperson is going to appear out of nowhere and start harassing us again! I will never go to another timeshare presentation! I felt physically beat up. My head ached and my stomach burned from acid reflux.

We agreed to do the 90 mins tour/ presentation on the Georgian Manor Resort in Collingwood. We thought the 2 nights 3 days mini getaway would be worthwhile. Anyway, DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME.....AND DON'T BUY INTO THEIR SALES PITCH AND PRESSURE TO BUY. It's unbelieveable that these people have the balls to ask you for $26,000 for points! Who would ever think that this was valid and a good idea? We didn't give them any money and warning others out there not to put yourself in any debt. ASk them many questions, and you'll see the sales people have no idea what to say.....they only know what to say from their presentation.

They brought 3!!! different sales people to pressure us! The 2nd person, just grabbed the papers off the desk and walked away when we said we're not interested for the million time....she was a !@%%! the last person claimed that he worked for the developer and not in sales. But for some reason he spoke the same language as the other two! I get so upset to hear what these people have knownly done to naive, gulable, innocent people out there. I hope one day it too happens to them. Don't go to Georgian Manor Resort, it's crappy....we ended up leaving right after the sales pitch, the hotel sucked really badly too. MOre importantly, if you agreed to the free stay to attend the thing, be aware and say no right away....and keep in mind they will hit you harder each time.

We purchased 5.8 million points and now we are told we are limited by how many we can use. We bought to be able to use the points for flights and now we can only use 60,000 a year. We have not been back to our home resort, Blue Bay, since we bought. It is cheaper to go thru Expedia. This is a total rip off. It is a 25 year contract and we will never be able to use all of our points in 25 years because they are limited. All the resorts we have exchanged for thru RCI have been dumps. We even had to relocate one time. The whole thing is a disgrace!!!

In June 2009 my husband and I went to the Colonnade for a vacation and we went to the RCI meeting. There they were talking about points and how great they were for us, members of RCI. They first asked for a large sum of money and when we said we could not afford that amount they came down to $5000.00 for points. We gave them the money and they said it would take 6 to 8 weeks to receive the points from RCI.

Well, it is now 6 months and we have not received the points and I just called RCI and they do not have any pending either. They did give us two extra weeks for the inconvenience. I want the money back. We were very stupid to give them the money. It is like giving someone money for something they do not have or may not be able to get.

What can we do. We have called and called them, Warren H. the manager. I sent information to the BBB, what about the Attorney General of MO. I really wanted to type in All caps, any help would greatly be appreciated.

please help us.

The manager then came over & instead of letting us go proceeded to give us 'an amazing deal' for week 52 plus 4 additional floating weeks. We were told that it would be impossible to not see this as an investment and we could clearly make a nice profit by renting out the apartments, but were specifically advised that when we go through to the closing team to just sign and confirm that we were purchasing the timeshare for our own use & not buying it as an investment. We have no plans to return to Las Vegas in the near future, let alone every year!

We said that the only money we had was life savings so that we could buy a house next year & we couldn't risk that money. The only reason for the purchase was that we were duped into thinking that we could make some money on this & maybe have a nice holiday a year too by using one or two of the floating weeks. They did a very good job of wearing us down & convincing us that it would be impossible not to make a profit.

The 5 day opt-out is ridiculous, the reps continually said that it would take a few weeks for all the information to arrive in the post & then we could start looking at renting out the weeks. So it was only weeks later that we realised that it near impossible to make any money on this & that we had been well & truly scammed.

We are just left with a debt which we can't really afford to pay and holiday options that we don't want. We are desperate to get rid of the timeshare, I have spent even more money on advertising the timeshare for sale on as many sites as I can, but have only received offers from con men. We signed the contract on the 3rd of September.

We signed up to a mortgage agreement. Total purchase price $41,554.27. I paid a deposit of $4,519 on my credit card, and the rest is over 84 monthly payments. We now can't afford to buy a house next year and have had to put our plans to start a family on hold, which is frankly devastating and causing many sleepless nights. If there is any way I could get out of this, it would be a God send!

My fiance and I went to Las Vegas, NV last week to get married. Our hotel got us to go to a timeshare tour to get free tickets to a show. We knew what it was for and had no intention of buying. The sales person was very nice and we ended up talking to him for 4 hours (more because he kept going on about other things). Finally his manager came over to "close the deal" with us. I said no and he seemed to get a bit upset. He started coming up with new figures that were lower and I still said no. He said he would give us some time to talk. My fiance and I agreed to continue to say no.

In the end we got the timeshare because we were told that we could pay the yearly HOA fees whenever we wanted as long as it was before we took a vacation. We were also told that we get 49,000 points every other year and one free week throughout each year. No extra fees were discussed other than the $196 when we stayed in an exchanged resort for a week.

When I got home my husband and I looked over the book and extra papers that were added. Come to find out that the yearly charges come out of my credit card automatically every year and I HAVE to have it done this way. There are fees for keeping my points over a year later and fees for using my points. We can only use 33% of our points per year on the resorts and the rest has to go towards airfare and car rentals. We also have to use additional points with the "free" week each year. LUCKLY I found where we have 5 days (6 days in Texas) to cancel by certified mail with no penalties. I already gave the information to my attorney so that he has a copy in case we run into problems.

These people are very misleading. They make this program sound like such a great deal and they almost make you feel like a horrible person if you do not buy into it. I said no so many times!! I only said yes when they got to a low number I was comfortable with. They do not care if they are financially burdening you (although they say they do) because I explained getting married, a child on the way, and student loans starting in 5 months. These things made me leary to go into a deal that would cost me money for the next 10 years. It's a load of crap from my experience with them and from what others have said I am very lucky I found that "cooling off period" in time!!

RCI was saying that "you booked the reservaation so you are stuck"

They are the rudest people I ever met and they are running a scam.

It was nearly time to renew my RCI annual membership fee so I checked on the RCI website to see if there was any renewal specials and fortunately RCI was running limited time only "Anniversary Renewal Special" offering 3 years for the price of 2. This offer was advertised on the website directly to the right of the pricing chart which lists a 2-year renewal for $159. After clicking various renewal options I realized that RCI had not provided a way to take advantage of this offer on their website. I called RCI and mentioned the special to the first gentleman who answered. He didn't know about the special so he put me on hold to check. He came back and said RCI will honor that special but said it was $178 for the 2 year renewal. I informed him a 2-year renewal is listed as $159 on the website and also on the renewal rates listed when you call the automated line for renewal rates. He said he doesn't make the rules; he just follows them.

I asked for a supervisor and she also confirmed that they are charging $178 for this special because they base the 2 yr rate for this special at 2 times the 1 yr rate, which is $79. I informed her there is no mention of this on the website that this is how it works for this special. This is just another classic case of RCI's games. In this case you could call it either false-advertising or a bait-and-switch. Either way, the way they are advertising this special(with no footnote to indicate they are pricing this special like that) they make it appear that they are offering you 3 yrs at the 2 yr price of $159 and then when you call to renew you find out it is $178. Don't get me wrong, $178 for 3 years is still less then the normal 3 yr rate of $229 but if you are going to make an offer to people don't try to intentional deceive them. These kinds of actions are what is getting RCI into trouble and if they don't change their ways I believe they will go out of business once people finally wake up and quit renewing their memberships.

rci is a time share company that phoned me this afternoon with an offer of a free vacation to cancun plus a free stay in orlando near disneyworld. how did they get my number? i must have signed up for it they said... how odd. despite my concern over whether this was a credit card scam they continued to pressure me - "this one a one chance deal, take it or leave it" type of thing. i told them i had concerns and the manager came on the line to pressure me more... at this point he tells me it will only cost me 598 dollars (U.S.). after telling him my concerns over credit card fraud (he called me on my cell phone, not very secure) he continued to tell me that after i authorized the payment if i did not receive the promised goods (six days in cancun and five days in orlando) i would be protected by my credit card company. this is a lie, if i approve a payment it is not refundable.

i made this point to him and he continued to talk... that is when i got on the internet and discovered this site. i told him i wasn't interested in his high pressure sale, he tried to explain more, i told him i wasn't interested, he kept talking, i asked him why he was still talking when i already said no, he kept talking, i told him again "why are you still talking when i already said no? that doesn't make any sense to me." he finally gave up and hurried off the phone.

what a crock these people are, i worked for a resort that dealt with them and it was crazy what they would tell people to make the deal. so many people did not get what they were expecting. they would invite them out to the resort from wherever and let them stay in the newer, nicer rooms and then when they booked they would get the thirty-five year old dirty crappy rooms.

I guess my story really isn't any different than all the others on here. My husband and I bought RCI POINTS from Blue Bay. We were told we could use these for unlimited airline travel, car rentals, etc.

Now, we are limited to using 60,000 points/year for these services, there is a booking fee of 50 (and up) AND you have to pay the difference of the cost of the ticket after 60,000 points.

trying to find a resort that is an RCI POINTS resort is a JOKE. Most are through their points or weeks and then to use them, you pay a booking fee and then another $189 to use a weeks resort intead of a points resort.

RCI's customer service is non-existent.Just this morning I was literally THREATENED by an RCI representative that if I didnt' stop calling about my concerns, they would reverse my renewal and i would lose my points.

Long and short, we lost thousands of dollars in points it will be impossible for us to use.

WE ARE VERY INTERESTED IN A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT!! Can anyone help??

I recieved an email with last mintute promotions, upon trying to book a room at the discounted rate, I was told none were availiable, but I could cash in one of my certificates for a discounted rate of $599.00 for the week. I feel into the trap and later felt a bit unsettled.

I called to the resort and asked a few questions and was suprised to find it was much further away then I was led to believe and that I could book the exact same room for $50. per night off expedia. A savings of $400.00 to me which is considerable during a recession.

I contacted RCI to cancel my reservation and was told absolutley no refund would be given. I feel like I have been baited and switched and scammed. I am a careful consumer and spend a great deal of time researching my travels but this has never ever happened. I would like my money back.

I'm going t add my complaint to all of those already made about RCI's seeming complete inability to broker an even exchange.

Last year, I traded in my Red Week at a prime Florida resort (two bedrooms; two baths; easily sleeps eight),and was given an absolute dump of a place ("Island Resort")on Block Island, RI. It had all of the looks, feel--and smell--of a 1950's motel. If a Super 8 or a Motel 6 opened across the way from it, it would go out of business.

One guest observed, in his complaint, that he's received free Internet service in hotels that charged him something like $48 a night, and this "resort" wanted $7 a day?

I think that those who claim that RCI is taking the weeks that we bank and tries to sell them--rather than making them available to other members as trades--has hit the nail on the head. There just cannot be so many people claiming that they're unable to get desirable weeks at desirable places as a "trade," but seem to have little or no problem buying these same weeks from RCI.

Here is the response I received after complaining about the unavailablity of options at RCI. Also, when I bought my Farishare account, I was able to trade my points without a search charge. Now they want 164.00 just to search. I want my originally contracted benefits! I don't feel as if I have ever been given a fair deal with Fairshare.

"Ms...., I understand you have been frustrated in the past by our lack of available inventory. It is important to know that because RCI is not a reservation system, and it is not unusual for there to be no availability in popular areas at the time of your initial call to RCI. When we receive a deposit for a highly-demanded resort, it typically is confirmed immediately by a member who has already submitted a request and prepaid their exchange fee. Your likelihood of confirming a vacation for such areas is best if you submit your request well in advance and allow us to continuously search for a match. Be assured RCI understands the mutual benefit of confirming your preferred exchange, and we do so whenever possible."

My daughter is considering attending either Chaminade University or Hawaii University in 2011. We need to visit these colleges, but we don't think it is fair to have to pay for hotel/motel rooms to do so during her break.

I have another complant about our RCI time share...its just a rip off.. We tried for months to exchange our week in Colorado ..as we had a wedding to go to...they never had nothing we could use. When we go and check at different places they do have units availabe. but not for us to exchange. We ended up with a friend of a friend...being able to use their timeshare...up in the mts. for just cost of maint. fees.. I don't get it.

They take your money for maintance fees and they take your weeks at a luxurey resort and there is nothing on there website to exchange. All of their luxury properies are blacked out January 1st-December 31st. I asked the agent about this and she said they are participating in RCI but they have nothing available! This looks like blatent bait and switch tactics that are used to misrepresent and swindle folks out of their money. Do not ever use RCI or buy a timeshare that claims to use RCI points as a way to change your vacation location!!!

I have paid infull a timeshare in Hawaii throught RCI and Embassy Vacations. I called in fall to bank my week and take care of maintaince due(we pay every other year) and found our count to be on hold. The account had been purchased by another time share company. We email and called and never got a response.(we have the emails. Last week after many attempt and no mail we got a hold of someone at the resort. They gave us a number in las vegas they told us our account was in forclosure due to unpaid maintaince fees. We paid upfront for that time share 10,000. They told us it hadn't been resold it had been put back into inventory and we would have to get a lawyer if we wanted to do anything about it.

We signed up for RCI via Resort Holiday Group / Georgian Manor) in 2002. It has been a long and disappointing road dealing with constant run-arounds by resort and RCI staff and contracts. Long, sad, continuing saga. Stay away. Save yourself the grief. Don't buy into their (very powerful) sales pitches. If you do just know that you wasted your money - and will be for many years (perhaps even after you die) - that's all.

I made a timeshare reservation for 9 nights in January 2010 using points banked with RCI. The reservation agent mistook my dates for January 2009, starting the actual date I had made the reservation. This is quite bizarre, inasmuch as I told the agent I was trying to make my reservation to immediately follow a stay I was booking for a nearby resort in 2010. I have appealed to a supervisor named Rob @ RCI with no success. Strangely, my RCI membership #901081502 was cancelled (not by me) after I complained to Rob. Noone at RCI can tell me who cancelled my membership nor why.

RCI is Horrible!!!!! I have been a member for almost 10 years, keep paying their membership fee, and have NEVER been able to exchange. I have a week in Cabo San Lucas at a Luxury resort and have tried to exchange it for the last 4 years. I have always begun the process over a year in advance. One year, I wanteed to go to Tahoe. There were plenty of units - if you want to exchange a luxury resort for a studio unit in a converted cheap motel. Finally used a friends condo.

The next year I wanted to go to New England. I chose Newport, RI, again, well in advance and was able to get a unit. At the END of NOVEMBER. New England in November - yay. Not to offend New Englanders, but I am from Colorado and will be going from the cold to the cold. The next year, I thought I would try Myrtle Beach. Nothing available during the summer months - and this is with starting well in advance.

And each time I tried to search, the website would go down or I would get a message that my week wasn't available or some random message that would kick me out("we cannot release your vacation on hold". I have no vacations on hold.) When I would call I would be told it was just a glitch. Apparently the entire web site is a glitch because I have been trying for 2 days to exchange for next year and the web is experiencing a "slow response time". What that actually means is "NO response what so ever).

What a scam. Don't tell me that this isn't all planned. Especially after I received notice of the class action law suit. It seems like they are still engaging in the same practice. But they have me over a barrell. I'll just keep going to shoddy resorts in the off season because I don't have much of a choice. If I don't use it I'll lose it.

A tour package was sold for @$4,000 over the phone, promising great deals by prepaying vacations to receive upgraded cruises and a land package of a 7 night stay to accompany cruises or to use separately. The cruises do not appear to be discounted versus other discount brokers and upgrade fees are required on almost all bookings. Taxes and fees are also not included in the bookings, so those must be paid separately on top of the prepaid vacations. The land packages and the cruises are separate offices at RCI which do not work together.

At 10:06AM on May 29th, 2009, RCI.com and RCICruiser.com sent an e-mail to members saying that night the offices would be unavailable from May 30th to 9:30AM May 31, 2009 for regularly scheduled maintenance. Daily telephone hours for representatives were incorrect by print and by telephone and: extended outages were announced in arrears. Additionally, the delays were at May month end.

The telephone sales do not produce what they guarantee- easy to use low-cost upgraded prepaid vacations. Coordination of benefits is very time consuming. The resorts and cruises available apply to only a fraction of the resorts and cruises generally available through RCI. Many vacations require significant fees and additional costs for the lowest of cruise cabins and/or for cabin upgrades.

We had so many problems with RCI. Not once have we ever been able to exchange. We called and canceled over two years ago. Last year they tried to take our Home Week. The resort was gracious enough to work that out and during the "sales pitch" they do every year we again, like all the years before, expressed our extreme dislike of anything relating to RCI. She (unfortunately we did not keep a record of name) said what happened should never have occurred and supposedly "fixed" the problem so that we did not have to deal with RCI again.

Guess what! This year RCI has done it again and booked someone else in OUR Home Week unit. RCI now says we had to fill out a paper to cancel with them - funny they never mentioned it before. They sure haven't been billing us for any fees - maybe that's because they know we do not belong to RCI. Anyway, I've spoken with the resort and informed them that if we don't get our week reinstated with begins Sat. May 30th, I will be at the resort tomorrow and the next Saturday with a protest sign against RCI. I plan to be in the lobby where the attendees for the sales pitches wait for their appointments.

I interviewed to purchase a foreclosed Timeshare in August 2007. Mr. M offered a purchase in the amount of $3595.00. He opened a RCI Mastercard account for me and charged $3,595.00 to that account for the purchase.I also wrote a check to Club Trinidad Resort , Palm Springs,CA in the amount of $429.00 for maintainence fees and that check has never been froward to the timeshare resort the check was mailed to Mr. M at his request in August 2008. I have never received my timeshare ownership after almost 2 years and many promises from Mr. M but he has not delivered his promise. I have been scammed!!

I have found notification regarding a class action lawsuit regarding RCI selling weeks and not making them available for exchanges. I found this to be really odd and disappointing as I have been a member for many years and had nothing but positive things to say about RCI. Except for recently.. I deposited my 2008 and 2009 weeks and they are now gone. Apparently, I lost them because RCI says I did NOT deposit them when I know in fact I did.

I guess it is my word against theirs but even at the end of 2008 when I called to use my 2007 because it was to expired on Jan 31, 2009 I asked if my 2008 unit had been rented out and was told yes it had been. This was a phone call that that I had all while looking at my computer screen and seeing the deposited weeks right in front of me. So with this I started my search for somewhere else to go and ended up in Florida with my daughter.

Needless to say, apparently I no longer have those weeks and I have no way of finding out if RCI rented them unless I fly to Mazatlan and double check to see if my unit was in fact rented, but first I will start my internet consumer complaint venture in which I will be sure to tell everyone as I have found over 50,000 consumer complaint websites associated with poor service from RCI. Im having my corporate IT folks come to my home and search my computer for any sort of verification of my deposits going through my three backup 8Gb hard drives. This is a sad day for a single mother, entrepreneur who in this economy could use a week away.

Two weeks of vacation lost that I will never get back.

My folks had 3 timeshares, and for approximately 20 years + my folks have used them and enjoyed. I have one existing one left and I have had no problems trading until the last few years. Last year I put it in too late, and there were no availablity on the places I wanted, I had to settle for a place. I was advised to put it in early for 2009; so I paid maintenance in Nov./Dec. 2008, deposited my week in January 2009; and everytime I check for my September 2009 search exchange, there is "NOTHING" AVAILABLE. I even changed searches 2-3 times and locations to no avail. Does it have to take 7-12 months to get the customer what they want in exchanges. NO it is because there isn't anything - It has already been taken.

I was so aggravated today 4/22/09; when speaking with this lady, representing RCI, from another country, we had an argument over the phone. She told me I really need to deposit at least one year ahead, possibly two years ahead, which means I have to pay upfront 2 years of maintenance fees, an exchange fee of $189.00 then two years of RCI Club membership fees or get their special. she goes on to state: I will have a better chance for an exchange!

Now I get the picture of what is going on, from what I can gather on the web and complaints of others, RCI has developed a "POINT" SYSTEM, you pay in advance, therefore, if you are a club member you basically get priority over members that don't pay in advance. Then the lady, (I don't remember her name or if she gave it to me) needless to say, she would not identify what country she worked in for RCI. she said I am only trying to help you. She said your week is in April; so the search is counted from April on; regardless if you deposited and started your search in Dec./Jan. 2009 - so you still are searching too late. This is what I see RCI is greedy, they have increased their pricing system to the extent, that I ask myself between maintenance fees and them. "Is this really a good deal and enjoyable" when the places don't even come up to par with quality, upgraded vacation places.

She even admitted they have 10,000 customers and only 500 vacation spots come on folks. this is not the way to do business - what I see is discrimation on some who don't have the money to pay 1-2 years in advance, so the poor working man, can't even get a "holiday"/vacation. My biggest suspicion, and question I would like answered is: 1. Is RCI buying up properties, and renting them out to make the BIG BUCKS (1,500-2,000 week)to some International Vacationers not to mention also giving the RCI Members who pay in advance priorities on not only timing but the better places to stay through RCI.

The last two places I stayed at, were old, not the greatest with furnishings it surely was not the "Hilton" or Disney World.

I attended a sales presentation by RCI on April 18, 2009. After 90 minutes had gone by, I was assigned to John to finish the sales pitch. John was immediately combative and within the first 5 minutes accused me of misrepresenting my salary. He had asked me what I made per hour, which I said I didn't know. He then asked me what I made per week and I guestimated $1500.00. He said that means that I made $40.00 per hour, which is not true. I said I don't make that much per hour. He was extremely hostile and when I asked him why, he said he didn't like people misrepresenting themselves.

I told him I was not misrepresenting anything. This continued with him asking me if I knew what I made every two weeks. I told him. He continued to dispute this, saying he had a friend who works for Department of Homeland Security also and this person didn't make nearly that much. I finally said I made $65K per year and he could divide that any way he wanted to. He was extremely rude and aggressive. I finally said I had given him 90 minutes of my time (it was actually an hour and 45 minutes) that I wasn't interested, and, let's not waste any more of your time or mine. He threw down his pen and grabbed my paperwork and led me to the exit. I did receive the gifts as promised.

How do these guys sleep at night? I went into this knowing the extremely high-pressure tactics, and still, my heart was racing and I felt as if I had done something wrong. Why do these guys get away with this? Economic or physical? None. Emotional: yes. Why do we continue to tolerate this kind of behavior?

RCI, despite a pending claas action lawsuit settlement, is continuing to purchase excess rental units from partcipating resorts, placing them all in their extra-vacation site and renting them out to Members and others. Only when they do rent these units out, they place a few of them on to the Exchange Program site for Members. This is a scam, deceitful, greedy,illegal, and denies Members the right to access those unit properties.

Members are totally dnied access to promised exchange units at nearly all desirable resorts.

My Wife and I purchased a timeshare at the Blue Blay Club in Cancun, Mexico. We purchased 8 million RCI points along with 9 bonus weeks at the resort (that could be changed into differing rooms according to luxury. For example 2 weeks could also = 1 week in a suite.) We were promised and shown luxurious rooms that later we learned required 8 people in our party in order to book, but we found that this difference in communication with the Club and RCI was just one of many to come.

For the first 3 years we've been allowed to use points for airfare, car rentals, hotel, and resort bookings. These were unlimited. In fact, we told the salesman at the time that we wanted to purchase the most points possible because our families lived far away, in different states, and this would be our main use for the points. The salesman and the top manager from the club stated This will be perfect for you!

Now we've learned that RCI has restricted our points to 60,000 per year for every kind of use but resorts. This amount will only buy a round trip ticket from L.A. to San Francisco! We can't spend the amount of points we've purchased on resorts only even if we vacationed now at a rate of 365 days per year, for the rest of our lives! We could have saved 1/2 the cost of our timeshare because we can't use the other half (the points part) that's restricted. Every time we turn around we're dinged with fees particular to RCI or Club members only. For example, we'll be going to Tahiti in August and only RCI/ club members are charged a weekly electrity fee of $200 at this hotel. Anyone else booking there is not charged this fee, but its included in their cost according to RCI.

We are also charged a $189 per week reservation fee, besides our resort booking fee. We are going with another couple, making our vacation a total of five weeks. This charges a total of $2,070 just for our hotel fees/ stay! What was our $35,000 purchase for? That $2,070 doesn't include airfare, all the fees we constantly are getting dinged for throughout the year, and the fees from our club. These fees keep rising. So far this year we've spent $700 in dues without even using anything yet! Pretty soon we'll be charged a clean towels in your room fee and a water fee each time the toilet's used!

We've contacted a lawyer and because of the vagueness of the contract RCI and the Club seem to have all the advantage. I feel like I'll soon be saying, But I didn't see in the contract that I signed, RCI's right to stick their hands in my bank account and take out any money they want, and their answer will be: Well, the contract never said that we couldn't... How can these companies take advantage of so many hardworking people and get away with it? These companies have been able to deceive through much of what they don't have to disclose. Sure they stated in the contract that they have the right to restrict points. Boy, hind site is 20/20 now! Wish we knew exactly what that meant when we'd read it and heard it explained.

RCI does not sell timeshares. If you bought into a timeshare and are unhappy with the rules or fees or anything the resort or timeshare company has set up ... rci cannot help. rci is strictly in the business of trading vacations. i keep reading complaints about Blue Bay disguised as rci complaints. it's not rci's fault that blue bay or any other resort has misled or made false promises to you. RCI DID NOT DO THIS.

They call you and tell you you won a 3 day/2 night vacation to the Berkshires, all you have to do is take a tour that will lst about an hour..give a $75.00 deposit. They tell you that after the tour you will receive a coupon for the vacation and a gift card with your $75.00 back and an additional $125.00 for a total of $200.00 gift card. Let me tell you, its atime share scam! We went to Vacation Village, were told it was a no pressure timeshare opportunity. sat through an hour of video, took a 1 hour tour of the resort, then sat for 2.5 hours while Matt explained how a timeshare worked.

When we told him we would have to think about it he said the prices were only good if we signed now. we told him we dont work like that, we need to think about it and if we want it we will come back and pay the full price. not a big deal. he said People who say that never come back. He then got up and walked away from the table. My husband and I were frustrated and bored at this point. Matt drove us crazy with all his talking so we got up and left. we didnt get our coupon for the free vacation or the gift card that was promised.

We called Vacation Village to complain about their misleading us. they said they would send the gift card and coupon. Havent received it. called again and the girl was very rude. said we should have gotten it if we took the tour. said we did take the tour, explained Matt would not let us leave until we signed so we had no choice but to walk out. dont know if we will ever get what we were promiosed but be forewarned. If you geta call for a free vacation from them, its a scam. dont even go for the tour. they hold you hostage apparently, until you agree to sign.

We were told the whole tour would only take 1 hour...took almost 4 hours before we walked out. Wasted a whole day, and gas to get nothing but aggrivation.

i have read what everyone has to say on this site, i would like everyene to know i am an employee for RCI, a lot of what everyone is saying is not reffering to RCI when you purchase a timeshare it has nothing to do with RCI, we do not sell timeshares what so ever.... RCI is the middle man it is a timeshare exchange company, so when you buy a timeshare u have the choice to go back to your the resort that you purchased everytime or you can use RCI services and pay a little more and go to other destinations ... not the way to use rci and be successful is search in advance if you own weeks u can search 2 years out if you own points you can search 10 months out... if your looking in high demand time like when kids are out of school then u really want to put your search in asap ... now when your dealing with weeks you also have what we call trading power ... if you own a red week in branson mo dont expect to get hawaii it...the system will only offer you things that are campatiable to what you own ,,,, depositing your weeks a year in advance will maximize your trading power also when your searching for something in advance and what your looking for does not pull up put yourself on an ongoing search the system will keep searching and if something pulls up we will call you .... the most important thing is dont get to picky ,,, its vacation how much time do your really spend in the room??... you have to remember when you call rci we would love to send you on vacation actually the guides you speak with get paid on commision for sending you on vacation.... the inventory that we have is what other deposit we can give you space if it has been booked by other members and if they have not deposited their weeks ,,,,

timeshare is best for the retired

A friend and I just returned from Playa de Carmen. I feel extremely grateful and lucky that we did fall from the "scam." As a part of the trip to Playa that my friend agreed to we had to attend a "presentation." My friend currently works for a law firm and I worked for attorneys for 20+ years. I guess our experience in the legal field makes us a bit more cautious. The sales pitch was quite intense and extremely deceptive. We were told that this was not a timeshare and that cost was only $499 a year maintenance fee plus another $89 to get the "points." When we asked specific questions our presenter called in someone else to "explain." The explanation was always written down on a legal pad and the men doing the explaining seemed to only want to write the explanation out with a "green" pen.

My friend and I thought it sounded good - too good. We too were served drinks that we did not ask for or order and then were advised that the drinks were non-alcoholic. We refused to touch the drinks. After 2 hours we were finally told that the total cost would be $50,000-ish - 10% down and the balance due in 60-days. Our original sales person Patti seemed shocked when we said no. She immediately got one of the "managers" to end the presentation. When asked why we didn't sign I advised the gentlemen because the presentation was "deceptive." He asked me what deceptive meant - said his English wasn't good.

When it become clear that we were not going to give in - he became very angry and would not give us a copy of the form that we signed stating that we had attended the mandatory presentation. He threw our paperwork around and stomped away from the table. When we asked for written material to review - Patti advised us that such material was considered marketing material and that RCI cut the middleman out in order to save clients money. And, while we asked for business cards - none were forthcoming. We were also told on our arrival at the resort that when we attended the presentation that it was a requirement that we bring our passports and a credit card. After reading all of the complaints, I feel that my friend and I were very fortunate indeed.

Called Bank of America to cancel the Credit Card they [RCI?] had,had issued to me. Long story short, Bank of America said that the only thing that they could do was cancel the card, to call them back in 3-5 days to contest the charge once it was posted and the otherwise the 'merchant' would have to issue the credit..

Did discover in the process that the Merchant Info use wo B of A is a nonexistant address, and the phone # answers as some sort of text messaging service. After notifying B of A they didn't seem to care. The merchant name is Great Escapes at 4259 Southern Florida Av Centennial Co 80112, per B of A Rep 90ACTDM.

Interestingly enough RCI made a CYA tape in which they/he specified that they were NOT affilliated with Great Escapes. HHmmmmm! Fortunately Colorado has a 3 day Right of Rescision law I will be there on Tues morning to hand it to them in person with a witness.

Oh the cancellation clause says that Great Escapes must be notified in writing with in 3 buis days, but there is no address on any of the papers the gave me. The papers do however have a letterhead that Says,,, Great Escapes GE authorized dealer #126- Lifetime Vacations LLC Denver Colorado..

Can't beleive these people are allowwed to continue, Anywhere under Any name.

1750' dollar charge pending. And can't figure out exactly who I'm dealing with. to cancel the 'contract'..

BLUE BAY& RCI - break our contract; We will never be able to use all our points in our life or the term of the 25year contract. Only 60,000 points per year can be transferredd to RCI and we have MILLIONS of points...RCI and BlueBay are NOT acting in good faith. Blue Bay has NOT return my any of my emails; as I wanted to transfer points to RCI; I cann't believe RCI would be into this kind of business; I would just like to either get my $$$ back from Blue Bay or Transfer ALL my Blue Bay points to RCI and be done with; Hoping someone can help;

Well I was 18 years old. I went to one of the meetings I was hammered by this sells guy and being so young I was told that I couldnt leave until I signed the contract to get me started on my free vacations. I was stuck being hammered by 4 different sales people until 11:30 ant night, they kept going at me and going at me. My friend went with me to this meeting - and in the middle of pitch she said well you just got your tax refund so that would cover your start-up well one of the sales rep listened into your so called private talk and told the manager - so he offered up more free items that I never got.

I am 27 now - that was the worse mistake that I have ever made it destroyed my credit and my life. I used it one time and it was the worse vacation in my life. I spent over $4 grand on the lowest package; I had a family emergency and needed to get to my mothers. I called up RCI to exchange my points into Flight at that time they said I could, so they set it up.

A month later I tried to set up travel again and the RCI rep said we dont do that. after I told them they did it the month before she said that must have been the special for that month. I stopped paying after that. I tried to cancel my contract the RCI rep said I couldnt until I caught up with payments, and then I would have to pay a $496.71 cancel fee. They preyed on a kid and won. I have had to over come a lot in life and this taught me a VALUABLE LESSION! Always go with your gut!

So far it has kept my credit score below 470 - despite perfect payment on school loans. I cant get a loan on a new car or a house or credit cards - I cant build my credit until this goes away - and for some reason every 3 years they open it up and leave it open for a 5 years as delinquent. I cant claim bankruptcy because I dont have enough debit! Because I cant get any debt to mess up on! Talk about FRUSTRATING! I cant get married either because it will destroy my boyfriends credit to! If you are looking to get a timeshare DONT! It is a waste of time and MONEY! The average vacation for a couple 1 time a year is 700$ at a major city with a 5 star hotel! 800$ for a all-inclusive vacation in Mexico on the BEACH!

RCI's main objective is to capture your weeks so they can make a commission on a trade. Their next objective is to charge you constantly increasing fees. Now they CHARGE your credit card for an exchange search. They will also call you until you go crazy about special offers. Oh, and you pay a yearly membership fee for this.

i was given a coupon for a free week, to use any where within 12 months. filled out coupon, sent it in with a fifthy dollar returnable deposit, only to have it rejected because no one that did the sales pitch to me, filled in the date of the sales interview, but they cashed my check no problem for my deposit.

my vacation plans are fouled up because i chose a certain week off from work to go to west virginia, when my kids are off from school, and i cant change that week because the company wont alough it

We purchased a time share in Cancun 2006, we have paid out of pocket over $10,000.00 and to date have received little to no services. I had my niece use the accomodations and they were so bad she had to check out and get a hotel. Also their sales reps use alcohol to get their prospective targets drunk to complete their scams.

I have refused to pay the past two months payments of $447.96 a month and will not pay the maintance fee of $800.00 which is due in March as this is definitely a scam.

Ongoing problems with website. I have been unable to search for and book a vacation due to a non-functioning website. Customer Service has been unable to solve the problem. The problem is not with my computer as they imply since I am having the same problem on 3 computers in my home as well as my work computer.

I am forced to pay yearly maintenance fees for a service that I cannot use.

My husband and I had decided to take the credit card offer from Bank of America that had a partnership with RCI to earn rewards. Later on down the road we decided to cancel the credit card, unaware that we would also lose our rewards that we had accumulated with RCI. I don't understand why the rewards account was closed when those rewards were earned by us spending money, how can they take them away, even if we cancel our credit card?

We lost out on the rewards that we accumulated by using our Bank of America credit card and then canceling it. I'm not sure how much that even is worth because when I canceled the credit card, they also closed the RCI Rewards account. Lost all rewards.

We have been members with RCI for about 2 years and have never been able to book a vacation with them. They NEVER have anything available comparable to what we gave them, which is a high end 2 bedroom lock off unit with a Master bedroom suite in Playa Del Carmen Mexico. I told my husband at the beginning of July 2008 to get on the phone and don't hang up till you book us a vacation through this place. He ended up booking us in February 2009 in the MOON PALACE in the Dominican that is set to open January 10th 2009.

I have a sixteen year old daughter by a previous marriage so she comes with us , and we usually bring a friend for her to hang out with. At the time my husband made these reservations the representative from RCI told him that it was a Jr suite, so he booked one suite for us with the timeshare week and paid a deposit to get an adjoining suite for my daughter and her friend. Turns out that my daughter's friend can't go with us that week so not wanting my daughter to be on vacation in a suite by herself, I paid a fee to RCI to cancel one of them.

Get the cancellation and decide to look at the fine print and realize we don't have a suite we have basically a hotel room as a trade for a two bedroom. I call RCI to see if I can get an upgrade to larger accommodations and RCI tells me finally after a dozen phone calls that the Moon Palace only gives them rooms and not the larger accommodations. So the best that they could do so my (second husband ) and my sixteen year old daughter aren't in the same one room for a week, is to rent another room for more money now and pay the all inclusive price for four people instead of the three people in our party.

I tried to call the Moon Palace directly to see if I could get an upgrade from them and they said they are not allowed to give upgrades to people that contract through RCI. The morale of the story is, I gave them my beautiful 2 bedroom to be crammed into a one room with three people and more money than if I booked it straight through the hotel at least I would have been able to get a one bedroom suite for less than I'm paying to keep my family in separate rooms on vacation.PS The RCI representative knew all along that he was just giving us a room and passing it off as a suite.

I've had my RCI timeshare for some 20 years and never had trouble getting reservations until 2008. Now it's constantly UNAVAILABLE, yet they keep selling more timeshares; i.e. more memberships. Actually, when I pretended I was interested in BUYING a timeshare, suddenly I was able to get reservations of my choice, albeit for only 3 nights/2 days, AT NO CHARGE. These people at RCI, Las Vegas are fleecing the owners who paid a fortune for their timeshares -- and the maintenance fees just keep going up every year!

Now I don't have the annual vacation I've been paying for, but RCI keeps selling timeshares for space that is NOT available in the first place. This is blantant FRAUD and must be stopped.

We were told that we could use these points for airline, rental cars and even hotels if we wished to stay somewhere that was not an RCI resort. In May 2008 I booked a hotel, airfare and a rental car to vacation in Phoenix Arizona I paid my fees and used points, then in September 2008 we decided to book our Cancun trip.

We called RCI to book with our points and were told that we had no points to use for air fare because I used them for the Phoenix vacation. I was told in October 2008 after I pay my membership fee of $124.00 I could only use 60,000 points. I of course argued with RCI and thats when they told us about the restrictions. I was also told that they put these restrictions on us because blue bay members were using to many points.

I have told both Blue Bay and RCI that they have breached their end of the contract and that if they don't fix this very shortly that I was going to find an Attorney and they would have to speak to either him or her. We now have 10.4 million points and we will never use them in our lifetime. I feel that RCI and blue bay has taken advantage of not just us but many, many other people. I have been told to file a complaint with the U.S. Attorney consumers affairs office and hopefully if other people do the same maybe we can get some kind of justice for this.

I am more than willing to give them all my points back in exchange for the money I have paid them less the one trip I took to the Blue Bay Club. I paid 40,460.00 for the 10.4 million points we bought hoping to take family members on vacation and pay the $49.00 fee and 35,000 to 45,000 points for airfare, also points for theme parks, rental car and more. This is the main reason why we purchased these points so we can enjoy vacations and take our family with us.

My wife and I, unfortunately, purchased a Vacation Club membership with RCI/Raintree Vaction club. We were on vacation in Cabo at the Westin and were pushed into attending a sales seminar. We were plied with alcohol and hard-selled. My wife was very interested and I begrudgingly agreed. We didn't realize the scam until we got home and tried to schedule a vacation.

We've called over 10 times to make a reservation and everything is always sold out or unavailable. We're out of $12K and yearly maintenance fees. Outside of canceling the membership and eating the money, I don't know what to do. I'd like to be part of a class-action lawsuit against RCI, but I'm not a lawyer. They have scammed and stolen far too much to allow them to continue this obvious fraud. While I do bear responsibility for the purchase, I was not given what I paid to receive.

My wife and I lost about $14,000 total. We now have to find even more money during these tough economic times to pay our bills and plan any type of vacation. The intense stress and anguish I feel over wasting some of our savings is indescribable. My wife has cried numerous times about being swindled and being unable to receive any from of restitution.

First of all Do Not buy time share from BlueBay or Temptation resort in Cancun. My story is too long to be told here but trust me. With this stupid 6000 poits rules its not worth it. I noticed some people have started a class action lawsuit. we would like to contribute to that.

We inherited our timeshares 4 yrs ago in the Canary Islands toegether with an RCI membership. We could exchange our weeks for RCI points to be used in exchanging for weeks of our choice. CHOICE ? There is no choice, I have NEVER EVER been able to get what I want in the exchange programme. I have only been to some magnificent photographs in their catalogue.

The RCI website works well, once you manage to get logged on, somehow RCI keeps changing our login and password codes. Anyway, RCI is a gigantic waste of time and I get positively sick even when I hear the name RCI.

We are now trying to cancel our membership with RCI, which is a near impossible thing to do. RCI has a stranglehold over you.

Have had the RCI timeshare for going on 4 years. Purchased when I was in my late 70's. I discussed then decided I was interested. This round-about conversation continued. I kept getting phone calls. I got promised different things and finally agreed and a contract was sent to me after paying $10,000. When I received the contract I again changed my mind. When I called to cancel within the 30 days the rep started making more promises such as an annual bonus week, which would only cost me the exchange rate.

I was promised I could go anywhere in the world yet everytime I try to book my week there never seems to be availability. I feel like I was prayed upon and have felt sick to my stomach every since. I told RCI I wanted to sell my timeshare and they said they could do it for $300. If it wasn't sold within so many days (I think 6 months) or if I sold it first then I would get my money refunded. I have called many times about that and get nothing but a run-around about it. I guess I didn't learn my lesson the first time. After you add up all the fees and then the exchange rate it is rather absurd. I would be better off just paying for a regular vacation going where I wanted in a quality hotel.

The facilities I seem to end up with are mostly dumps. Spent a week recently in Ormond Beach FL. There were roaches in the room. The young lady at the desk handed me a can of spray and said I could borrow it. I just wish I could get my money back and put it to better use. None of my children want anything to do with the timeshare so it isn't going to be handed down to them.

I JUST SUBMITTED THIS INFORMATION AND NOW FEEL YOU ARE PRAYING ON ME.

Have had the RCI timeshare for going on 4 years. Purchased when I was in my late 70's. I discussed then decided I was interested. This round-about conversation continued. I kept getting phone calls. I got promised different things and finally agreed and a contract was sent to me after paying $10,000. When I received the contract I again changed my mind. When I called to cancel within the 30 days the rep started making more promises such as an annual bonus week, which would only cost me the exchange rate. I was promised I could go anywhere in the world yet everytime I try to book my week there never seems to be availability.

I feel like I was prayed upon and have felt sick to my stomach every since. I told RCI I wanted to sell my timeshare and they said they could do it for $300. If it wasn't sold within so many days (I think 6 months) or if I sold it first then I would get my money refunded. I have called many times about that and get nothing but a run-around about it. I guess I didn't learn my lesson the first time.

After you add up all the fees and then the exchange rate it is rather absurd. I would be better off just paying for a regular vacation going where I wanted in a quality hotel. The facilities I seem to end up with are mostly dumps.

Spent a week recently in Ormond Beach FL. There were roaches in the room. The young lady at the desk handed me a can of spray and said I could borrow it.

I just wish I could get my money back and put it to better use. None of my children want anything to do with the timeshare so it isn't going to be handed down to them.

My wife and I celebrated our anniversary in Gatlinburg, TN. While there we were offered a bunch of free tickets and stuff to sit in on a meeting. Before going we promised we wouldn't do buy whatever it was they were selling. While in the meeting, though, the sales agent made it sound like a dream come true. When we asked questions, his answers were perfect. Despite our previous vow not to buy in, we both readily agreed to the offer. After using our points twice, though, we have discovered it has been a huge waste of our money. Not only are we paying more than we would on a regular vacation, but we are not getting what we were promised. There are so many hidden fees and limitations on what you can do. If anyone can help me seek legal action against them, I would greatly appreciate it!

I purchased weeks and points while on vacation in cancun at a blue bay resort. I had the sales manager, explain to me and answer questions of mine in details which are the complete opposite of the service I am recieving. Some of his answers must have been outright lies while some of the answers have been change due to this bait and switch that RCI and Blue Bay seem to have come to an agreement on.

What it comes down to is that I spent around $8000 dollars for some Blue Bay resort weeks that I was hoping to rent out for money through Blue Bay's rental program which was promised to me would happen from the sales manager(which later was explained to me could not happen anymore and that all I could get in return for renting my weeks is food and drink credit at their resorts) and that I could use my points without restriction through RCI to book flights and hotels, etc.

Well as all of you my points are now practically useless with the 60000 point maximum that has been imposed on us. A complete change from the service that I signed up for when I purchased my weeks/points from Blue Bay. Please let me know how I can assist in any type of class action lawsuit as I like all you others would just like to stop wasting my time and recuperate my money now.

Economic damages of about $8000 lost. Plus time and money spent trying to get explanations of why I am not getting what I paid for.

We too are part of the RCI program. I think almost everyone bought into this to use the Points Partner program. We are no different. This is very very disapointing to us as we are approching retirement and paid for our travel in advance to save money down the road for the trips we intend to take. WE have used out points over the past 2 years for hotel, airfare, and car rental. Never one problem! We thougt the RCI program was a godsend.

Now, like many of you, it's basically worthless to us. Several of the people I know that are in this are considering a class-action lawsuit. We spent $29,000 toward this program for over 8,000,000points. Now the only way to use them is in RCI resorts. I do not want to be tied to only their locations. I want my flight privelages back!

My husband and I purchased 16 million points with Blue Bay Resort in Cancun, MX. The points we purchased were to be available for use with RCI Points in exchange for airline tickets, resorts, hotels, car rentals, etc. In September 2008 we were told that we could only use the points at a rate of 60,000 points per year. We purchased 16 million points for over $60,000 to be used with no limitations.

Prior to purchase, we contacted RCI to confirm what we were being offered by Blue Bay. Not only did RCI confirm usage of accelerated points for airline tickets, resorts, etc., but confirmed an excellent history with Blue Bay and its affiliates for over 20 years.

RCI has changed their program twice since we bought a couple of years ago. It was a fixed fee and fixed points to use the RCI points for hotels, cars, flights, etc. Then last March they started charging larger fees and tabulating the cost of a flight and charging us the difference and MORE plus the fees to book as previously done. We also have to still pay an annual maintance fee to RCI.

Like so many, we purchased these points to enable our family to take vacations we could not otherwise afford. With the current changes by RCI and paid for them in advance to ensure the locked rate, we feel we have no choice but to pursue RCI and (Premier) Blue Bay Resorts legally in hopes of reinstating the value of our membership as originally purchased or be prorated for what we have used and reimburse the rest of our money. The more support we can gather from others that have experienced the same injustice from RCI and Blue Bay Getaway (Premier), the more power we have. We have invested over $60,000 for our membership and would like to see them held responsible for our investment.

We have invested so much money now to pay for our vacations in advance. This puts a financial strain on our household, the hours we spend looking into this, and the lack of support we can get when a bait and switch like this takes place with SOOO much money involved. Now we can not afford to travel because we paid for this program. How is this possible for this scam to keep continuing on???

Today I was contacted by RCI and told I had won? the opportunity to stay at their premier resort in Orlando, Florida: Summer Bay Resort. For the modest fee of $498 and sitting through a 90-minute sales presentation, I could get 3 nights in a 2 bedroom condo at the resort, 2 dinner show passes, 2 tickets to a theme park of my choice, 2 nights in Daytona, 2 tickets to the Kennedy Space Center, and 2 nights in the Bahamas. I said no because the lengths of stay were too short.

The representative knocked off $100 and brought the price down to $398 and threw in 3 weekend getaways. She then mentioned that for another $347 I could have 4 nights in Costa Rica at the Villas Sol Resort. Again I said no. Because the representative liked me? she included 4 nights in Napa Valley and 2 tickets on the wine train, purportedly at no additional charge. I stupidly said okay and got out my credit card. I should have known that if sounded too good to be true, it was.

I was transferred to another representative who recorded the conversation of what I was supposed to receive. Suddenly there were taxes to be paid for each night of accommodation. I said that I didnt want the deal. The woman threw in 3 nights in Cancun and 3 more weekend getaways. I thought what the heck and paid the required amount. After all, even if the resorts were 3-star resorts instead of the 5-stars they described, it would still be worth it.

A few hours later I received the details of everything I had purchased and there were quite a few surprises. Hidden usage fees, reservations fees, no stays at the resorts mentioned. Furthermore, the company claimed the right to change the terms and conditions at will. I called the company and promptly cancelled. They have stated they will reverse the charges on my account, but I have to wait 3-7 business days to see if this occurs. Given what Robin of Milwaukie OR (03/28/07) wrote, I will be keeping a close eye on this. I find it incredible this company remains in business and am so thankful to all the people who have written on this site because your stories helped me realize how grossly unreliable and underhanded RCI is.

On our last day of our holiday (4 October 2008), we came back to our room to find the Manager, Natalia, a cleaner and a receptionist verbally attacking us and wanting to throw us of the appartment. We were due to check out the next day so were totally taken aback by surprise and shock! They had started packing our belongings and as we refused to leave the room they threatened to call the police. 2 safety guards came in and also were threatening and saying (in spanish) to Natalia, who didn't realise i'm fluent in Spanish, that they could easily get rid of us with all our stuff.

They laughed at us and told us we had to leave (we had been there a week). We tried to reason with them but they were totally unprofessional and and i got worried about our safety so decided to finish packing our bits and leave the room. They basically treated us like low-life criminals and in all my years of travelling, i have never been treated so appalingly. This is a 4 star resort and i am absolutely disgusted with their management.

the emotional distress and ruined our last day of holiday. Still now, i feel sick to the stomach thinking about the whole experience. They went through our belongings and forced entry and i'm claiming for items that went missing - my GHD irons worth 100 and a top worth 30. Also, the one night we weren't able to stay in our appartment which was paid for.

We too, as so many I have been reading about bought into Blue Bays scam in Jan. 2006. It is now 3 years later, and we decided to go back for a week. Our points are limited to 60000 and we have to pay for all inclusive stays. I priced out the same trip through a travel agent, and it will be 1100.00 cheaper for two of us,to go that way, than it is to go through RCI or Temptations resort.

I called Premier, got the run around, but was getting emails until I asked for my money (21000.00)back. We have never used this program, but have paid our yearly fees. I just want this cancelled and to be refunded, but now have been put on ignore.

I am also involved with the Bluebay and RCI problem.

We will be going to Bluebay in about two weeks. They claim they have instituted an alternate plan. I have no idea of the cost of the program and I am unsure how it will work.

I am a retired attorney living in New Jersey. When I reviewed the RCU documents, RCI chose NJ law to be controling.

I do not believe that RCI has the right to change the terms of the contracts between themselves and purchasers of points If the new program set up by Bluebay is not accelptable,

We can now only use 60,000 points per year for RCI Partner prograns when we were sold the points with the understanding that the use of points would be unlimited.

We purchased 8,400,000 points in May of 2007. We purchased with the intent to use our points to fly our son to visit us from out of state who has disabilities. We were booked to visit Cancun in November 2008 and when trying to use our points for airfare, we were told by RCI we now have a cap of 60,000 points and blackout dates around the holidays. This in not what we were originally sold or told and would not of purchased if this was presented to us. In addition, we have 6 weeks to use at the resort where we purchased this vacation program at. Blue Bay was to assist in renting out these weeks.

Now the rental program cannot be managed by Blue Bay, so we have not been able to rent out our weeks. The intent, per Blue Bay, would be to rent out 5 weeks and use the money to pay for our all inclusive fee for our one week. This would leave us with only a $49.00 airfare fee, per person, to fly to Cancun and spend a week at our favorite resort with very little cost. Blue bay has not delievered on anything they sold us. For us to fly to Cancun and visit in November, this would now cost us over $3500. We were forced to cancel our trip in November.

We cannot believe we purchased a vacation package for thousands of dollars and cannot vacation. How sad to be scammed, ripped off and left with no options. The service, response and overall managing of this situation from Blue Bay has been terrible. We have spent hundreds of dollars just calling the resort trying to reach someone that can assist us and help rectify this situation for over two months with NO LUCK. We met with Blue Bay in June of 2008 and they told us they changed the program and it would only cost us about $5000 more to join. How crazy is that. Rip us off and then ask for more money.

Blue Bay remains unwilling to assist in any way, which leaves a very bad feeling towards their resorts. This is sad because they have beautiful properties, but continue to damage their reputation with their lack of action and resolution to this debacle.

In August of 2007, my wife and I purchased 3,000,000 points at Blue Bay in Cancun, Mexico. Like several of the complaints listed in this chain, we too were mislead. We were told we could use these points for air fair, rentals cars, other properties, WITHOUT lmimitations. We even mentioned to the sales team this was too good to be true; it sounds like our Delta miles points But we were promised that we could have a seat on any flight.

In Nov. 2007, we tried to use our points for air fair only to be told by RCI, there were no points for RCI memembers. We asked if there were seats on the plane and we were told yes but they were not available to RCI...all the RCI seats were sold. We filed a complaint with RCI, as it was a verbal guarentee by Blue Bay, and not RCI. We lodge a dispute with Amex in attempt to get our money back for an obvious fradulant misrepresentation by both RCI and Blue Bay.

So, folks, my wife and I are in support of sueing both Blue Bay and RCI; they are equally partners in this deception as one points their finger at the other as the problem and vice versa. Now we find that our point transfer is RESTRICTED to 60,000 points per year...taking us some 10 plus years to extract our value...Bottom line is both Blue Bay and RCI must be in this together. You can't change the terms of a contract...and this is exactly what they are doing.

We were ripped off by Blue Bay and RCI...See above complaint

I asked that my pymts being drafted out of my acct be stopped, and they stopped it for one month (July 2008). But i specifically asked that it be stopped permanently. The still continue to draft money out my checking acct. monthly.

I am being charged for overdraft fees.

We were on vacation in Malta, and were approached, in the street, by a young gentleman, who preposed that we attend a RCI presentation, that would take about 1 hour, in return for which we would receive certain gifts, amongst them a gift voucher for a weeks free vacation. We attended the high pressure presentation, and finally we informed the presenter that we were not in a position to commit on the spot, and would decide later, to which we were told that later the same price and conditions would not apply. We arrived home and tried to contact the company, carediemholidays, in order to book our free vacation. This site is just a site with links to other sites, and the email sent to the address written on the voucher was returned.

We also addressed the Fortina Hotel in Malta, where the presentation had been made, but received no reply. So we wrote to the European office of RCI, and that email was returned as could not be delivered, and this an email sent through the site. We the addressed the USA office of RCI, and received an automated response that our query would be attended to within 24 hours.This has not been.

We, however, count ourselves fortunate that we did not fall for the presentation, and did not purchase. We also filled in a questionare with details of our previous vacations, with the presenter including our airfare in all the calculations for hotel stays. Fortunately we picked this up, and realised that it was not as good as made out to be. We will never ever attend another presentation, nor want to be involved at all with RCI

In Feb. of 2008 we bought 1 Million RCI points from blue bay resorts in Cancun. I was told that I could use these points for airline tickets anytime and anywhere provided there was a seat. I just called RCI to purchase two tickets and was told about the 60,ooo point restriction that was in place JUST for blue bay memberships. This is not what I paid for or was promised when I bought the points. There should be something that can be done to get eveyones money back. I did not get what I paid for.

We purchased RCI points through Blue Bay 3 years ago. With the same understanding as the other people complaining here. We have 354,000 points with an automatic renewal at the same price in 25 years. We purchased strictly to use the points for airline miles, car rentals , hotels and now we have also found out that we are restricted to 60,000 points a year. Which will take us over 6 years to use if only using for airline tickets at the restriction of 60,000 per year.

I contacted Blue Bay and they said that they would switch my Plan for an additional fee to also include food and drink but that they will not accept my points for payment. They sell the points but will not redeem them? I feel that this is a Bait and Switch Scam and I do not understand how RCI and or Blue Bay can do this.I feel all who have purchased these worthless points need to band together and file a class action Lawsuit against RCI and Blue Bay Resorts. We to are out a lot of money, points, airfare tickets. Who really is to blame here? Blue Bay or RCI? Where do we all go from here?

We purchase RCI vacation points through Blue Bay Resorts. They have continually changed the terms of redemption to the point where redeeming our points would take over 100 years. We went back to the resort to complain and their only remedy was to sell us a new plan. We, obviously, did not take advantage of this opportunity.

We paid $10,000 for a vacation plan that does not allow us to go on vacation.

We purchased points throught Blue Bay Resort in Cancun, MX is august 2007. The point we purchased were to available for use with RCI in exchange for airline tickets, resorts, etc. In September 2008 we were told that we could only use the points at a rate of 60,000 points per year. We purchased 8.4 million points for over $30,000 to be used with no limitations. Prior to purchase, we contacted RCI to confirm what we were being offered by Blue Bay. Not only did RCI confirm usage of accelerated points for airline tickets, resorts, etc., but confirmed an excellent history with Blue Bay and its affiliates for over 20 years.

Like so many, we purchased these points to enable our famioy to take vacations we could not otherwise afford. With the current changes by RCI, we feel we have no choice but to pursue RCI legally in hopes of reinstating the value of our membership as originally purchased. We have turned over our contract and relevant paperwork to the attornety who advised us at the time of purchase. The more support we can gather from others that have experienced the same injustice from RCI, the more power we have. We have invested over $30,000 for our membership and would gladly pay $500-$1,000 to try to pursue RCI and hold them responsible for our investment.

We purchased RCI points through Blue Bay 3 years ago. With the same understanding as the other people complaining here. We have 6 million points with an automatic renewal at the same price in 25 years. We purchased strictly to use the points for airline miles, car rentals , hotels and now we have also found out that we are restricted to 60,000 points a year. Which will take us over 100 years to use if only using for airline tickets at the restriction of 60,000 per yearI

do not understand how RCI can do this.I feel all who have purchased these no good points need to band together and file a class action against RCI and Blue Bay Resorts. We to are out a lot of money,points,airfare tickets. Who really is to blame here? Blue Bay or RCI? Where do we all go from here?

The address of theresort was incorrect the number of the property is1180 not ot1080 as inthe resort info.

considerable inconvenience in finding THE PROPERTY

I made the mistake of accepting an invitation to a timeshare sale while vacationing in Puerto Vallarta Mexico. A Timeshare sale is the most fraudulent deceiving sale anyone will have to face. They get you involved and give you tequila, and make your world so good. I told them I did not have money and I was not about to pay for anything and they offer me this incredible opportunity to get a credit card from RCI Elite Rewards, not only I can afford the timeshare but they were traveling benefits with it. Poor me I accepted, I completed the credit application and after some time I was told that they have to work really hard to get me the deal $15,000 to Invest on my timeshare. I fell for it.

When I came back to United States I found out that the credit I have available with a Credit card that I have been working for 20 years, with good outstanding, and use only when I really needed was gone. All the credit was reassigned to the new credit card. I will never put my family in this situation if I have not. Times required you to have not only savings but credit available, and I have been really careful to keep up. Now all the credit is gone. I asked the bank and they said they can do that without informing. I asked the bank to reverse the payment but they denied because I sign for it.

I requested the cancellation of the Contract with the Mayan Palace Resorts, but they do not want to refund the money because it is 5 days over the cancellation policy. I am out of credit, do not want the resort and the bank refuses to get the money back. I will place a formal complain and I will refuse to pay the bank. I will cancel all my accounts with Bank of America and go from here. Does anyone knows if it is legal for the bank to reassigned credit without letting you know?

No credit available for what is really needed. If the bank considered I was over my limit they should have informed me and ask me if I wanted to use my existing credit. Stress, trying to call the bank and being transferred and mistreated, make mock of, and hung up on, calls to mexico with the same results.

We, too, [were sucked] into Blue Bay's/RCI's fraud. We bought at Blue Bay in Cancun in February, 2008, solely because of the potential of utilizing the points to purchase airline tickets, stay in hotels, etc. We were not told that RCI had the potential of limiting the use of the points any time they wished. In fact, there was an RCI representative present during our presentation at Temptation Resort, and she never once told us that the offer was anything but above board. Now, we're told that we are limited to 60k points per year, which makes our Blue Bay purchase worthless. We've been had.

I have noticed that others have expressed an interest in a class action lawsuit. I would be interested in participating if this is to occur. Regardless of whether any of us get our money back, I think it would be a good thing to use a lawsuit to call attention to RCI's fraudulant practices. In the future, maybe, other people will be a little more cautious than we were. We wasted a great deal of money. Probably means that we will not be taking a vacation any time soon. May mean that I will have to alter my plans for retirement.

Finally they negotiated it down to Rs.12500 /- and told us we can take any free trip to Fort Chanwa Luni in Rajasthan anytime we want and the whole stay, travel, sight seeing will be free of cost. We were forced to pay thru Credit Card an amount of Rs.12500/-. At the same time we also signed an Agreement Copy ( RS. 50/- Stamp Paper) on 09/03/08.. The Contract no. was FHV-0329. It was signed from our side by Sarthak B. Flyhigh Vacations P Ltd. told us that since that date we will be covered under their Membership.The membership period will be for 30 years then onwards. Where the Agreement was signed was claimed to be their Registered Office, and the Address was FLYHIGH VACATIONS PVT LTD. Lower Ground Floor, East of Kailash, New Delhi-110065.

But Surprisingly after that whenever we wanted to take a travel to avail the facility offered by them we called up the phone number ( mentioned above) it was not into existance. There were no response even if we went on sending mails to the email address. Finally we went to the Lower Ground floor, East of Kailash, New Delhi - 65 address , which was SUPPOSEDLY their Registered Office , was totally empty. All the office settings were packed up from there as if it never existed there. And this happened within a month we first visited the place when we had to pay them Rs. 12500/-.

Accidentally we met Jatin T. there. When he was asked about the non existance of the phone number or the email id they have given, he said they had shifted to a new REGISTERED OFFICE in some mall in Noida. And he took our number and said that the number will be activated in a few days. He also said that the new address is not confirmed till then, as soon as they fix that up they will let us know, which even never happened. We called up the phone number within a week and the customer care executive said there is no availability of the free facility for the period we wanted, and asked us to contact later.

After a month when we again tried to contact Jatin T. on his mobile number it was an invalid number. The Registered Office phone number was not into existance either , nor the email id. And any of the contacts provided by them was never existant since then. We have tried visiting the same office and no sin of Flyhigh Vacations P Ltd. was there. We contacted Fort Chanwa Luni, RCI but nobody was able to give us any information about Flyhigh Vacations. I still have not received my money back though I have sent a mail to them quite a couple of times.

I feel totally cheated. Rs.12500 is not a small amount . And this fraud company has cheated us taking our money with all false promise and identity. I wonder even if they have set up a new temporary Registered Office elsewhere how many innocent people they may be cheating and taking money from them. I would request the Honorable Consumer Court to take Immediate & Severe actions against this fraudulant company and arrange for our money repayment.

We bought a timeshare from Blue Bay in Cancun. They offered a certain number of points to be used as we saw fit.They told us that we could use them to supplement airfares, car rental, etc. In June, 2008, RCI arbitrarily limited the number of points that can be used to 60k, and they are not allowing points to be used for foreign flights. This effectively makes the points from Blue Bay worthless.

When we bought the timeshare we were not told of this possibility. In fact, we were told that we could use unlimiited points in any way we chose, which is why we bought into their scheme. If a move is afoot for a class action lawsuit against RCI, I would be interested in participating. We essentially wasted thousands of dollars.

In June 2007 we bought into the RCI Points scam . We told them that at this time we couldn't afford to vacation more than once a year and they told us of thier points partner program where we could purchase airfare w/our points and the fee of $49 per ticket was all it was going to cost us. Fly to Cancun for $100 per couple when it cost us nearly $900 to get there last June. They said and showed us in the contract that we could use as many as 240,000 points per year. This meant that we could possibly go two times a year. We new that we couldn't afford enough point to last us more than 5or6 yrs. We also new that in 5or6 yrs. that we could afford to buy more points.

We booked a short trip back in May of 2008 with my brother and his wife. They told me then that we could only buy down the cost of the tickets with our points. I told them that wasn't in our contract, they said they could change at anytime. I asked Temptations for help they said it was out of thier hands. It cost us 140,000 pts.plus some cash to fly to Cancun in May. We planned on going back in June for a week, since we new now that it was going to cost us points plus cash we postponed our trip till Sept.

I called Temptations in early July to transfer our remaining 100,000 points into our RCI account which went through w/out a glitch. I then called RCI to book our flights and they tell me that I can only use 60,000 pts. I tell them that my contract says I can use 240,000 pts.per year they said they changed that, I said that's a breach of contract, they said they can change the contract when they want, I hung up. I called Temptations and they said they were negotiating and there was nothing I could do, I said put my points back they said they couldn't.

If I don't use my points that have been transferred then we lose them. I wited weeks and still nothing we couldn't even get on the RCI website, we had been refused access because we were Blue Bay members. I called RCI they said because we were Original Resorts members we had been denied they said they didn't know if we would ever. I e-mailed Temptations and asked if we could possibly work something out where we didn't have to deal with RCI. Chris Oldroyd (p.r.for Temptations) e-mailed me back saying that he had forwarded my request to the V.P. and would hear from them shortly.

It's the middle of August now and we haven't heard a thing meanwhile we did book our flights through RCI. It did cost us 45,000 pts. for one ticket plus $82 (45,000 pts. buys $400 off ticket price) for that ticket oh plus $49 RCI fee.Our contract says that it is going to cost us $49 per ticket and nothing else. Our other ticket cost us $482 so now tickets that our contract says are going to cost us $98 now cost us $613.

When I called RCI I was told I would have to speak with a Blue Bay specialist. While I was on the phone with the RCI Blue Bay specialist I asked what was going on and he said that Blue Bay members were put on a restriction because they use to many points and said that we could join another club and not have the restriction. I told him the points were the only reason that we joined.

In June 2007 it cost us $2200 for everything for one week. This trip we're taking in Sept.2008 is costing us $1702 for everyting for one week. I checked on this through my travel agency and for the 1st week in Sept. $2000 so for using RCI we saved $298, but,we paid $499 maintenance fee $123 membership fee plus $204 per month for the past year so basically we've paid $3022 this past year to get a $298 discount

I am also a timeshare member of Blue Bay Club in Cancun. Points werealso purchased and were a major consideration in my final decision to purchase into this program. Blue Bay and RCI offered (at that time) unlimited points usage with their points partner program. Effective in June 2008 RCI has limited this usage to 60,000 pts per year!

Many, manyphone calls later Blue Bay's response is still We are still in negotiations with RCI to lift this limitation. No solution seems to be forthcoming in nearly two months of negotiations. Does anyone have any idea where we can go from here?

I purchased a timeshare from Blue Bay Getaway in Oct 2007 which included 5.6 million RCI points. The points allowed us to purchased airline tickets, car rentals hotels etc. in the RCI Points Partner Program. This was our primary incentive for the purchase. In June of this year and we were informed by RCI that a points restriction had been enforced and we could only use 60,000 points per year. This points use restriction ONLY applies to Blue Bay (actually called Premier Vacation Club) members. RCI members from other timeshares do not have this restriction.

As per RCI this was put in place because Blue Bay members use to many points! Of course this is because we purchased them to use! The 60,000 points limitation purchases almost nothing and with the amount of points sold to me by Premier it would take me 100 years to use my points! . So Basically we paid $20,000 for points that we will reap no benefit from. I don't understand how RCI can legally select one group of members to restrict and not others. We all pay same membership fees.

I have contacted Blue Bay and RCI. Blue Bay contends that this is not a breach of my contract and I beg to differ since they failed to disclose that RCI had the right to restrict the points usage. Especially considering it made the sale of the contract something useless. Blue Bay sold us a bag of nothing and they just blaim it on RCI and walk away! RCI contends that they can restrict the points at their leisure basically. I have filed a complaint with the Indiana Attorney General Dept. of Consumer Affairs and Profeco (Mexican Department of Conciliation Services for Foreign Residents). Where do I go from here?

I have paid Blue Bay almost $20,000 as of June when I stopped payments. I still owe them $5000 but now since I refuse to pay anymore I can not use my bonus weeks to visit the resort or any of my points (not even the 60,000 a year) as if that would help. I was planning to return in Oct. this year but now we can't. I also paid their rental agency $299 for a lifetime rental service of my bonus weeks. I understand that agency is defunct and was offered a refund but never received it either! I am out a lot of money and now can no longer afford the vacations I thought I would enjoy in my retirement.

I purchased a timeshare solely for the Points Partners Program to exchange points for airfare. I used it once to Mexico. Then I started checking on flights to Africa and Israel. For 2 years I was told they did not allow points usage to the middle east. Now they have changed their services to prevent you from using any more than 60,000 points - which makes a trip outside the U.S. impossible. I've tried writing to my elected officials, RCI, my timeshare resort, the SEC and have not received even a response from them. What is there left for anyone to do to find some justice. Isn't it law that they must perform their part of the contract?

One year ago I managed some how to echange points for 2 airfares to Israel for my husband and I for October 2008. My intentions were to go back in June and get the 3rd fare for my daughter and then explore hotels etc. When I went back to RCI.com in June I found that I was locked out of my account. The account I pay a membership fee for. I called and talked to several people over several days and kept being told that my home resort and RCI were having problems. Today there is still no resolve and I can't get a answer from either party. So now I have to airfares to Israel and can't use my points to get my daughter a flight or any hotel rooms. Yes, a ruined dream to see Israel.

I traded a week of my time share that I deposited. The room I deposited was supposed to accomadate a famly of 4. I was given a room in the ghetto in Hawaii at a dump hotel and my two children and I were woken by prostitutes yelling at men coming from m the bar downstairs. I begged RCI to move me several times into a better location but they kept telling me they could not move me. I finally rented a room at the Sheraton that cost 300.00 because they refused to give me a hotel that was not in the slum.

They offered me a hotel directly behind the hotel I was in and one that was one block away and told me these were my only options. I repeatedly told them I could not stayb somewhere I did not feel safe with my children. They put me up in the red light district in a hotel with a security guard.

The lady at the reception told me she did not blame me for not wanting to stay in the Kuhio Banyan because teenagers had beaten a male turist to death in front of that hotel. The Kuhio Banyan club did not have a separate bed for my 16 year old son and he had to sleep on the couch. The only bed in the room was a bed that pulls out from the wall. The room smelled disgusting, it was dirty, there was no way to open a window to let in fresh air and there was a seedy bar and a tatoo parlor down stairs from me.

The hotel did not have a parking garage but offered to allow me to park my rental car in a garage nearby for 18.00 per night. I was forced to run from my car in the parking garage with my two children to try to get my kids to saftey that evening. RCI was no help, one of the customer service representatives I called for help tried to get me to bank more weeks for more money instead of helping me deal with my emergency. I was not given anything close to amenities of my timeshare week I gave up. The hotel was nasty, the area was bad.

After the second night, I stayed at the Sheraton in Wikiki. I was not prepared to stay at other hotels and could not afford to rent another one. It cost me 199.00 to deposit my week with my hotel, 164.00 to book with RCI, 300.00 to stay at the Sheraton and I was ultamitly left scared, in a seedy hotel in a bad part of town. I feel that the money I spent on airline tickets to stay at a resort shoul be refunded. The hotel I was given looked like some place a fugitive running from the law would stay at. My airline tickets were over 1500.00 for me and my children. We expected at minimum a nice hotel if RCI could not find a resort.

My girlfriend and I went down to a resort where we had to sit through a time share presentation for RCI. At first the representative, Lydia appeared friendly and easy going. She told us that there would be no pressure to purchase. All of that changed when she suddenly found a plan that fits our budget and pressured my girlfriend to buy the timeshare. She offered us a $225 annual maintenance fee, which she claimed was the lowest they have seen in years! She even offered to waive it the first two years, and gave us a bonus 10,000 points.

At first, the sales representative asked us to fill out a questionnaire about our travel and based on the information we added, Lydia admitted that we do not travel that much and possibly do not need timeshares. So why did she even proceed on to feed us the presentation garbage?

Like most of the other consumers, we were told that we could travel anywhere in the world and stay at 5 star hotels and all we had to pay was the exchange fee. We were also informed that if we book our reservations in 45 days or less, we could use significantly less points.

So how did we know this was a scam...1)they wanted you to make a decision on the spot, without even allowing you to do research before you make your decision, 2)When we asked for a business card, we were told they aren't provided with any, and do no business after the offer is declined, 3) At first the saleswoman knew timeshares weren't for us, even went as far as admitting it, and she still proceeded to find a package to fit our lifestyle. Thank God we didn't fall for the scam, and after reading this website reassures our decision. Good luck to all you RCI customers!

As a result, I had to send my employee home crying in the middle of the day. Her confidence working with my company has been shaken. I personally have spent all morning on this trying to get it resolved costing my company hundreds of dollars. I expect to also have to deal with the aftermath of R.C.I.'s assault, in which I can not even begin to put an expected dollar amount on.

I am a recent new member with RCI and live in North Dakota. Finally getting my membership card I started looking for a resort within driving range for this year. No resorts at all in my home state. Second choice in Minnesota are all booked until this winter (like, I like swiming at 30 below). So, as planning a trip to Texas in August, looked there.

I was shocked to discover about the only thing available are run down delapitated resorts in the middle of no where. I also found that while it cost me points plus a $164 reservation fee, that the same resorts and rooms are offered for just a few dollars more and without points by RCI. The resorts themselves are dirt cheap because no one wants them. Nor do I see the need for a $164 reservation fee. I know of no hotel chain in the world that would make such an outlandish fee. It appears RCI is just into a big scam. Although I have noticed a few resorts available that I could travel to so I can actually make use of my RCI points now and then.

I own points with RCI which is a timeshare scam. I had two bonus weeks because of the points I have with RCI. I gave these bonus weeks to my niece for her use.These bonus points or gift certificates usually have an exchange fee attached which should never be more than $199.00.

My niece booked two studio apartments at Ormond beach since they were going with another couple. When I made the arrangements I was told they would have beachfront views. RCI charged my niece and the other couple $529.00 each, no ocean front view and to make matters worse the couples were on different floors and one was without a balcony at all.

My niece called very upset after driving 10 hours, she talked to a supervisor named Jason who told her because they were using bonus weeks they were considered low on the totem pole!!!! He told her there was nothing he could do except offer her to move to Orland which of course is inland!!! What would the point be?? He then told her there was nothing else available and she would have to chalk it up, there would be no refund or a discount on their over priced exchange fee.

My niece then talked to a manager of the resort and she apologized explaining RCI had caused these problems in the past but she would see what she could do. The next day, Jason called my niece on her cell phone and again said there was nothing else available. While my niece was talking to him, the front desk of the resort had her paged at poolside, she walked to the front desk and the young lady behind the desk offered her a two bedroom unit with a balcony so the couples could at least enjoy their vacation.Jason from RCI had no explanation as to how she could arrange this since he was of no use at all. RCI owes my niece and her friends at least $300.00 each since the exchange fee was exagerated.

Almost ruined their vacation, the impact of being told they were considered low on the totem pole because they were using bonus weeks/gift certificates, and out of pocket expenses of $300.00 per couple for the breach of contract concerning the exchange fee that should have been $199.00 per couple.

RCI had advertised on their points version of their website that you were able to redeem your points for discounted Disneyworld Tickets. So we booked our vacation, using our weeks, my mom went to her home club Royal Holiday and asked to have her points deposited into RCI. RCI now claims that they never received the deposit, even though she has a confirmation number from Royal Holiday stating this was done. Later when we called to arrange to purchase discount DisneyWorld tickets, they claim that they are no longer letting members use their points to purchase tickets.

We budgeted our trip based on information from RCI and the ability to use the points to purchase Disneyworld tickets. We were looking at saving 50% of the cost of the tickets for a family of 5. We are at the point that we will not be able to afford this trip, we will be out of the $169 booking fee RCI charges, and $2800 in airline fees, because of this scam.......... Not to mention dissappointing our children. They claim they stopped doing this as of June 17, 2008, but there was never a notice sent to members. I thought there is supposed to be a 30 day notification when a service is discontinued?

Instead of receiving a yearly subscription of points, I received the equivelant of 25 years worth of points up front, this worked out at approx 8.4 million points. The points sit in the Temptation resort bank until I want to transfer enough of them across to RCI to book my yearly requirements such as extra vacations or flights, car rentals, hotels etc.

Today I still have 289,000 points sitting with RCI. I tried to get on the RCI website today and couldn't, I phoned for technical assistance and was told that I have no access rights to the website because the Temptation Resort has pulled their membership but that I can still phone RCI for bookings, I paid RCI $135 for my yearly membership and now I have no access rights.

Unfortunately that wasn't the worst, I phoned the rep at RCI Points Plus, to use my some of my points to book a hotel in Niagara Falls for my 25th wedding anniversary and was told that there was a newly introduced "Yearly" limit on the number of points available to be used on the Points Plus program, it is 60,000 point in a calendar year and by using approx 440,000 points back in February I have exceeded my total for the year. To put 60,000 points in perspective, that will get you one return flight to Las Vegas from Toronto, Canada.

Until I talk to The Temptation Resort & Spa, in Cancun, I don't hold them responcible for the 2nd part of this complaint. It is RCI that have caused this nightmare.

I booked my vacation, and I deposited my week with them. They booked me in a St Thomas DUMP. Rats, mice, extra fees rated one star, I didn't know it until after it was booked. I did a research on trip advisor and found out it was rated 1 star. The when I filed a complaint the guy made it seem that I was at fault because I had canceled in the past! What does that have to do with NOW and my recent booking??? They have an extra week talked me into renewing for two years.

$199 exchange fee---my Miami time share, plus the renewal fee 229. I am out $430 dollars plus my $1400 2 week time share! I'm hiring an attorney.

My husband and myself are world travellers and because we like to spend the summer at home and go further afield in the winter (Cape Town etc..) we decided to buy some RCI points. We were promised they have top class facilities world wide and that because we would want them out of season it should not be a problem. Not so, every time we have tried to book somewhere we are told it is not available even if we give a variety of dates. Needless to say we have never really used this so call service and it has cost us in the region of 10,000 since we purchased them 4 years ago. So beware they cannot give what they say and the accomodation on offer is totally substandard and the hidden costs are astronomical whether you use the points or not. I could go on about the way we have been treated but it is too upsetting and we just want a way out of this as they have us trapped at every turn.

I put my timeshare into space bank. I wanted to make an exchange and RCI told me I have only 3 days to make an exchange but they can't do it because our RCI membership will be up in 3 days. I say I should be able to make the exchange now before my 3 days are up. In other words they just stole my week...a week that I had to pay $480.00 mat fees plus the extra cost of putting it into space bank.They need to be investicated. Lost our hard earn money

My wife and I went to meet with Matt from RCI. We were invited to purchase a time share and we declined. They then sent over another representitive and when that didin't work they then sent over another reresentitive. It would have been funny if so many people weren't being ripped-off! We chose to leave without purchasing a thing, Thank Goodness! Thank you for saving us.

If it weren't for your comments we might have considered doing business with them in the near future. I also wanted to mention that as they handed us our parting gift and then they practically shoved us out the back door This must be what they are like just as soon as they have your money! Good Luck to all of you that have had the bad experience of doing business with them.

Nothing, other than our time so far!

For numerous years we have owned timeshare and trade through RCI. We are most of the time able to get a swap in an out of season period. We are NEVER able to get a swap in season. But when speaking to an RCI representative and looking on their website, they are able to give us a week at a charge. They are taking our weeks and charging for them and not depositing them for someone else to use. This is illegal and an absolute rip off. We are also contacting Watchdog UK as it is about time something is done about the RCI scam.

RCI are costing us a fortune and are providing no service. They are trying to sell off our timeshare weeks when they should be trading them. PLEASE PLEASE help, there are so many consumer complaint.

I have 48,000 points with RCI points and cannot use them. I am told that to use them, I must renew my membership. I am told that in the membership agreement I must have an active membership to utilize points but nothing was ever received to that effect. I have lost all patience with RCI and even if I do not receive any compensation for these points, I have no intention of ever doing business with RCI again and have no problem informing people that I have never received similar compensation from RCI for any exchanged stay. Doubt that I have any grounds here, but I intend to file a complaint with attorney general of Indiana anyway. Thank you.

Lost value equal to $480.00. RCI bases its points at .01 per point.

My husband and I bought a time share around 1994 at Morritts Tortuga Beach Club in Grand Cayman. It was very expensive at the time, and we were told that we were guaranteed a comparable or better 2BR penthouse wherever we traded. We have gone on several trips and usually the accommodations are not as nice. This last one was the worst ever. The room was a 2 bedroom without a balcony, no view except a dirt lot with trash on it, hardly any sunlight, all concrete, smelled musty, the furniture was from the '70s. We were appalled to say the least. We had to spend the first two days of our only 7-day vacation getting other accommodations.

This is an outrage; they misrepresent the program, making false promises, making everything seem so wonderful. But, the reality is nasty operators, required time share meetings that take up almost a whole day, and then they get mad if you don't buy, even though they were told up front that you aren't interested. They asked an old woman for her credit card number and wanted to sell her a short term time share since she was older. They are CROOKS and WE DEFINITELY NEED A CLASS ACTION LAW SUIT! PLEASE, CONSUMER AFFAIRS, DO SOMETHING. THERE ARE SO MANY UNHAPPY RCI CUSTOMERS.

We paid $15,000.00 for a time share that has not lived up to its promises. We were told that if we change our mind, it would be easy to sell, and that's not the case. The fact is that this company is nothing more than an organized scam. They misrepresent their company, their promises, and, the rooms that they show on line are NOT the rooms that you will get.

RCI is a SCAM and are thieves! I was in Las Vegas, and I had an offer to get free tickets in exchange to spend 2 hours and listen about a timeshare of RCI! They talked me into buying a timeshare and told me I have 5 working days to cancel the contract buy the law - state if Nevada. I canceled the contract in 3 days! AND in a month I got a statement from Bank of America. It says I OWE to the bank $2300! ALL this money went to RCI! Now I'm trying to fix this problem! But officially, I owe $2300 which I have never seen in my life - RCI has it ! THIEVES! I hate RCI! I DO NOT recommend to anyone this BAD company! If I were rich I would sue them for big money because of the money they stole from me and took from my account at Bank of America! RCI: BAD! THIEVES!

So far I owe $2300 to Bank of America. RCI got this money using my NAME! I wish I can have an attorney to help, but I cannot afford it now. I feel so bad!

My wife and I attended the presentation as required whilst on a promotion vacation in Tenerife, and after 2 1/2 hours of listening to the salesman we refused his offer to trade our week with Seasons for a week at the Palm Beach Club Tenerife. We told Mark we had spent 2 1/2 hours listening to him and had heard enough and wanted to return to our three daughters. He told me to sit down three times, very abruptly, because he could make the presentation last 9 hours if he wanted to, and if I didn't sit down I would regret it. My wife and I walked out on a very rude and aggressive salesman.

We were told that transfers to and from the airport were included in the package, but when we went for our taxi vouchers for the return flight home we were told the vouchers were issued only if we had done a deal. We only paid 46 euros for the taxis to the airport, but the threat of "you will regret it" from the salesman has left its mark.We also paid 755.00 for flights, 99.00 for the apartment, 69.00 parking fee at airport and 120.00 euros for car hire.

We have to deposit our timeshare weeks with RCI in order to exchange them. For this we pay an $85 annual fee. However, when you put in a vacation request there are rarely any available resorts. But then they offer you the cash vacations. Lo and behold, the week we were requesting was available at a resort in the desired area. However this would cost us between $800 and $900. When I asked how there could be an available week through this cash program when it wasn't available for an exchange even though the resort was in the RCI exchange book they stated they were late cancellations. When I pointed out that they weren't late cancellations since the week in question was still almost 7 months away they stated that RCI had rented out many accomodations and then wanted to sell them back to people at these exorbitant rates. I feel this is unfair since we have already purchased timeshare weeks for a considerable amount, we pay $700 in maintenance fees per year, we pay $85 per year to RCI to exchange what we own and if we do manage to make an exchange we pay $150 exchange fee on top of the $50 housekeeping fee at our home resort and then RCI buys up everything so it is not available for us to use and try to sell it back to us for an exorbitant fee. I'm really disgusted.

We are unable to use all our weeks because of the difficulty in exchanging due to RCI renting up available exchange accomodations. So in addition to the $10,000 purchase price and the annual $700 maintenance fee and the $85 annual fee to RCI for the privilege of exchanging we are paying way too much money for a vacation we are not having!

I've been an RCI member since 1998. I was initially very impressed with the ease of use of the system and how I could almost always find an acceptable exchange. In the past few years I'm finding RCI outsourcing calls to other countries, particularly to Manila where there are language barriers and other barriers created by the lack of knowledge of U.S. geography. For example, about three years ago I requested an exchange for Sedona, AZ and I was contacted by an RCI rep from Manila several weeks into my search. He offered a beautiful property located in Orlando, FL over three weeks off the time I was seeking in Sedona! When I told him this was out of the ballpark he then offered something in the D.C. area! I complained to an RCI supervisor in Indianapolis and when I mentioned the problems I was having with the language barriers and lack of geographical knowledge in the U.S. I was told that my racist comments would not be tolerated! What in the world is racist over expressing problems with lack of communication and a lack of geographical knowledge?

In the past two years I've noticed RCI calling to push me to deposit my resort weeks so far out that my resort won't even make them available for deposit even if I was ready to deposit. I've also noticed RCI guides telling me right up front that my exchange is not going to work and that I need to look into an instant escape or something similar before all inventory is gone. Most recently I called in mid-October and requested a trade for either Kauai or Kona nine months in advance. This was for my honeymoon and I really wanted everything to be special. Right up front I was told that the trade would likely not happen and that I needed to look into an instant escape to ensure I'd have somewhere to stay on my honeymoon. Over the next month or so nothing happened, but at the end of December I got a call from RCI indicating there would we quite a few weeks getting deposited at the end of the year and that something would likely materialize for a trade.

Instead of getting calls for trades, I got calls trying to push instant escapes. One was in Kona and after I turned that one away, something suddenly came up for Kauai. I was just about to accept until I learned it was also an instant escape and the time it was to be booked for was four weeks prior to my honeymoon! Obviously that was canceled and today I had a message on my answering machine indicating RCI had found a match. I got excited and called only to find it was also a week for an instant escape. I then asked how my exchange was looking and the guide told me they had no record of my ever having placed an exchange request, despite the fact my credit card was charged with an exchange fee nearly five months earlier! I began to complain and the conversation rapidly became heated and she hung up. I called back and got a supervisor and after threatening legal action, I was suddenly accommodated with my desired exchange in Kauai during my requested time frame.

Bottom Line: RCI appears to be withholding our deposited weeks and instead is selling us Instant Escapes rather than accommodate our requests for trades. I think this is nothing more than fraud so RCI can line their pockets at their members' expense. I'm interested in getting a class action suit going.

We will have to spend over $3,000 for a hotel when we could have had an exchange.

I own a timeshare in Cancun and have enjoyed depositing my week with RCI and going elsewhere every year. In the last few years I've banked my weeks. Yet, when I went to try to book something, there doesn't seem to be anything left anywhere I would like to visit! I put a search in about 7-8 months in advance for a Caribbean beach vacation for my 40th and got only two RCI location options that seem to be in surplus, Mexico or Dominican Republic! That's it! Now, I've been to Mexico 5 times already! Aside form the fact that most of these places demand you participate in their outrageously priced all-inclusive program! I am now in my 8-9 month of searching, have pushed my vacation time even later, and still nothing! When I call RCI I've been told oh, all the retirees book the good places years in advance, people who own there (caribbean) hold on to their place and visit every year, if you want to go to Hawaii you have to reserve it about 2 years in advance. Well, I can get you a nice place in caribbean if you want to reserve now for next year! With the unpredictability of daily life with small children, how can I take advantage of this? I now have two paid weeks that are about to expire and two more weeks that I am hesitant to even pay for since it's a gamble as to whether I'll even be able to find anything!

This has been a waste of our money and time. We hardly have enough money to take a nice vacation and banked on using our timeshare. We now do not have the money we spent on our banked weeks, the vacation we had anticipated nor the option to use our paid weeks at the Cancun location we purchased at!

My wife and I are time share owners at the Canada House in Pompano Beach, Florida. We were RCI members. We have the 17th week at our time share which is in April. Every time we go to out time share, RCI sales people try to sell more time shares or their new point system. In 2005 we bought in to the point system because of all the promise that RCI stated. In 2006, we traded our timeshare for a timeshare week in Orlando with our daughter and granddaughter. Under the old contract before the Point System, you just had to pay $400 or $500 fee to exchange time shares. We found out that we do not own enough Points to do anything with them. We had to pay out several thousand dollars to exchange time shares even with our points.

In 2007 we banked our time with our timeshare to double our points. In January 2008, we contacted Canida House that we will be coming down on our week there. We later receied a call from Canada House that since we were now on the Point System that we had to book our time with RCI. The supervisor at Canada House told me that a family who owns a time share there had traveled down there on their regular time to find out that RCI had already rented their time share out. They were turned away. I bet they had to spend a large amount of money to stay somewhere ealse. We contacted RCI and was told our regular time share time was rented already by them, RCI. I was a very upset and so was my wife. We were never notified that RCI rented out our time share and that they could do that without our permission. We also found out that if we were going to stay at our time share, we would have to notify them in advance by 13 months! I don't know about other people, but we never know if we could take off work 13 months in advance. My wife's place of work requires you to sumit the vaction week you want off. You do not know for sure if you will get it untill February 1st. 13 months advance notice?..Get Real!

After calling RCI several times about wanting to be at our time share, they said that they didn't have anything in April open and that we would have go to Canada House in June but for additional cost plus our point of a few hundred dollars. I was on the phone with the supervisior and was able to get them to waive the fee, but we may still have to pay a house keeping fee which we had already did for April. This fee would be a new fee. I did contact the Florida Attourney General about the RCI practice and the misrepution of the Point System. We will be getting off the Point System, It's just another Florida rip off. I am a retired person over 60 with a wife who still works. This is a total rup off. Don't be fooled about the Point System. It is switch an bait and you are not told up front your rights with the point system. I did not recieve the paper work for our records when we sign up for the point system.

January 22, 2008 RCI 9998 North Michigan Road Carmel, IN 46032 I am very dissatisfied with the point system. I believe the point system was mis-represented. Had I known at the time that I would have to pay a transfer fee for my own resort, I never would have purchased this point system. I thought I was purchasing the ability to travel around the world for a transfer fee. At the time of purchase I informed the sales rep that I already had lifetime RCI through Sunterra. The rep instructed me to wait on the free trial period, then call RCI to get the resorts combined. Well, to my surprise when I called to confirm that my rooms would be in the same vicinity, I was told that I had to pay RCI $124 or my reservations would be canceled. At that point I had no choice but to pay via credit card. What a scam! When I called RCI I was told that I could not combine Resorts because they are separate (more lies). Then I find out that my family cannot check in unless I check them in or purchase a gift coupon that cost $49 per room. They had to wait several hours before I arrived. Another scam!

Secondly, I have a hard time getting reservations when I want them. We rarely get to Summer Bay, and that's because I cant seem to get reservations. I was lucky to get the December-January time. But what a rip off and disappointment it was. We weren't even able to enjoy ourselves because of these problems with having to pay extra money to stay at my home resort. How do I get out of this point system and get my $6,000 back? This has been a continuous loss of money.

I am a timeshare owner in a prime resort in Orlando, Fla. My maintenance has been $800 plus/yr over the past 4 yrs, but this year it is $941. Over the past 4 yrs I have banked two weeks with RCI on the premise that I could use these weeks at any affiliated resort in the world when it was convenient for me. I have called RCI at least 5 times over the past year to try to use one of my weeks for a vacation. Different times, different locations and they did not have anything for me. They did ask me to give them money to be in a continuous search, but number one, that should be a service they provide without a fee and two, I am not in a position to hope that they will find me something in a week or two. I have a high pressure job and need to make decisions about vacations in a timely fashion. I have just lost one of my banked weeks, money down the drain, not too mention the aggravation and the calls looking for more money to extend my time to use the week. I am so dissappointed with the service. I cannot pour more money into the hopes of them being able to get me a vacation that works. I will also lose my 2nd week if I don't subscribe to the service. It looks like I am out of pocket for $2000 plus at the present point in time, and RCI have benefitted by having a very usable commodity which I provided them with. Can anyone help me?

I traded a large 1 bedroom unit in a lovely resort in Idaho for a glorified motel in Indian Wells, CA. The unit was supposed to be a 1 bedroom, but the 150 square foot unit was actually a part of a converted 60 year old motel which was touted as a timeshare. RCI is a rip-off to exchange such trashy units as timeshares. The exchange cost $195 and the unit was substandard to what I was exchanging. We left early, staying only 2 out of 7 days.

My husband and I have bought from RCI in Florida a timeshare weeks in Weston Vacantion Village. As we have not been able to use them we have banked them with RCI Europe with the attention to exchange them latter. Before two months I have requested from RCI Europe to use my exchanged weeks and as it would have been our first time to do so I have asked the RCI staff to choose a romantic and exotic two weeks holiday for us. The person I have spoken to on the phone was very kind and have offered Lifestyle Penthouse &Spa in Puerto Plata Dominican Republic. He asked me about the time We want to be there and I considering our time off booked two weeks in August 2008. I also paid about 300 sterling lira for the exchange.

Two weeks later I have received the confirmation letter with all the details and start looking to find more information about the Dominican Republic and the place we were going to.I found one for me scary fact that July,Augudt and September are the seasons that hurricanes may occur and due to the fact that the last we wanted is to get there in that time I have again contacted RCI Europe to request different time for our holliday. First I have been told that in the Dominican Republic never have ocurre horricanes.

I have sent the website specialy prepared to guide turists and the climat info there and when they have seen it told me it was my foulth I haven't checked about the weather before agree on the exchange. They also have told me that if I want to rebook for different time I have to pay again 300 fee. I do agree that yes it was a bad idea to not choose and check in advance most of the details but also refusing to change our holliday and rebook it in different time even I have asked ( 8 months in advance) If you are looking for safety do not deal with RCI. I will never do it again.

We will obviously loose 300 liras and will end up with no holliday arrangements.Safety for customers is not looked properly + no flexibility in exchanging weeks is not a rule with RCI Europe

My husband and I own week 47 at Orange Lake. We have a child in school so we cannot always take week 47. We sometimes need to go a week earlier. So this year was one of those years. We pay for a 2bedroom, 2 bathroom condo. This year they want to give us a studio, 430 square feet. Part of the vacation excitement for our child is her own bedroom, bathroom and tv. Now we have 1 bed and a sleeper sofa. I called RCI to see if I could upgrade, they have nothing available. We pay our maintenance fees and are still paying for our week we bought 5 years ago. I think we should get what we pay for every year.

We purchased a timeshare in Las Vegas two years ago. We have tried numerous times to book vacations only to be told nothing is available when we wanted to go. We then asked them to tell us what was available anywhere on the east coast and we were told again that they had nothing to acommodate us. I find it very hard to believe that absolutely nothing was open for the entire summer anywhere on the east coast, we did pay for this service and were expecting to get to take our family on a vacation.

We had promised our children that we would take a family vacation and we did but we had to pay at the regular rates for a hotel room on the beach. We never did get to use our promised week and it is not looking promising for next year. What a waste of money every month. Also the customer service representatives are so rude and unwilling to help. Are they trained to just say nothing is available

Every month that we have to make our payment it feels like the biggest waste of money and we certainly could be putting that money to better use than a timeshare we will obviously never be able to use. I have looked into how to sell a timeshare and that is depressing also, it is apparently not an easy thing to unload. My husband and I feel as if we have been taken advantage of and lied to. Maybe we should have been smarter than to do this but it all seems so legitimate and easy to use. We thought it would be so easy and convenient, they do make it sound that way in the office under all that pressure. We are much smarter now and we would not recommend this to ANYONE!!!!!

My week is held hostage / stolen. We areowners at Orange Lake in Fl. We simply wanted an exchange of a week in Orange lake. After clear request of a three bedroom exchange they went ahead an exchaged it for a two bedroom. When this was cancelled they said our week was already given away to someone else. Bait and switch then held hostage.After tellin a supervisor to disolve my relationship with RCI I was hung up on by a Sandy 3 times. She is a suposed customer representative.

I am now stuck in limbo. I have no vacation week and they will not release my week from this so called bank. This is really a holding cell for a hostage, your vcation week. Stay away from these people. You can call any time share to work out an exchange. You dont need them and you dont have to pay a fee. Signed vacationless in 08'.

There is much frustration and now heart ache for the children. As of now we have no vacation in 08' and they not only took our fee for exchange we are out the initiation fee to join. It is a lose-lose situation. Signed taken for a ride.

We also had a bad experience with RCI. We deposited our week at a Whistler Vacation Club at Twin Peaks two years ago and requested an exchange for Southern California for this year. As others have experienced, nothing came through so we had to book a hotel. We then asked for a week on the Oregon or Washington coast (someplace we could drive to) and again, nothing was available. To avoid losing our week we expanded our search to include Reno/Tahoe and were finally able to get a space at Olympic Village Inn - A great place but much smaller than what we traded.

Rumor has it that RCI makes more money renting property that people deposit than the $169 they get for an exchange fee so they rent their prime properties. We were considering selling our time share at Whistler and then realized it's RCI that we had problems with.

From now on we will trade through someone like Platnum Interchange, Interval International, Trading Places International, Maui Time Share Exchange, or San Fransisco Exchange.

It cost us $1300 for 2 rooms near Disneyland for a week stay.

WE have had a timeshare which has been giving us problems for many years now. They promised when we bought it that we could go on vacations anywhere we wanted and could sell it anytime. They said it was investment property. So we did. We bought some. Well, now we come to find out that this is nothing more than a vacation hotel room and it is not property as they said, it is really a scheme for them to get rich and us to lose everything. Now we may.

In April of this year, we received notice through a telephone inquiry we made, (no one ever sent we owners anything in writing that anything was wrong), that the company and hotel we knew as Brigatine Beach Resort Club has gone bankrupt, another company bought it, and they are renovating the place. We only found out about all of this because we recently recieved a bill for over 1000.00 and it said that if we didn't pay this outragous assessment fee by July 1, they were just taking our property back without any compensation to us! We will lose everything we have paid for, all of our deeded and rightfully ours timeshares will just be gone and taken from us!

We feel this is outright extortion and since we are not the only ones involved in this, there are hundreds of people involved, see partial article below, this may be criminal activity that needs to be investigated! Meanwhile, there should be a cease and decist all requests for funding from owners in the form of bills sent with threatening notices so this can be sorted out by you kind and knowledgable people. WE are on fixed income and cannot afford to pay what they ask of us! We don't want to lose all of the over 40.000 dollars we have invested over the years in these timeshares. Please help us! Time is running out and if we don't get resolution of this or at least an extension of deadline somehow, we will lose all of it! This company has told us they will just take it from us!

The staff are utterly appaling. rude and arrogant. They never reply to any e mail you send them complaining about the standard of service. I have never in a million years had to deal with such utter crap service in all my life.

We have been searching for a summer holiday (July 2007) since last year and as usual nothing appears. You end up having to pay for package holidays, which is not the reason why we bought timeshares.

I seriously think something should be done about this Company, they need to be brought to task by a consumer expert as their service is appaling.

This is a serious problem for many thousands of people. They take your money but do not come up with the goods.

The bottom line is you can never never never get the holiday of your choice as there are never available.

I think they must rent out the weeks are make more money.

An absolute rip-off and scam.

The consequences are simple: You pay RCI for an exchange fee, and THEY derive the income and benefit from YOUR timeshare, not YOU !!!!

My daughter has post-anoxia Encephalonathy from a heart arrest several weeks ago. this is a brain injury that makes her really tired and also affects how she processes information. She had possession of her debit card because she has been paying the copays for her therapy as part of the therapy to get her back to her baseline. She called Summer Bay Resorts to get some information from them and she thought from their ad that she was registering for a free vacation package.

She was asked for her debit card information because they needed it to verify that she was over 18. She asked them if they were going to charge it and was told no. but at the end of the call, she kind of realized that something else was going on, and asked again if they were charging her card, and was told she would be making payments. She didn't quite understand how all this happened, so asked to talk to a supervisor. She was told if she didn't want the package, she could have a refund, so she said this was what she wanted.

Two days later I noticed the charges against her account - pretty much wiping out all the money she has in her account. Money for paying her medical bills. I called the number listed on her bank account and talked to three different people. the last one, Mark, a supervisor, said he would credit back the $298 payment and keep further payments from posting against her account. But that they were keeping the $50. I asked what the $50 was for, and he said for the package that we could sell it on ebay, etc. But he couldn't explain to me what anyone would be buying. He told me that the only way he would stop payment of the $298 was to accept this deal.

This is so bogus. I can't believe this company is still around. There must be a lot of complaints against them. I will add mine to the rest. And I will take further action. First, I took my daughters debit card away from her so this can't happen again.

I have not worked for three months while taking care of my daughter. My daughter has not worked. We are surviving on a little disability that she gets and the kindness of friends at church. This is financially devestating to us. They don't care what our family is going through, that there is no chance my daughter will even be able to travel that far for some time to even use the package - the small amount of money this is means nothing to them yet they want it. It is 5 copays for us for therapy. It means we have to go short on food or something else.

My advice to consumers is this: only buy a timeshare if you want to go there every year, and you love the resort. With RCI, you must first deposit your week in order to acertain exchange availability. So, you end up risking a trade for a much lesser unit at a less desirable location and dates, and still get to pay RCI dues and an exchange fee!

I think that timeshares can be a reasonably good deal if you try to get the very best price - look for resales on the Internet - but only again if you want to always stay where you own.

Consequences to me have been mainly a huge waste of time. We had factored in our other two bonus weeks as defraying the cost, but may not be able to use one of them, and certainly won't use the second one as I'm afraid to deposit my owner week again.

As a Meadowlakes Timeshare owner, I an also a member of RCI. Points are allocated based upon the size unit you purchased. RCI advertises various exchanges for accomodations, flights, rental cars etc. The reality is the what ever serive I have tried to book, and no matter how far in advance, those services are never available.

Today I tried to book flights to visit my timeshare over Christmas next year. Already, there are no RCI Seats available to my home resort. I remind you that I am trying to book 11 months in advance. When I attempted to book the flights and rental car on line, it appeared as though the flights were available, and the rental car was not. I then called customer service for assistance as the screen options did not allow me to remove the rental car option and just book the flights.

When I finally got passed through to the person to book the flights, I was informed that there were none available. The supervisor I spoke with explained that there are many places smaller places where they don't service with airfare. And, I am trying to fly to my home resort.

The following text is cut directly from the RCI website.

RCI Points Partners Program

With RCI Points Partners Program, you can use your RCI Points for many other great travel-related products and services from airline tickets to car rentals and so much more. With so many choices, you can never have enough RCI Points!

Nowhere is there a discussion of limited availability. In my experience, nearly every attempt that I have made to use my points has resulted in lack of availibity, high surcharges when I readjust my plans to fit availability, and ultimately great frustration. RCI- the juice is not worth the squeeze. I believe that they falsely advertise the scope of their services.

I have spent over $3,000 a year on my time share, not including the $600 a year maintenance fees. What sold me in deciding to buy the timeshare was the flexibility that the RCI points offered. I am a military officer, and therefor move frequently. The very flexibility that was a sales point turns out to be false, and I an stuck with a timeshare in Montana that I cannot afford to visit now that I am assigned to Washington, DC.

While I have the points necessary to exchange for flight tickets, I cannot use them. The sales pitch and advertising provided regarding RCI is flatly false. I can only guess the financial loss that I will have when I attempt to sell this package. I'm guessing that I will see at about a $15,000 loss. And there is no compensation for the hours and hours of lost time on line and waiting on the phone trying to work through the process to use my points.