Westgate Reservations Reviews

To make matter worse, they sold my Planet Hollywood timeshare to Hilton Grand so we are treated like red headed stepchildren. Everything has to go through Hilton who does not care about us because we don't own from them. I hate Westgate and I promise out of all my days, this was the worse investment. Even after I own the property, I will still be paying 500 biyearly in maintenance fees and $140 in exchange fees just to spend 3-7 days in a resort. Do I have a witness that I can pay for this out of pocket and still come out better. This amount doesn't include our mortgage payments. (SMH.)

Attended the owners' party, swam in the water park, got a massage, and visited the city to eat and walk around. Found some good deals at the outlet mall and had a good dinner at a steakhouse. In June 2015, I booked a weekend in Vegas but ended up not being able to go, but getting the deal took some careful planning and patience. What you see online is not normally what is available so you have to call to see what's really available.

I have read many unhappy owner and prospective owners about their experience with Westgate but I can only say my dealings with them has been positive, all around. To take advantage of the deals requires lots of flexibility and patience. Yes, you can cancel within 24 hrs of booking a trip and it helps to have several places in mind, so you don't get discouraged when one falls through. I have a travel agent friend who's always trying to get me to buy one of his cruises or trips but he agrees that he cannot touch the prices that Westgate offers. Happy travels!

Then we can't afford it anymore. They started sending letters to us credit collectors phone calls. It's going foreclosure. When we try to explain how we can discuss to solve the solution coz my husband can't afford to pay anymore... they sent us letters and calls from credit collectors. It's really frustrating. All they need is money. Our money was wasted and we never used the timeshare even a single day. It's really sad. People are struggling with hardship while others scam people. Not good. We really don't know what to do. Please advice.

Needless to say, we were not allowed to rebook the remaining three days because it was from a previous year. But had that been possible, we would have been assessed a rebooking fee. Westgate staff has misrepresented over and over and over. In addition to the runaround on banking the three days, I turned in a long list of repairs needed in the unit. I would NOT recommend this timeshare to anyone, and would personally like to know if anyone is interested in joining me in a class action suit against Westgate.

My husband and I go away and return at 4:30 with our small dog. Our units are still not ready. We wait and wait exactly as in the reviews. An extremely nice young lady was acting as liaison between her manager and me. I asked if we could just have one of the units now and the other later and was again denied. Finally, a short overly friendly older lady named Cindy said she was our personal concierge. Extremely talkative on the ride to the top of the mountain and inside the villa until I refused to attend her so called meeting on Thursday or Friday. Immediate silence after a few confrontational sentences between us, she laid the check in packet down and left. By now it is 6 pm. We are exhausted. I picked up the dog and walked out of the room only to lock all of us out. I immediately asked security for help.

Approximately 40 minutes later and several request to housekeeping and security a very nice man came let us in and helped carry all of our luggage in. He was nicely compensated. Terrible experience!!! On Monday private Concierge Cindy calls to ask us to change our mind and meet with her. She continues to call everyday and on Friday, she rings our room 5 times to ask us to come. On return home she even left a message at our home. At 9 am today, a person of color swiped a card and opened our door to see me in my underwear. We had not checked out! I am very disappointed to learn that Westgate sales persons, now called Concierges, are going to harass me like this every time I try to spend a week in MY timeshare. I hate the time share presentations. I was told at the time of original purchase, I would never have to do one again.

Finally we were told the pool near our villa would be open on Monday as it did not pass inspection today. So very not true. We learned on Saturday the new pool had major problems which were confirmed by the pool contractors. The pool was under major repairs as we checked out a week later. My husband and I are well-educated professionals and we have been deceived. I cringe to think how others have been mistreated.

They did give us renovated units (bldg 5800) HOWEVER they were not the units that were shown to us and stayed in by us from the previous year. This upset my grandmother so much she ended up in the hospital for THREE DAYS because of the stress and lies that Westgate had told her she was getting and then come to find out it was a lie. Not mention when we asked about what's going on we get a different answer from everyone we talk to. Fast forward to this year, we staying in another "renovated" bldg (4000) but again that wasn't the renovated units we were promised. There's no stainless steel, it's not as spacious, no bar area, there's old cabinets and sofas (one has a rip that they think they gonna charge us for?!?! You kidding right?)

***BEWARE WHEN DEALING WITH WESTGATE*** Get everything in writing. They pressure you for hours until they get a yes. Meanwhile the billionaire owner is building the biggest house in America. Do get me started on the standard of living has gone wayyy down. The owner's bbq lunch and breakfast is pathetic. Constantly being cheap but they haggle more and more for money. Don't get me started on the newly built water park that they promised to my grandmother FOURTEEN YEARS AGO. Don't waste your money.

Every time I call I get transferred to 2/3 people if I'm lucky. No one seems to know what is going on. The cruise and travel part of Westgate that I purchased has been the best part. The guy I felt with has been very nice and honest. I took my family on a 8 day cruise and it all worked out great. I am now in the process of trying to sell my timeshare. I hope it works out. My husband and I have traveled 8 times since we have owned the timeshare and it was so difficult to use it I ended up booking our trips on my own. Crazy after paying so much money for a timeshare. They told so many lies!! Nothing they said was the truth. They supposedly taped the info they told us but who knows if they did or didn't.

Luckily I called again and fortunately a customer service by the name of Anthony and his manager Moira were so helpful and kind that to help me with modified my account... I thank both of them and still do not understand why Westgate would have as an account manager such a rude and unprofessional person representing them.

I wonder does Siegel care about his company? Because they are going to lose business if they continue to treat owners the way they do. I would rather cancel than give westgate another penny of my hard earn money. They are horrible and would never ever recommend anyone to purchase a timeshare with their company. There is better value for your money out there. I would also like to join in a class action suit if there is one. It is time that someone put a stop to their deceptive practices.

Heather lead us to believe that there were getaways which there are but explained by her incorrectly. We were told that we could use a getaway anytime. I could come back to Westgate any time I wanted and prices would go from 49.00 to 499.00 highest that we would have to pay. Well come to find out that is not true. It is if you go through Interval International and there is a list that you have to choose from. I can go back to Westgate if I want to pay approximately 3,000. We were told that we would get what we purchased. Well that not true also. We were given a good for interval and told we could choose a hotel from that book and go anytime. Also untrue.

The getaway is why we actually liked the timeshare. Unfortunately the person who sold us the timeshare Heather ** will not return our phone calls. I also called the Notary's office and have not heard back from her either. Were not sure where to turn. If they would just make it right and give us what we were told we wouldn't sell it but no one who has any authority will call us back. Actually Heather was not a salesperson. She works in the office. Anything you can do to help us would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

A class action can happen and would love to see it as I think they skirt the law and definitely wanna see a good high profile attorney go after them. I had cause back in 2008 could have sued their pants off but gave them a chance to make it right. Get everything in writing, verbal contracts or anything verbal will not hold up in court. I had mine in writing so I had them by the balls. But if you read this and with all the complaints it's cheaper to go on vacation in a hotel. If TripAdvisor has the timeshares avail without paying maintenance. That is def a BS charge. So buyer beware.

The 2 young managers beyond him were completely dismissive of the countless horrendous reviews... I explained that I have a type of job where I tick people off frequently and yet I don't have bad reviews, and all they could say is, "I bet you do." To top off the extremely high pressured sales pitch, we were insulted by one of the managers after I simply said, "I'd prefer to investigate further." He said, "There are renters and then there are owners" in a very demeaning and sarcastic tone. Now, being a landlord in previous years AND being an owner of my own home, cars, etc while challenging the 17% APR (current rates are in low 5's), I don't get exactly why he'd challenge my husband and myself with this type of comment. But ok. Westgate, you'll not have our business but thanks for the $100 and the 3.5 hour headache.

When we arrived to hotel we were assigned a Sales Rep that was absolutely out of her mind. She asked our daughter to throw away "her" food plate once she was done eating (extremely unprofessional). To make matters worse our sales rep took myself, my husband, two daughters, and infant son on a tour on one of the resort's assigned golf carts and she was darting in front of other golf carts and ran us into one of the resort's yellow hard concrete poles knocking it down and just kept going as if nothing happened. This is beyond the absolute worst experience I've encountered. The sales rep gave us a tragic story of her health and also informed us that Mr. Siegel the owner of Westgate Resorts was married to a young woman and they had just lost their 18 year old daughter to a drug overdose which prompted my 8 year old to automatically ask me what a drug overdose was!

To top this story off once we returned from golf cart tour as mad and upset as we were, we politely told the sales rep we were not interested and this tour was supposed to be 90 minutes long and turned out to be 3.5 hours long which made us have to cancel our water park day with our kids. She responded that the 90 min is just an estimate of time. Once we said no thank you she got up and had NOT ONE, BUT TWO different sales reps come and try to continuously pressure us into buying a timeshare. My family and I are traumatized by this experience. I would rather pay full price for theme park tickets than to ever step foot on a Westgate Resort. I wish this review could go to owner because he needs to know these employees of his are giving his company a horrible reputation.

We arrive at our hotel in Williamsburg VA @ 2:00 am, had been on the road since 4pm the evening before. We were killed & ready to lay down. No room, no reservations of any type at any hotel anywhere in Williamsburg nor anywhere else in the state of VA. The Days Inn employees were extremely nice, especially given the situation and we got a room with them, but did have to give up more credit card info (3x now) but they didn't debit it off our card until the next morning and gave us time to get it all lined out.

At 9 am promptly this morning, July 1, I looked online and looked up the very vacation we were promised and paid for and were told wasn't available. So I screen shot that, and send myself the link to that same vacation. Then I called Westgate to try and get our stay resolved so we can get out and enjoy this time in VA. The first sales rep I spoke to was very nice and was in the process of making us new arrangements and his "manager" stepped in, took the call from him, and proceeded to tell me there were no "tour" or "timeshare meetings" scheduled for this week and all that Westgate could do would've been talk to the staff at Days Inn Colonial and see if maybe they might give us a discounted room since Westgate couldn't do our timeshare meeting this week. Monday will be the first one we could get into, the rest were all booked up. We couldn't stay until Monday, my husband goes back to work Sunday night.

By the end of our conversation, he had already talked to me like a dog, ask me why I could not comprehend that they weren't going to give me the package they had already sold me, unless I have them my credit card info again and let them charge my card a third time. The card maxed out just after the 2nd booking. And I wasn't giving them anymore of my banking info. Anyhow, to sum it all up, we paid Westgate over $300.00 to stay 6 hours in Days Inn Williamsburg. They are supposed to be returning all the money to my cc, I guess we shall see. I will never again deal with Westgate, especially how the "customer service MANAGER" belittled us and talked to us. Even made fun of my KY accent.

I'm filing a claim with Better Business Bureau, calling Westgate headquarters, and probably will have to go to court to get our money refunded. I'll be taking all these steps as soon we get home. We are on the way home now (July 1, 2015) from this awful 1 day trip to Williamsburg VA from South East KY. I have sent a pic of the "deal" along with 2 of the confirmation numbers they gave us. They were supposed to have emailed all them to us, and it was like pulling teeth to get 1 of these 2. The first one I wrote down at the initial first reservation, the rest I was driving as could not write it down, the third I never got my email either, and the last was the confirmation saying we didn't owe them anymore money. Great deal Westgate, NOT. I hope that maybe one day we, the consumer, can shut down these money grubbing scammers. If anyone else would like to join a class action suit, I'm in! Thank you!

Once we returned from the tour he brought over his jerk of a closing manager that tried to identify with us because we came from Philly and he was supposedly born in the "ghetto" of Philly. We are both suburban living African Americans, he was white. Don't try to relate. When he explained it all down we still didn't want the place and he then turned into a forceful jerk, basically arguing with us and then throwing our lives back in our faces like that would make us buy sooner. Needless to say I was pissed and getting stressed and trying my hardest not to curse them both out! If I had to pick a place to say based on experience alone it would NEVER be Westgate.

We were also told that we had some kind of protection so that if one of us loses our job we wouldn't have to pay our mortgage for a year but we could pick up where we left off. Even with those too good to be true deals, we still didn't say yes yet. I asked the manager, **, what happens if we decide that we just don't want it anymore? He said, "just call the Owner Services number on the back of your Owner card and we will put your timeshare in a discounted inventory so that when other buyers want to purchase from us and can't afford the market rate, they can select from a different inventory just like we were able to do today." It sounded fair enough to me and my husband so we said yes. Our account number is **.

After we signed all of the documents, we got home and was able to thoroughly go through everything and we found out that we were lied to. I called the resort's sales department (865-430-4800) several times that week and was unable to contact anyone for days. It wasn't until exactly 11 days that I was able to reach the closer (** 865-209-8314 ext. **). He told us that we had 10 days to change our minds and that since it was one day past the 10 day mark, we were stuck.

I was upset. I was hurt. I was betrayed. We were sold the property with the belief that we would be able to call at any given time to resell with help from WestGate Resorts. We made a purchase under false pretenses and it is unfair. We did not pay anything out of pocket except for the time wasted with dealing with the company. Therefore the only thing we want to do is return this timeshare to WestGate. We are not asking for anything in return. We just don't want it anymore and we don't want it in our names. We shouldn't have been lied to.

In April of 2015, I get a call from a rep from Westgate named **. He told me that the company I purchased my original trips through had been bought out by a different company and that if I didn't "pay off" my trips, my account was going to go into "Default" and I was going to owe market value on them. He estimated this out to be close to $3000. I'm not sure how exactly he got my information, but he made it seem very convincing. I was frightened that I might have to pay the $3000, so he convinced me that if I paid $500 to his company, they would "buy my old package out" and add on to it with some new vacation packages. He made it seem like a great deal. I felt like I was backed into a corner, but at the potential prospect of having to owe $3000, I fell for it. I gave them my credit card information and waited.

The next day I got an email from my bank saying they detected fraudulent activity on the card that I had given them. That's when I started to get really suspicious. I immediately got online and googled Westgate scams and saw all of these comments. I told my bank to decline the payment, close my card, and reissue me a new card. I then proceeded to call my old vacation package company and they told me that everything Westgate had told me was a complete lie. My package was completely paid off, I didn't owe any extra money, and it was definitely not going into Default.

When ** called me the next day to ask me to release my credit card for payment since it "didn't go through on his end," I told him I wasn't going to do that. He then began to get very aggressive and threatened me that if I didn't buy their package, I was going to owe $3000. I told him I had spoken with my original company and caught him in his lie. He told me that my old company were the liars and that I needed to buy the Westgate package. I told him I was not going to and that they could cancel my "account" with them, he then proceeded to tell me that he was "going to put my bill for $3000 through" and hung up.

I cannot believe that this company is being allowed to operate. It seems that there are plenty of people here accounting stories that tell of their straight-up lies and bullying tactics. This company should be shut down for preying on people.

You take that 900 dollars plus, times that to 52 weeks that comes out to be well over 4,500 dollars a year between 52 owners for the same room. Multiply that to all the owners of a one week stay, at the same resort, it's astronomical. That will be a bill you'll have to pay annually, plus the increase. I have to say it was a mistake to get involved. Shy away before it eats you up... I stopped paying into the resort and have been receiving harassing phone calls daily and sometimes numerous calls a day. I want out completely!!!

She also told us we had to fill out the form a certain way, and if we didn't put down certain things, she wouldn't get paid so she pointed out the various things that had to be written the approved way. We came in the lobby, went over to a registration desk, gave our names and driver's licenses, they provided the form that had to be filled out a certain way as mentioned. After that, they said "sit down and someone will be with you soon", so a few minutes later a salesperson arrived, took us upstairs to a huge room filled with many tables and a bunch of victims I mean people working with salespeople in various stages of presentations. I would say there were at least 30 tables, and almost all of them were in use.

All the salespeople I saw with people as I walked by had a visual scribble diagram on the green paper, it was all very similar scribbled and divided into sections and house shaped scribbles with numbers and lines, I would learn more about the scribble/house/line/number art after the presentation started. Breakfast was typical breakfast at hotels, acceptable. They did have sausage, scrambled eggs, grits, some fruit, juice, soda. So I was thinking breakfast would be just me and my wife. Not exactly. The salesperson had an intro, we got breakfast sat back down, and then salesperson came back, talked for a minute, and set up an IPAD with a slide show of all the beautiful hotels they are connected to. As we wrapped up eating they came and sat down, I felt like they were watching us from a distance.

I have been in sales at various times over the last 20 years, so i'm familiar with sales tactics, so I was ready for them to hard sell me, the sales guy was being very relaxed. The Sales person started the presentation, and then paused, because someone with a microphone started introducing a couple that just bought a timeshare. Something like "HELLO EVERYONE!!! I WOULD LIKE TO INTRODUCE OUR LATEST TIME SHARE OWNERS!!!! MR and MRS ** FROM (SOME CITY) NEW YORK!!!" And everyone in the place stops and quickly robotically claps, including most of the victims at all the other tables. Our sales person continues and about a minute later someone next to us purchased a timeshare I saw the look on the victims faces, the guy looked sick to his stomach, but the female victim looked happy. Poor guy, I felt bad for him.

The announcement and clapping process felt like a RELIGIOUS CULT that required all its followers to clap on command. It happened about 5 times in an hour. This announcement process reminded me of the movie THE ISLAND, those who celebrate winning a trip to the Island, are actually winning a trip to die for a particular reason. I mentioned this to my sales guy, and he had never seen the movie. Our sales person continued, pimping their westgate system, explaining how flexible they are and how I can trade my time slot with other resorts.

They explained how Orlando is the NUMBER 1 HOT DESTINATION in their entire system so it is much desired and tradable and worth more than other destinations in trade value. They showed me a bar graph indicating ORLANDO is by far the 1# and the 2nd was at 75% of Orlando and even Hawaii was something like 3rd or 4th place. Hawaii was probably about 50% of the bar of Orlando. (wish I had the info but all paper sales info is kept from victims taking away. more on that later)

They also said they were one of the top sales people, and get 1 sale from every 4 victims they sales pitch to. That's 25% of all people making an instant huge purchase on a sales pitch, that figure saddened me for the 25% of all people going thru this process, of course they could be hyping their numbers for their ego, but after it was all done, I bet they are right!

Out comes the Green paper with my printed info. They flip it over and start asking questions about interest in a time share, drawing 3 lines, talking of issues and reasons people are interested in timeshares, more lines get drawn, a house gets drawn, they ask our vacation patterns and ask for totals of what we spend on trips each year. Then incorporates those numbers into the green sketch, and then breaks out a calculator with an app to figure out inflation of 7% over 30 years for all that I would spend in the next 30 years.

It came out to be about 100,000$ then they asked about my food purchases, that number gets crunched the same way, both get put down around the house sketch and both numbers get spun, by asking who gets all the hotel money wanting and waiting for us to say the hotel owners. Then they say RIGHT!!! There were lots of questions that are designed to make a victim feel smart and they reinforce how smart the victim is.

Then they say how would we like to hedge that money instead from inflation and put it into an investment. Hence the spin to the benefits of owning a time share, they assume we are going to go on a vacation every year for the next 30 years. The topic of maintenance costs come up, they said there's about a 750$ and a 160$ fee per year with various options to pay. I asked how often it increases, they said casually with confidence, it has only gone up "like 10$ in the last 7 years" they have owned one.

After this point the maintenance fees are not mentioned, instead the topic turns to trading the timeshare slot for other really cool places around the world. And the only costs mentioned are the exchange fees of either about 150$ or 180$ and that fee is mentioned with every destination so it's implied that's all you pay, but you still have to pay the almost 1000$ a year or more maintenance fees. At this point we ask how many days you get per year, they say 7, but if you trade off one day from your Orlando timeshare, they will give you a total of 12 days at other westgate system locations. They also mentioned the importance of owning a timeshare at the #1 DESIRED location in the world, Orlando. And when I want to trade for some other place, I would get priority because I would own a share in the (INSERT #1 TIMESHARE IN THE WORLD REFERENCE AGAIN) and it's a popular and high demand place, so easy to trade, and that's a huge benefit.

They also hyped improvements planned for the main location in Orlando (behind the golden corral) such as a new pool place. At this point the sales presentation has been going on for about 60 minutes, we get up to take a drive to the example rooms, first we pass by a huge computer screen showing supposedly how many people at that moment were actively trading their time share slot with another location around the world, it was very full and flipping fast, implying to the victim its so easy to trade your time for another location.

Then we are led like cattle to the slaughter through a slow walk through a room with pictures and maps showing many amazingly wonderful things about the company and how successful they are and the famous people around the world that are members or investors. Then after the room we are shown the theater room. The chairs are all the same and there's no slope in the floor so you have to sit up tall to make sure you see over the next chair if you want to see the bottom of the screen.

After that we go downstairs to get a golf cart, and wait for one, finally get in and head out. First visual is the older section of the property from the early 80s, sales person hypes how they all look modern and were recently renovated. Insert hype about how they keep all their properties up to date. First stop, a restaurant/bar on the property, the environment felt odd. The greet staff were friendly, but other staff looked serious or tired, the victims visiting the restraint varied, there were older and younger people, including a guy at the bar wearing a sports jersey watching the game drinking a beer. He hypes the convenience of having an onside bar, next we walk around the corner to a small convenience store with a pizza shop in the back, the place appeared older maybe from the 80s or 90s. There were 2 employees buying lunch from the pizza place.

As we walked down an isle, the salesperson opens an unmarked door, and we go in, IT'S A NICE DEMO HOTEL ROOM HIDDEN IN A CONVENIENCE STORE!!! LOLOLOL i'm wondering how much hookup action has this room seen by employees of this place, it's so private and unmarked and convenient. That's my opinion there's no evidence of it. Lol I have worked with employees over the years that would have used a room like that in a second! By now, we have hit the 90 minute time mark. (1.5 hours after breakfast)

So we leave the hookup convenience store (I seriously think that would be a possible name for it when they renovate) and ride toward an actual demo room in one of the main buildings. More questions from the salesperson that are only correctly answered if I was an owner, so they are wanting me to think like an owner (a common process on this presentation) we get to the first room and it is nice, looks well maintained and very large, including fake rose petals in the Jacuzzi water and free cookies. The other room we visited was very similar. So we slowly ride back to the main room where we started, it's slow so the salesperson can point out the mini golf and other benefits, with another question to get me to think like and answer like an owner. By now it's about the 2.5 hour mark.

The Salesperson would not discuss timeshare price until after we had seen the locations. So we get back and we set down at the same area as before, now there are only about 6 other victims with sales people scattered around the big room. Sales person leaves us for about 5 minutes and comes back with more paperwork. I ask for the price, they show me a laminated sheet showing 3 options, they had names I can't remember, one was a 3 bedroom for 35,000$ and the other 1 or 2 were either 2 bedrooms or a 2 bedroom and a 1 bedroom, I think they were just 2 versions of a 2 bedroom. The middle was about 25,000$ and the least was about 20,000. I commented someone was smoking crack when they came up with these prices. They ran some numbers including a TODAY ONLY discount of about 2,000$ and some other numbers including tax and title fees. I said it's still nuts.

Then salesperson leaves, and brings in the sales manager, they sit down, and say something like "How can we come to a deal?" I said These prices are nuts." It was presented to me another version of a 1 bedroom for something like 15,000$ I said nuts. It was also mentioned I could buy a foreclosure 2 bedroom for 12,000$ I said I wasn't interested, then they say we have a 1 bedroom foreclosure for about 9500$. They said "we will come back in a few minutes." At that point my wife was interested and started badgering me that I was just leading them on. We debated for a few minutes, then I said ok, i'll look up reviews on this place while sitting there, I started and found a bunch of complaints and horror stories, the salespeople must have realized it and come over shortly after I started searching, I pointed out all the negative reviews, they said people who aren't happy and don't understand the timeshare process get upset and post many bad things.

They said some high percentage of people LOVE their system. Then one of the sales guys looked up Trip advisor and showed me all the positive reviews, and said "See it's where you look." I know Trip advisor caters to the users of the building as hotel guests, not owners. So in the end over 3 hours later I said "I don't want to make a decision today, I would like to think about it." They said, "Right now is the time to get this great deal, and it's ONLY available today." If I turn it down I can never take advantage of the specials and the bonuses they offered like cruise points and savings points and some other hyped stuff.

So after the hard sell, they bring over another guy who is the closer of the process. He seems very laid back and casual, a comfortable guy. He says he understands my situation, 9 out of 10 people don't buy time shares on the first round. But he would offer me a try before I buy option for 279$ I could stay for 3 or 4 nights and if I like it, they will reserve the prices of the non foreclosures for 3 years. But to get that I had to buy a hotel package costing 279$. He did say that if I wanted to buy a timeshare after that, they would apply the 279$ to the cost of a timeshare. He also said owners get 3 meals per stay, I asked him "Is that 3 meals per day?" He repeated himself exactly 3 meals per stay. To a person confused, it would sound like 3 meals per day. So I said i'm still wanting to think about it. He said the only way to hold is to buy package. I said, "Ok, well it looks like I have to say no to this deal."

He reminded me there's no turning back once he stamps my paper no. I said I understand. Then he says ok, sounding sad like I just missed out on a deal of a lifetime. He directs me to the gift shop. I go to it and say who I am. The woman behind the counter thinking she's a comedian, refunds the 20$ deposit in cash I paid to me and gives my wife the 100$ in cash, then directs me to another woman who gives me the FREE GIFT. It's a free hotel stay with vacation of a lifetime www.vacationofalifetime.info 3 days 2 nights accommodations.

I got out to the car and started reading the fine print of this vacation of a lifetime, in it says in the rules #2 ACTIVATIONS/RESERVATIONS that the place giving me this certificate MUST FILL IN THE ISSUE DATE of giving me the certificate, so I went back into the westgate system gift shop to the woman and I said the above requirement, she replied they don't write in any date and I can put in whatever date I want. I read further and see it is for a timeshare presentation. I decide to rip it up and throw it away. I have looked over google, there's other people who post fearful examples of being swindled or other variants of the process. Even some owners of these timeshares that warn others to stay away. I hope this review helps people to not make a bad choice.

On Tuesday 3/10/15, I spoke w/ four different representatives regarding payment/reservations ask to speak to a supervisor - no return call again! I got progress in the customer service dept. On 3/10 at 5pm Pacific Time, I paid $378 for 3 days & 2 nights at The Westgate Flamingo in Las Vegas for 3/10-3/12. I'm terribly dissatisfied to find out inventory for renters & travelers other than the owners is why I was unsuccessful at reserving dates for 3/10-3/17 w/understanding from the advisory from a representative that I should book 11 months in advance. Huh I inquired for date 12/27-01/03/2016 - nothing for a owner at Westgate Flamingo in Las Vegas... I took off work Mon-Tues to resolve this matter, $308 per day I missed because I'm fed up w/ Westgate. One rep returned my call Tuesday. I missed the call, thank you.

Although it took 2 days to get a reservation, I'm not pleased I missed a possible opportunity Monday morning to get the dates wanted using my available week w/the first rep. Also, I wasn't able to deposit my 2015 week I to interval due to the none payment the rep kept proclaiming despite the notations in the computer of Westgate mistake.... I'm not stating I don't want to sell my timeshare. I don't want to lose the $$$ I've paid into toward my property. I like to bring awareness to all potential/new owners, also I'm requesting customer courtesy giving to me. I like point of information from a attorney regarding my rights. Please do not remove my dates that are paid for on 3/10-3/12/15. Thank you.

We asked to have 24 hours to think about it and then he brought over the manager. She said we could leave but we would not receive the first day incentives. First day incentives? What was that? We were never told about this. Well, it turns out that all the promises of exchanges all over the world not be an option. It was a total bait-and-switch. The women who was a manager was rude and condescending. She would not let us go even after we said we were not interested. I was very frustrated because we were never told about these first day incentives, we were late for our family and friends, and she would not let it go. She told me she never had a problem with anyone and that everyone likes her. It was so strange and awful. She even told me it was "weird" that I was not interested. I could say more but hopefully you got the picture. Do NOT deal with this company. Fortunately, we lost time and not money, but it still ruined our vacation.

Interval allows flexibility in exchanging, we have even received numerous bonus weeks to use in the past few years. This year, we are spending 1 week in Orlando, 1 week in Williamsburg, 1 week in Myrtle Beach, and 1 week in Gatlinburg. All with only minimal exchange fees. Considering that 3 of these are for 2 bedrooms. As far as the presentation, yes they ask. We attend maybe once a year at our home resort. But just to hear about improvements. Which by the way have been many at the town center. When we purchased, there was only a small deli, pizza hut, and no restaurant. Now it has a great sports bar with a restaurant, that is suitable for food on property. Great firepits for socializing. Water park under construction. Which we know people were promised a few years ago. But permits by the city and maybe other circumstances held it up. But it's coming soon.

Sorry there are so many negative reviews, We have had no problems. As far as being sold something that you can't afford, only you can answer that. Just say NO. We have been to many other timeshare presentations, they are all high pressure, you just need to be in charge of your own decisions, they can't sign your name for you. Nothing is Free. So if you don't read the rules for the "free" vacation. Then shame on you. The people trying to sell may get rude and upset, but it's money in their pocket for sales. Life is full of choices, you need to make the right one for you. Don't blame the sales people. Overall, Westgate is all we expected and more. Farrah is and always has done right by us.

Now they got her with another timeshare to pay plus the one we already had together. Tried to talk to anyone possible at Westgate to fix the situation but that was just a waste. They keep telling us now is our responsibility to pay for both and that they are not responsible for basically "lying" to us. Now about a week or so ago, they have now sent us to collections on both accounts. They are a bunch of liars when trying to get the most of people and get them into this unendless nightmare. Still it's not resolved after many phone calls.

I believe since I pay the same maintenance fee and am an "owner" at Westgate that I should be allowed the same privileges and rights as everyone else and that includes a $150 exchange fee instead of $450.00. I am now paying more as an owner at Westgate that someone that books a week online who has not invested what I have since 1999. I would NEVER recommend buying a timeshare at Westgate. Over the years the property, service, and privileges have decreased while the maintenance fees and exchanges increase.

Don't ever FALL for these words. After coming back, my husband loses his job and due to holidays I sent the letter of cancellation 24 days later where they said they couldn't accept. I get emails saying they are working on a deed, I didn't even give the full down payment of the timeshare. I was cheated on and applied for a credit card I never requested. I have conversation with the salesperson that even states that I shouldn't even worry about the credit card because it wasn't even approved and he didn't even know what I was talking about.

If you go to Vegas or any state, don't fall for these tricks. I do not live in Las Vegas so I am not familiar with their laws. Overall I called Westgate to find a way to cancel since it hasn't even been 30 days and they say unfortunately they can't do anything as I begged for their help and told them everything as we were not sober and how we were there 7 hrs the first time. I told them that I am not affording to pay for it and it will go to foreclosure that they are wasting their time and want to end this as peacefully as others. Besides they even disregarded my letter. So now I do not know what to do and they are not helpful at all saying it’s a contract and has consequences.

To be honest up to this point it can fall under foreclosure and let it be done for something I never paid and disputing a deposit since I was cheated on and lied to and they never told me about maintenance fees going up every 2 years. They supposedly record the closings, they should have it when they cheat people off. Spoke to the supervisor and she was no help and actually told me that unfortunately I was placed on this thing and that was that. People, I warn you - never fall for this!!!!

Also, I found out that the 0% interest form Reggie gave me was not true. In fact, Pay Pal would charge 19.99% if the $4,000 was not paid in 6 months. I called three times and finally was emailed a copy of my contract on November 4, 2014. At that time I immediately sent them a notice of cancellation which I believe I had the right to do after receiving a copy of my contract. They wrote back and said I was beyond the cancellation period of three days. The way I read the law, I can cancel within three days after signing or receiving the contract, whichever comes later. I have contacted them many times as well as every government agency possible and they will not refund my money. If they get away with "stealing" my $4,000, I will not get a thing for my money. After reading all the complaints, I don't believe I will get any travel discounts, etc. from them. I now owe $4,000 to Pay Pal and will have to get it somewhere. I am 72 years old and am on a fixed income. I wish there were some way to stop this terrible people.

During the presentation he refused to give out any cost numbers until the very end. After showing us the demo unit and we sat back down. He finally showed us the numbers and we were interested but cautious. We said that our money is being held by our financial planner and bank and we need to talk to them about letting money go for this. He pushed for a buy if you want it or don't if you don't. We said we can't commit without taking a bit of time to go over it. He said he'd give us a few more minutes to think about it. He came back with the textbook sales technique of "I went to my manager to see what else we can do for you" and all of a sudden we were considered VIP potential customers. Some lady who claimed to be from management came and sat down and cut the fees a portion. We started to explain the same dilemma and as we were speaking to her she got up, interrupted us and said "so I'll let you discuss with your family the offer." She completely ignored what we were saying and wasn't paying attention at all to us. She got up and went a few tables over and started talking to them with the exact same verbatim she did with us.

We did discuss it but again declined to Frank for the same fundamental reason- that they're trying to get us to make an immediate and expensive commitment without the opportunity to think about it or researching it. Funny that Frank didn't mention the state's "buyer's remorse" law that states within a certain period of days (think it's 10) we can change our mind and get a complete refund. Frank said ok and that he had to get the manager back to close the offer (not close the deal). The same lady came back and then said she'd close the presentation but then did another textbook sales technique and asked Frank if he showed us a modified deal and asked if he wanted permission to give me a special offer (this was all done in front of me). So she gave the offer and then left, leaving Frank to explain it in detail. We just flat out said no as this "only 90 minutes" sales presentation is not going into its 3rd hour. The only way this presentation takes 90 minutes is if you walk out on them. Otherwise they'll keep offering a lower priced deal after every rejection until the cows come home.

After our most recent 'no', he got visibly upset, snatched the papers off the desk and shook our hands and walked away.

Going back to child care... we didn't have our cell phone with us so Frank offered to give his number as the contact number to the child care place in case something happened, and all throughout the presentation he has looked on his phone. When I went to pick him up, they said he started feeling a bit unwell, coughed a lot, and that they tried calling the contact number TWICE during the presentation. Frank never said anything to us! How dare he keep that from us just so he can make a sale! He knows that if the child care centre is calling that means something is wrong and his presentation is over. He sat on it (like I said he has looked on his phone a lot during the presentation) and kept that from us. I was livid.

Oh, during the presentation he showed us 2 texts from "satisfied customers" saying that they want his contact number so they can refer their friends to him. He said he got those texts while he was waiting for us to discuss the reduced price offers. Very coincidental. I also recall during the early part of his sales pitch that if we don't take one today they'll all be snatched up tomorrow by others. After our several rejections and he gave us that lower priced deal, one that allows us to pay less and not commit as much he said "this way you can enjoy the facility while getting comfortable with it even though you're not committing to buying- because there's always many of our suites available at any time of the year." So now he's completely flip flopping on one of his pressure points because it suits him now.

If for no other reason I will never consider them again because of what he did to my son... but there are so many other reasons why I won't ever go with them. STAY AWAY!

So I finally talk to her and told her since it's been less than 2 months and I was Very Unhappy and Felt Pressured and I want to sell it back. She said I had to call another number, so I called the other number and they told me I CAN'T sell it back that I would have to let it go into Foreclosure. WTF. How can it go into Foreclose and I don't have an Apt. Number or nothing. I contacted a Lawyer to handle this matter because they tell Major Lies and Very Rude. Please everyone who reads this - be Very careful about Purchasing anything from Westgate. I wish I would have Researched them first.

After trying to sell us and my husband said no they bring another one to try to convince us, then another one then another one. Finally they told us they have one which is like a rental where we are not owners but renters and it is for 2 years. We can try it then buy the actual timeshare after that. He told us we have 8 days with any resort and can have 4 getaways that would cost us only $99 if we reserve it 30 days before which was LIES and LIES. We called the Westgate resort to ask them about it and they told us we only have the 8 weeks and we don't have the $99 dollars which was the main reason we bought that 2 years rental. And they will tell you it is not WRITTEN in your CONTRACT.

I am so pissed about it but I am so glad that we didn't buy the actual timeshare. They are a scam. The sellers will feed you with all kind of BS to make you sign. Don't fall for it. Now I believe why they said too good to be true is probably not true. I do not recommend westgate resort. The bad thing is when you go there you don't have the knowledge and you end up falling for their lies. I took my time to write this because I don't want anyone to have that bad experience.

The property we stayed at was old and rundown, and they nickel and dime you to death. $4 for a small bottle of water in room, no amenities, a cup of coffee in a paper cup in room $4 again. Windows were so dirty you could not see through them and the elevator had trash on the floor which remained for our entire stay. We were not interested in buying anything and they wasted our whole day. We almost missed our flight back home. We were told quite a few lies during the presentation as well. Stay away from these people.

At this point my 14-day cancellation window was about to run out. I did not receive a confirmation in these 2 days so I called again and was told that they do not have those dates available after all. I asked for my money to be refunded. They did not give me hard time, however I have yet to see if they actually will refund the money. After I insisted twice, I was given a cancellation transaction number. So I guess I will see if the representative just made up the number or really refunded my money. Needless to say, this was a waste of my time & possibly $212.14. Sadly, Westgate Resorts is a scam company.

Yes, they have almost 20 pools, and awesome hot tubs and great facilities. The people treat me like a queen from the moment I check in. I feel so special. I have no idea what all the people complain about. I choose to look at life through rose colored glasses and Praise the Lord for all the blessings. This vacation means the world to me. I take all my kids, grand children and foster children with me. It sleeps 10 people, and I invite my brother and his wife and kids to come over and swim and visit for the night. It is such a terrific vacation, I can't imagine complaining about it. The weather in Florida is almost always wonderful. Even if there is a rainy day or two, then rest. Relax, enjoy the lovely surroundings in your condo. Watch one of the four TV's provided in the condo. Rest for a long time in the private jacuzzi in the master bedroom. Sometimes, I hardly go anywhere and just go putt putt golfing and swimming, and to the free movie theater. I just love watching the big screen my favorite movies of all time.

Yes the owner's always need to go to the 90 minute presentation. I have accepted that as an owner. It includes a free meal, and another perk, so go have a nice time and just say NO, when they want you to upgrade. It is part of living in a time share. Thank you Westgate Resorts for giving me and my family some of the best family vacations of a lifetime! Keep up the good work. You other people just need to stop complaining, wow, I couldn't stand reading all the complaints. God bless you all!

Was told I couldn't use my property in TN until 2015, no problem. I wanted to go somewhere I've never been. Went on to Westgate Cruise & Travel Collection and found a Getaway to Kauai, HI Jun 2014, for a week--$99. It was a 2-bedroom, full kitchen, separate living area with pull out bed. My daughter & I met my mom, sister & nephew at the Makai Cottages and had a wonderful time. Cottage was modern, spacious and just what we needed. Beautiful experience! All you pay is your airfare, food & activities. Can't beat it!

Next, my job had a month gap in contract renewal. No problem. Went on to Westgate Cruiste & Travel to see where my next Getaway would be for 2 weeks. Snagged a $49 (1 week) to Acapulco and a $99 (1 week) to St. Maarten--back to back trips, Aug-Sept 2014. Paid airfare, food, & activities. What a bonding experience for my daughter & I in foreign places. In Mexico, we bonded even more since we knew no Spanish!

If you are flexible and not stuck on a particular date or location, you could really be happy with the Getaways offered by Westgate. By traveling with the Getaways, you forgo having to pay off your home association fee ($800+) in lieu of paying for airfare to enjoy these exotic locations.

I would recommend Westgate Resorts for timeshare buying. While in Acapulco, the Mayan Resorts tried to buyout my Westgate Resort timeshare. I walked away with an upgrade to the Grand Mayan (vs. Mayan Palace) that I was originally scheduled for. Grand Mayan is what you want to stay in if you visit Acapulco. It is definitely a grand experience.

I just got off the phone less than a hour ago and they told me that the only time left was in December and it would be in a room less than the one that we were paying for. On top of that, we would have to pay an additional $500. WTH? Westgate? They also told me that if I use my 2014 weeks next year in 2015 that I will have to pay an additional $150. I've never seen such a nickel and dime outfit in my 47 years of living! I love the resort and would love to give you a good rating but you are bending people over and putting it to them all the while collecting my $325 a month and my $800 a year maintenance fee!

I tried for an hour to tell him no! Then he brings over another guy who continues to push and starts getting nasty and mean. When I said just let me sign whatever you need for me to decline he pushed a filled out contract to me. I was so upset I almost signed until my husband said wait don't sign. Can you believe they were going to falsely make me sign the deal. Westgate is a horrible crooked scam artist. Do not go - it is never 90 minutes. You will have at least four representatives argue with you. Stay away!

I started the process and learned that it is in fact true that I can trade in my week. However, the week is traded for points on my Westgate Cruise and Travel account. What no one bothered to tell me was that once the points for my week at Westgate had been determined and placed on my Westgate Cruise and Travel account, only a portion of the points (small portion) will count towards the cruise. The rest I would need to come out of pocket for. I thought, "I pay a mtg all year, taxes and maintenance to be an owner and I will still need to pay for a vacation". There is no universe where that will make any sense.

Needless to say, after spending the vacation money paying for the mtg, taxes and maintenance, I was not prepared to spend additional monies to go on a cruise, especially when, in all likelihood, my week in the three-bedroom suite will be rented and net someone a nice profit. I decided not to go the cruise route. I just believe that I was deceived. This is just one of may stories I can share. I may do so in the future.

P.S. Just got back from my one week, where we stayed in a room that was not what I paid for; tried to use amenities that were overcrowded, had to go back a few times to get bicycles to ride. Overall, my experience leads me to wonder if more attention is paid to potential owners than is paid to current owners. Call for maintenance and you wait... Someone vomited in the pool and you wait... I felt like I was on staff as for about one hour we had to tell others not to get in. It took about one hour for someone to come and block off the area; eleven large wasp nests on the building next to pool #13, and one right outside our patio in the 5700 building; leaky faucets. Happy to be home.

I didn't like the fact that I could not access the websites for about 30 days after I signed up. For such a major purchase, I think I should have immediate access so I can fully see what I'm getting into. The presentation was very good and I did not find it to be high pressure. My daughter and I attended, and we got $75.00 to split between us and a bunch of bogus tickets to stuff. The bogus tickets gave me pause. It made me wonder about the integrity of the company.

I took my first vacation this past June to Gatlinburg, TN. I'm happy to say I was very pleased with the accommodations. I had a two bedroom condo which was actually two separate suites. My daughter, granddaughter, daughter's friend and her son came with me. I had my own separate suite complete with living room, kitchen, fireplace, jet tub, and two tvs. The girls and their kids shared the bigger suite which in addition had two bathrooms, a bigger kitchen, and the balcony. All that for $500.00 for an entire week! The staff was very friendly and helpful. The air conditioning went out and maintenance promptly fixed it. When the other girl's son threw his stuffed animal over the balcony, maintenance retrieved it for us.

What others have said about the walls being too thin is true. Fortunately it wasn't that big of a problem for us, because our neighbors were quiet enough. I think their hallway was next to my bedroom, so I heard the doorbell and conversation loud and clear. Otherwise, I didn't notice it much. I'm leaving this Friday for my second vacation with Westgate in Orlando. This one is only costing $400.00 because I responded to an email offer around the end of the year. It is a three bedroom condo. I looked up on the internet the cost to non-members and it is $409.00 per night and I am getting it for $400.00 for the entire week! I figure my membership should pay for itself in less than five trips. I'm actually quite pleased and I'm glad I went through with it. Furthermore, my children (all over 18) are also named on my contract and they will have lifetime memberships.

Two years after my purchase, I traded my week thru Interval International for a week in Hawaii. I need to add that I believed that I had paid for 5-Star accommodations with Westgate, but my trade in Hawaii was less than a 3-Star. I have yet to see anything close to what I believed I purchased thru Westgate. And since that trip to Hawaii, I have not been able to trade with Interval International even though I have tried to make reservations over a year in advance. Other locations are always full or they do not have sufficient blocks available for trade. I even have had to trade to stay at a Westgate location and be denied because of the lack of availability. Even at a Westgate property, they will give preference to non-owners over owners. It appears that Westgate has over-sold as it is very difficult for me to use my weeks even at a Westgate property.

Westgate had the gall to report a non-payment of a remaining balance of Taxes and Maintenance of $62 to the Credit Bureau. My timeshare has been paid off since 2004, but appears that they look to ding you for whatever they can. The investment I made with Westgate has been the worst investment I have ever made. It is something I cannot use at any time and I continue to pay Taxes and Maintenance fees on something I cannot use. The customer service is poor and they don't even attempt to accommodate or help their customers. I believe that Westgate should be investigated by the appropriate authorities for the Pyramid Scheme the Fat Cat Siegel has created. If there is a Class Action Suit, I would love join it.

I get badgered on my vacation and held hostage until I finally have to be rude and say I've had enough. Right now their "new" referral program I have to pay them $49 to actually get them referrals and I made a referral for somebody who really wanted to do it besides my warnings and they didn't deliver the reward I was supposed to get. They say they are pet friendly but then raise the fees to bring your pets to $170. They change policies without telling you and your miles from home with a pet and now you got to cough up $170 from $80 that it used to be. They raise your maintenance fees every other year. Guaranteed! The resort is beautiful but it's not worth the anxiety, the headache and heartache. Trust me don't make the mistake I did.

This I believe was deliberately done as it seems from the conversation with the desk clerk it happened before. The company makes you believe that you're going to some really nice hotel then to find out it isn't so. After complaining to the company they promised a free three day/two night stay at one of their partner hotel. I haven't received that yet.

Gates are supposed to be locked, they are for the units around the pool, anyone can hop the fence. No modifications have been done and the units are still the same. It seems every year that we book our vacation, there is always a screw up. Last year we booked two other units using my preferred member discount for friends and family to come down, requested that we all be together. Well we were placed all around the resort. It took 2 hours of arguing before we got closer together. All I have to say, is make sure you have things in writing. Make sure you receive your e-mail of your reservations. They are a very disorganized organization. the problem is, once you buy they know they have your money. You can never sell your unit for what you paid. The maintenance fees just seem to go up every year. Why!! I could never answer that.

After this, a third manager was brought over and actually asked us if we'd return the next day. While a very beautiful resort hotel, I will never consider staying at any Westgate hotel or affiliate based on my experience. I'm 100% sure we aren't the only people who left feeling this way. I understand high pressure sales but to be rude, dismissive, condescending and otherwise unaccepting of a NO answer is extremely unprofessional and very frustrating.

To make matters worse, I was provided with incorrect information as to what was needed in order to get registered for the timeshare tour. The representative lied and said she did not mention a lease can be used as verification when in fact she did. The only person that spoke respectfully to me and explained accurately what was needed was the night shift manager. If the type of service the night shift manager provided would have been given to me in the beginning, I would have never wasted the entire day on Sunday dealing with the Welcome Center rude staff. I work too hard to waste my money with a company that does not appreciate its customers.

The focus of this vacation was supposed to be solely on celebrating my daughter's 7th birthday but instead time was wasted dealing with many issues that occurred. The only time your staff seemed to be concerned about the problems I was experiencing was during the timeshare tour on 5/28/14 at 7:45am. As a result, another manager came for me to explain the poor customer service and poor quality of the room. However, there was no resolution. He didn't even have the common decency to follow-up with me regarding my complaint.

I currently have 6 weeks banked plus the entire 5 weeks for this year. That's the way they were sold to me, "Just think, you will have 5 weeks to enjoy coming down in one year!" That's in addition to the $1200 maintenance fee, mortgage payment if applicable and get this - if you should happen to be single as I am and own just to have the opportunity to visit multiple times a year, I have to pay $150 each week I use it. Last year I was only able to get in one time. It was in May. When I tried in June to get in a couple of more weeks I was told there were no vacancies until December. Sorry guys. Not really the time I want to visit the mountains. I did make reservations last September to get in the third week in May and the last week of September this year. I will probably not be going back after September as I am researching attorneys to see what recourse I have. Oh, by the way, no dogs now unless you want to pay $270 a week to take them.

I have jumped around a lot I know, but I am so disappointed and so tired of the misrepresentation. Sales presentations last up to 4 hours or more in length. By the time you get to closing, they are "kind" enough tell you they know how long it's been for you and this is only going to take a few minutes and closing takes a very short time. Mounds of paperwork which would take hours and hours to read. I used to think difficulty getting in was because all owners time was being taken up by sales presentations and free trips to see the property. I still believe that is a lot of the problem but I am very inclined now to think that fewer owners are coming and most folks there are non-owners or brand new owners. I was always told the building I own in is only to be used by owners and also heard a sales rep relay that to a potential buyer last week. However, there was a commercial bus load of people staying in our building last week - Just an extra-large family maybe???

It is a lovely property but if you are considering buying, please read all the reviews. There are multiple sites with many reviews, and learn from other peoples mistakes. Ask the right questions and get the answers in writing. I have been told closings are tape recorded. Too bad sales presentations aren't. Oh, and on a final note, when you purchase this property, expect everyone you have contact with to give you their personal cell number and tell you they are only a phone call away. I have tried calling some of those people for help about different things. If they do answer, you will probably be transferred to customer service. The family is no more.

We felt that we had already invested enough money into this scam and there was nothing they could say to get another dime out of us. A few weeks later we got a call from a collection agency requesting payment or they would take us to court. We explained why we refuse to pay any more money into this scam. The collection agency representative told us that he has seen this happen a thousand times. He told us to write a certified letter to Westgate requesting a release from the contract and a written agreement that our credit would not be touched. In about a week we received an agreement letter from Westgate. We took the agreement letter to our attorney and he reviewed and notarized it. We signed it, made a copy of the letter and sent them a copy and we never heard from them again. Do not get involved with Westgate Resorts.

We would not bring anyone here for a visit. I WOULD HOPE THE FOUNDER OF WESTGATE MR S., WOULD REVAMP THE WAY THE SALES PERSONNEL BADGER AND MAKE OWNERS CRINGE THAT WE DO NOT EVEN WANT TO BE THERE.

I spoke with someone in Finance, which got me nowhere. They continued transferring me from Customer Service to Finance and from Finance to Customer Service. I called my bank and explained to them what happened and that the charges incurred from Westgate Cruise and Travel were unauthorized. So whatever you do, don't fall for the sales pitch and for your own sake, PLEASE DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR CHARGE CARD NUMBER.

Then we were taken back and asked bluntly with attitude if we were going to purchase either we like to, we didn't and we told them no. That's when attitudes with the next 5 salesman were escalated.... The niceness turned into wickedness.... We stood our ground. In the meantime they went and researched that we had attended a presentation with them before over a yr ago and told us we are not allowed to buy anything from them ever!!!! THANK YOU, WESTGATE. You don't know how close we were in writing you a check. We are not easy but we were so close.

Please people don't buy. They promise you gifts, money for your time which is priceless. Take cash and food only..... not show tickets!!!!!!! Some tickets say free with 30.00 drinks each. Does that sound like free? No. Go to the presentation, ask for cash. If they say no keep steppin'..... Even the 100 cash and 3 nite 4 day was not worth the headache from Westgate....... I hope you listen to these reviews, if not....... :-(

Hurried to find the lady who assured us she would be there to greet us "not on the property". So escorted to a waiting area. 10 minutes later, young girl comes up and introduces herself. She then proceeds to take us up to a "holding area" where she spends over 2 hrs telling us about her "military" husband, disabled child and her other 5 kids and how she works two jobs to support her kids and this place pays her by commission. So if we don't buy in, she does not get paid. Then we spend almost another hour touring the place, which was quite a hike and more of a socializing event for her than "work".

After that she takes us back to the "holding area" where she then describes the deal and how it works. She even says she and her husband bought in and use the "heck" out of it. Yet, she already told us she has not seen her husband for years because he is in Iraq for past 11 years and she has 6 kids all under 10 with him. When we saw the bottom line, we said no. So she calls her best friend's mom over to help us. She then drops the price by half, and we still say no. Then she tries to con us into another deal under the table, for yet another 50% off that lower price. When we told her absolutely no, and we were done, she calls her corporate person over. She wants to sells us on a one time vacation for $750 for 8 days and 7 nights at their resort. $20 a month at 17.99% interest. Oh did I mention lunch consisted of cheap hotdogs and canned chili? We got our $ back and left. What a scam. Buyers beware!

When I tried to get into other details concerning my package, everything is completely different than my initial purchasing conversation agreement. Again I was told, "You misunderstood your agreement," but there is one thing that they agree with me. It's that I purchase this mission impossible package and that I must pay my monthly finance fee of $201. If you're reading this, don't fall for this gimmick and, if you fell for it or know of someone who DID, send me some feedback and let's put a stop to this rip-off. I myself just made an appointment with a lawyer to cancel and run as far as I can from these money-making vampires.

To cut it short it took nearly 4 hours of showing us around then pressuring us into what a good deal it was. We had a tall Italian guy come over and offer us a better deal, which eventually we agreed just to get out of there. We had to sit through with a closing officer, his name was ** and he was as bad if not worse as he kept saying he was there to help us and not for the sales guys. Also kept saying I can help you whatever you need. He got us to sign all sorts of paperwork and said the whole thing was recorded for our benefit. This took another hour if not more and we insisted a number of times we wanted to finish this quick. Fast forward... we got our tickets which basically got us entry to a free water park but we'd lost half a day.

Once we got back to the UK, I realized what a big mistake we'd made with the timeshare. The costs just didn't add up and one of the questions I asked was where are all these hotel/apartments I can swap if I wanted to go somewhere in Europe. I then said if I'm going to the UK, I'd want to stay in London. There was not a single place to stay in London in their Interval book, which they said is fine because what you get is very good and they have places in other cities. Their nearest place was nearly 100 miles away. Then I looked at Rome... a similar thing, nothing available in Rome and a few other cities I knew well. Yet I still bought the timeshare.

One of the other things they said was in the wallet they gave us, would be the copies of all the documents we signed. We never checked whilst their but there were none of the documents inside - another lie. Just the interval book and a copy of the plan of the room we had purchased. On my return I called ** (closing Officer) and said I wanted to cancel. He said you can't, Westgate will sue you and they have everything recorded. Then he said he could offer me a smaller room for a better rate which would help with costs. I thought it for less than a second and said no... I want a refund of my deposit and this cancelled. He said, you can't it's not possible you have signed it all and agreed to the terms.

I put the phone down on him. I discovered that I could cancel within 10 days of the contract. It was 4 days at this point. I managed to find the address to where to send the rescind letter and importantly sent it registered and signed for in the post a day or so later to both the Westgate head office and the resort. I received another call from **, this time saying I had sent a letter to cancel and I could not and we should talk. I put the phone down on him. A few days later someone from Westgate called me and said I'd sent a letter to cancel but they couldn't work out the date it was sent. Another tactic hence send a letter registered and keep the receipt. It had to be within 10 days. I sent a scanned copy of my postage receipt and then the same day got another call to say my refund will be in place in 10 days. The guy from the office was actually very nice and helpful and very pleasant to speak to.

All I can say is don't be enticed by 90 minutes and free or discounted tickets. Just enjoy your holiday. If you have to pay $000's for a timeshare and then the maintenance every year or 2 and then be subscribed to Interval for exchanges, how can it be cheaper than a hotel... and remember you can't do 2 or 3 days breaks. Everything is 6 nights 7 days even if you don't want that long. Also remember the exchanges to another resort of apartment cost another $100-150, which in total could be over $1000/year. You can get a hotel less and for more nights, and you won't be stuck with their list of places and you won't be thousands of dollars poorer for buying the timeshare in the 1st place.

The presentation was entertaining with lots of pictures and stories about exotic vacations. They go through several destinations showing a fantastic price for a vacation of a lifetime. They tell you this is all because of bulk buying and last minute inventory available only to the Westgate cruise and travel club. They even show a printout of the last minute deals that change every week. For example, a 2 bedroom timeshare unit for $49 for the week. After the presentation, you go into that chaotic room filled with lots of small tables each with their own salesman. It was the exact same hard sell tactics of the timeshare. I actually made it out of this room saying no, and moved down to the next area where they give you more forms for your gifts and then try to upsell you a getaway package for a few hundred dollars. Well long story short, the upselling kept happening over several hours until I eventually "just had to have" my personal travel agent.

Well fast forward to today, and my advice is run, run, run away! This is really a huge scam. As I said, I travel a lot and I have gone to the site a dozen times and there are no deals to be had. Flights are always MORE expensive than what you can get with the standard commercial airline sites. Hotels too are just what you can find anywhere else, no special inventory. Remember that price list they show everyone of the weekly deals? Well it really is a represented inventory and you need to call. It's just a picture and you cannot click on the "deal" to find availability. There is a separate button to click on availability, and it brings you to a totally different screen that has about 6 properties listed with studio units (usually all in Mexico) for about $400 per week which is a standard Interval International rate. Bottom line is that I still have found absolutely nothing to book through Westgate travel and I have been actively planning 3 separate trips to occur in the next 3 months. If you call their number, BTW, it's only to help book at a Westgate property. No personal travel agent.

I'm kicking myself for purchasing and seeing the word "Westgate" makes me cringe. I've never posted a complaint before, but thought I should share about the travel option since most people wrote only about the timeshare experience. I hope to save someone from the same frustration and disappointment. My lesson learned is ALWAYS look at online reviews before buying.

We could not travel last year therefore we ask to bank the week and was told that will be a charge 140 when we decide to take it because we did not travel our year. How can I get a fair reasonable resolution from Westgate? I wish someone will buy it from us. We cannot afford it due to change in income. This one male rep spoke very rude, no respect. Please help me get rid of Westgate.

On January 19, I faxed a copy of the front and back of the check. I've been getting mail welcoming me to Westgate but no check. Apparently it's no one's department and only my problem. We were owners, we are still owners and we regret falling for the presentation. We lost an entire day listening to why we had to make the deal and decide on the spot. If we didn't trade up that afternoon Westgate would never give us the opportunity again.... blah, blah, blah! I woke up on Christmas eve knowing we were played. I called to cancel. I stopped at all the offices. They couldn't believe we were passing up such a great deal! So they'd offer a better one. We still weren't interested. They'd call with a better offer. My entire vacation was spent trying to convince them we didn't want to finance a 1 week vacation we'd use every other year.

We do like it there but I'd never suggest anyone submit themselves to their guerrilla sales tactics. Today is February 1st. Their collection department called for the past 2 months' payment of $200.00. I told him they won't get a dime until we get our refund. He told me he's moving my issue to the front of the line. Call back Wednesday or Thursday. I'm sure this won't help my credit. It's just not right.

By this time we were exhausted and would go try and fix the mess in the morning. We went to speak to our representative but found out she no longer works there. Spoke with a lady we dealt with previously and found out that we were sold one of the oldest units here. This was not what I purchased the year before. I was duped big time. And then had the gall to try to sell me another one. And was told my every other year was no good. When in realty I was scammed into a purchase by a company that should not be in business. Do not believe anything anyone there tells you. STAY away!!!!!!!!

LESS THAN 2 DAYS before I was to leave on the vacation after having dinner reservations on both Universal, Islands of Adventure and Disney all paid off in the amount of $3000 or more fully paid, I got a rude awakening when I did a confirmation call to Hotel Corp telling me couldn't check-in with just my debit card and checkbook anymore as promised in OCT. They tried to force me to pay almost $1000 more for not meeting qualifications or cancel the trip 2 DAYS AWAY!!! That was not going to happen because I have 3 boys with autism and they were and had been planning since OCT for this. So I found after fighting for 5 hours with Hotel Corp through a friend who used to work in the sales department in another time share program a long time ago that my first few days were "value days" and debit and credit cards are allowed which I already knew it was ok and had arranged for all the days to be covered under the value terms.

But now at last minute, they were changing the contract illegally but I found out if I canceled the holiday night, I could still do it AND get a refund so I did leaving me to scramble for another hotel and paying more for the remaining nights. BUT luckily Marriott World Resort which I am elite member too had rooms at Military prices for us; we still paid more though. Of course Hotel corp was pissed but I didn't care and I did tell Hotel Corp that because of the experience and broken promises that they would take care of us, I would do the 90 walk through BUT I would say no because if this is how they treat potential customers, I'd hate to see what they do once they got us into a contract. The hotel we were to check into was the leisure which only seemed to be run by and worked by foreign Spanish ethnic descent people who spoke some English and they tried to again force me to cancel by not having the credit card but I showed my notes and confirmations and they finally gave in.

YES ALLOWS KEEP NOTES. THEY HATE IT APPARENTLY AND THINK YOU'RE STUPID BUT WHEN YOU HAVE THEM, THEY CAN'T CONTEST IT. Well finally, we got to the room. It was dirty and run down. I had breathing issues and my daughter got sick with me from the mold and dirty carpet. Also there was no way to control the room temp to be AC or heat. It was left up to the maintainer to set it for the whole building. I made a list of everything that was damaged and dented and broken. I called every time to the desk to have it all reported so we weren't charged. They weren't happy but I told them this was their job and to do it. The morning of our obligation, we got to the presentation and began to eat breakfast while the guy Anthony began to ask questions. I informed him THEN of the major issues of Hotel Corp and Westgate gave me and told him since Westgate was involved in the promises, I wasn't going to be to interested unless he could compensate for the rest of the trip in a better room for the remaining time for free because of the near heart attack they gave me two days prior.

Anthony become very upset, said they don't do business like that and said he would be right back because he didn't like I was treated like that and I even showed him my notes. Well Anthony left and we waited, finished eating and I had to use he rest room. When I came out, Anthony the Manager ironically were waiting just outside the bathrooms talking and cornered me asking what my problem was. I told them to come with me to talk long with my hubby but they didn't want to and wanted to handle it with just me. What did they think because I was a woman they could get over on me? Please... as if. I then explained everything and the manager said it was all Hotel Corp's fault, nothing he could do. I was stern and professional and asked if they knew Albert and they said yes he worked for Westgate. I said So then it wasn't just Hotel Corp but also Albert and Westgate that also was responsible for the broken promise because I had spoken for over a week with making arrangements.

Both men got angry with me and I told them they had a contract to hold to and since I was there, they HAD to do the presentation and had 90 mins to do it in and again the manager tried to intimidate me by using some excuse and promptly shut him down by telling him if he wasn't going to do anything about it then I was not going to talk to him further and told him take it up with Anthony and have Westgate drop Hotel Corp. then Anthony. We were done with breakfast so it was time to start and again mentioned I had notes on everything done and promises broken and asked should I add intimidation to the list of complaints. They quickly said no and Anthony followed me back. About this time, everyone was indeed finished and Anthony began the whole writing on the back of the paper spiel. 10 mins into it, Anthony got up to get coffee and our Daughter began to become fussy. I didn't say anything for the moment so I used the moment to calm her down.

When Anthony came back started again and began take so long that our daughter started again to get upset. Anthony tried to get up again. I told him absolutely not. He was to remain and continue the presentation because he only had about 45 minutes left. Anthony then become angry and tried to blame my daughter screaming and such saying I wasn't interested and he'd come back later, I was wasting his time to finish. I pointed out to him the contract stated only 90 mins of our time once the presentation started and it said nowhere he was allow to abandon us and come back later or permitted to take coffee breaks. If he needed a drink, he should have gotten a bottle of water before he began. Anthony seemed to get even more upset and show his rude Dominican Republic chauvinistic male side as he went along and when we finally pointed out he had 30 mins left, he finally began to have us walk and go to the room.

We even allowed him a little extra time at the end to show our kids a few extra things and he promised us he would ask only once if we wanted to do it yes or no and leave it be. I knew though he was lying but I humored him. When we got to the final decision, I said no we didn't have the down payment and thanked him for his time but no... that's when he became more aggravated and began to get pushy with dealing with us but offering other amounts. I told him no... he then got up and said he had another offer from someone else who could help. I told him he was now wasting our time but sure if it made him feel better enough to let us finally leave because my boys were getting whiny then fine. Anthony left and got some other foreign bulky Spanish "godfather" gold jewelry blinged out dressed guy and he began to make unreal offers on "foreclosed" properties.

When I asked to see the picture of the property, they said they couldn't. I told him no again and I didn't have the down payment, even brought up concerns of my husband getting a new job during 2014 possibly and was ready to leave. They both asked me to wait one more minute. I told them I have said twice 2 as did my husband they had one more chance but doubt they could. Then they got a third guy Hispanic again who offered us only $8 a month for the payment. I did the math and showed them what they were offering me and they said it was legal and they would take care of me... I knew then it was a lie and I told them no for a third time. After I said no, the third guy became insulting and told us never to go on another presentation and called us liars in a "round about" way. I told him If I wanted to take another one that was my choice and he was rude and in no position to tell me what to do and he was calling me a liar regardless how he put it.

The third guy began to say something to me but my husband stepped in and told him he was unwelcomed in our presence anymore and to please leave and if he continued to insult us more I would be sure to take down his name. The third guy left angry and then Anthony started up. Anthony tried to make us feel bad for "wasting his time" and called us Actors and scams. I informed Anthony if he didn't like being told no then to leave his job with Westgate and go back to DR or Boston. He tried to start insulting me again but I informed him he was no longer entitled to our time which we had graciously given him 30 mins extra of and if he didn't want us to call the police for kidnapping and holding us hostage then give us our certification immediately. He told us to wait and sent over another woman to finish the paperwork. While we were finishing the paperwork, we were informed the offers we were made by the "godfather" and the third guy were not even real!!!! We would have just paid for nothing and got robbed.

The woman seemed to not even care when I brought up it was fraud. She just quickly handed us our paper and had us leave. When we turned in paper to confirm we took our tour, I asked for our golf cart to take us back. They told us we had to take a shuttle back. I told them we were promised a personal ride back and that's what we would get unless they wanted to pay for a medical bill for my asthma to act up. Of course, they quickly got us a cart ride back. While we were leaving, another tourism deal guy asked us to take a slide show presentation for 90 mins for $100 cash and mini vacation and a $50 gift card for the presentation. I asked if we could do it the day we left Orlando. He said sure so we took the deal. We checked out of out hotel at the leisure and got to the Marriott and that night, I immediately felt better and my daughter no longer had a fever so I knew it was the filthy Westgate place. But hey, we still got our tickets for 7 days.

The morning we got to that slide presentation, the black gentleman told us he was personally going to take us over BUT he managed to convince a black couple to go as well and dropped us off onto someone else and instead drove the black couple over while the person he dumped us onto ended up breaking down and running out of gas causing us to nearly be late. The sales guy Alonzo met us at the other location and we didn't even have time to eat and he nearly made us even later for the presentation. I pointed out to him the time and he tried to delay but I reminded him we got there 40 mins ago to the resort in order not to be late and then we had a breakdown so they would be at fault. He quickly got us to the building with the slide show for an hour. When the presentation began, we were told our 3 sons couldn't come in nor our 2 year old daughter. I told them like hell if they were going to separate me from my baby but if they wanted to take my other kids to the babysitting area that was fine.

Well the presentation started and another family came in with their kids and it made me upset and asked for my kids but got told they were already taken to the day care area. I wasn't happy but I let it go for now. During the presentation in the beginning, we were told the group was different than timeshare people, they would give us respect... and they would try to pressure us.... I knew then it wasn't true but I humored them, acted like I cared and wrote down the travel companies they supposedly report to on a federal level. The lady said we would all part as friends in the end to... which I knew was horse hockey. There were so many confusing prices and numbers it wasn't going to easy. Our daughter got fussy; luckily they let my hubby leave. After the presentation when we sat down again, down payment as mentioned, I immediately said no, even showed my bank account balance to the guy and told him we take vacations based on our means of money.

The guy tried to sell "you'll go on vacation regardless" and I told him no we wouldn't. He got angry and then accused us of wasting his time and taking food from his kids' mouths and lying not as badly as Anthony but still just as bad and rude. What happen to leaving as friends? When he left, he sent another woman with our paperwork tried to sell us a discount and we said NO before she even finished. I told her enough, my time was through and I wanted my paperwork. She rolled her eyes and handed it over and told us to take the shuttle back. I told her of my asthma and she said we would have to walk. Then I told her like Hell and found someone else and they got us a golf cart.

No matter what they say in each department, Westgate sales reps are ALWAYS RUDE and insulting but you just have to know how to play their game and stand up for yourself. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO SAY NO AND NOT BE HARASSED!!! Make sure you force that upon them. They are NOT entitled to coffee breaks. They can take a beak in between sales pitches and should have gotten their drink before the presentation and been more prepared. If they start to make you feel bad about asking the gifts, tell them to suck it up an tell their boss Westgate if they don't want people just taking the gifts, then don't offer them with no obligation or find another job and TAKE NOTES and don't be afraid to force the contract back at them, keep time of the 90 mins, show them the notes you're taking or even record and how they treat you, guarantee they won't waste your time or insult you.

No matter what they promise, they WILL NOT TAKE CARE OF YOU and they will falsely advertise property and packages that do not exist. Remember JUST SAY NO and have your phone handy for reporting kidnapping if they don't let you go immediately after 90 mins Trust me things will go somewhat bad but not horrid because they know the report to the BBB will be a lot worse if they don't behave.

Long story short, we went in expecting to be out soon. 4 hours later after we were convinced that we had to have this, and it was the best way with cost savings to vacation. I wanted to sleep on it, but my wife wanted it since it was a "now or never" deal. Well we fell for that trap. After we left & started heading to the airport she realized that she had no idea how it worked. It was too late when we realized that we had 10 days to give it back, so about a month later I started to try & resell it. I got a contract with a "listing company" thinking that I had the terms in writing. Well after it was too late, and the terms were over I asked my attorney to review the contract because I wanted to sue the listing company for taking a lot of my money, and never provided results. I was told that the list company has too much loose language, and there is no way I can legally get my money back by suing. So no I'm harassing them to refund me the money.

Back to Westgate, I bought in December 2012 the 2 bedroom lockoff "floating" for $13,300 and have paid almost $9,000.00 within the first year. After much research, I finally found a company through a friend who handle legitimate sales as a real estate agent. He told me that my unit at best will sell for $1,000.00 and take 60-90 days. Now that I know that this thing is 100% worthless, I have called Westgate and demanded that they cancel my contract. They said that they do not take them back. I told the person that if you are willing to take it back through foreclosure, and have the first right of refusal if I sell it, then you can cancel this and walk away having made a great profit just to resell it all over again......

We were signed up for even years, so with me saying that I have paid over $9K and I am willing to walk away, says how bad of a deal this thing is. Everyone says that I can rent it, but I don't have time to deal with renting, plus what good is it to hope that I can find a renter that will only pay for maintenance fees. I have made some poor decisions in my life, but I can say without a doubt that this is the worst financial decision that I ever made. I wouldn't take one if someone gave it to me. I thought I was making progress as I was negotiating the price down.... Not knowing timeshares have no real value. I will continue to tell them to send me cancellation forms, and I am going to stop paying them. I wish someone had some good feedback on this, but I haven't seen any yet. I will let you know the outcome if this thing ever ends.... Glad to know that I'm not the only one that has been in this situation.

Also they did not want to redeem the promised gifts. Being the current rank, I myself qualify and then some for the rates they offer. But were turned down and my time wasted. When called back to the resort to get a customer care number, a lady by the name of Jacky gave me a number that does not connect to anyone. I ask for a number for customer service, 407-345-1000. Do not waste your time. Bluegreen resort was a more friendly and military-friendly company.

Whilst staying at Westgate in Orlando in November 2010 we contacted accounts by phone to see if we could sell back our two time shares. We had owned the properties for many years and had great vacations all over the world. Unfortunately my wife had found the travel to the states too stressful and the maintenance cost had risen to a rate that was no longer viable. It was our intention to therefore remove this annual burden by selling the weeks. They told us that they would not buy the two weeks back, but they could arrange for Westgate to take them back from us, which would remove all liability for the annual maintenance, but there would be a charge of $250 per property, which we paid on our Chase credit card.

They explained that the documents would be forwarded to the office located on the 1st floor of the time share offices in Orlando and notarized by the notary on duty which they were. The notary explained that the properties would be returned to Westgate for a nominal amount. At this time we double checked with him that the forms received covered both time shares and removed any obligation we had on the properties and the annual maintenance. He confirmed that the forms were a legal document showing that the two time shares had been transferred back to Westgate.

Guess what, in 2011 the bills for maintenance started coming through. We contacted the owners department who asked for confirmation. We sent a copy of the certificate of transfer and confirmation of the administration payment by registered post and expected that to be the end of the matter. Later that year we received a demand from Pinnacle Recoveries. So we contacted them and suggested that they check with Westgate Vacation Villas and Westgate Lakes legal department to verify that we signed the appropriate documents. Months later we received a note to say that owner relations would be passing all the details onto appropriate department.

Eventually Gizelle ** from Westgate Resorts sent us a new set of forms to complete as the previous forms that we signed in 2010 were not correct. She requested that we sign them and send them with tracking which we did. She acknowledged receipt on 20th Dec 2011. Then on 4th February 2012 we received an urgent request to contact Gizelle who explained that the wrong documents had been executed. l asked why the confusion as we keep receiving different documents and every time we send documents it costs us equivalent to $40-$50 as we were by this time over in France. Requested that she call me to discuss the matter, but instead she emailed to ask that l just fax copies of our signature on a passport or driving licence, which we did and requested confirmation of receipt.

After no response l emailed again to ask if she had received the documents. But no reply. In March we received even more threatening letters trying to recover so called outstanding maintenance. Once again contacted Gizelle to ask what was going on, but received no reply. Once again we received even more collection notices from Pinnacle Recoveries.

Contacted Pinnacle and Gizelle to ask why the problem had not been resolved. She came back to me via email to say that she could resend the documents, if we sign them, and she would take care of the notary for the inconvenience caused. And apologizes for the inconvenience. We immediately emailed her back with a request for the documents to be emailed to me as l could sign them electronically and return them straight away. Advised that l was not prepared to spend more money posting documents back when the problem resulted from her company's own inefficiency. Explained that if she wanted hard copies sent she would need to cover the postage cost. But we never received any forms or further communication. Yet we continued to receive debt letters and emails from Pinnacle Recoveries.

I continue to send responses asking them to check their facts, send them copies of the original signed forms, the secondary forms, confirmation of the payments made to Westgate along with copies of all the emailed and written communication. But the debt letters continue to land in my inbox and on my desk. I wonder what more l can do. Perhaps l need to lodge complaints with the CFPB, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the FTC, Federal Trade commission, the nation's consumer protection agency. But is there any other organisation, and did a fraudulent action take place back in 2010. Were the forms legal? Any comments please contact me.

When we checked in and made it to our room, we quickly saw that the room we booked was not the same as what we received. In fact, it wasn't even close. The room was filthy. I'm not exaggerating. The walls were dusty and dirty. The tub was not clean as it had several dead bugs that had been dead a long time. The tub also had hair and other dirt. It was disgusting. The furniture was worn out, the linens in the kitchen were tattered and worn, and the floors were noticeable dirty. We called and we’re told the unit would be serviced first thing the following morning. We didn't leave the room until after 11am, and still no one had been by.

Had I known the water park, our sole reason for selecting the resort was not included in the $200/night rate, I would not have booked it. The tickets were nearly $20 per person, the same rate for our 5 year old as for adults. The lifeguards were obviously teenagers and were not focused on the water. They were much more concerned about their phones and texting as they walked around. The water park was cold, the ceiling leaked and the water was cold. Best guess is the indoor temperature was around 70 degrees, as was the lazy river. BRRRR! Again, not what was represented on the website or during my booking conversation. The 48" height limit for the slides was not apparent so our child wasn't able to enjoy the entire water park. That ended up a mute point since the park and water was so cold.

When we complained, it was apparent they didn't care. We weren't even asking for a refund, just wanted someone to acknowledge the deficiencies for future guests. Best advice to anyone considering Westgate Resort in the Smokies (TN) is to stay somewhere else.

The last straw came when we entered our room from a long day of sight-seeing only to notice our room did not receive any cleaning services. We contacted the front desk and we were informed that owners' room only get cleaning services on the fourth day of stay. Therefore, if you are staying for 7 days, you only receive one day of room service. That is crazy! Any person who books the room regularly would receive room cleaning service every day. However, an Owner does not get the same benefit (even though they claim you will receive superior care). I spoke to the manager, **, which was a waste of time. He did not apologize and just looked at us like we were wasting his time. His attitude was very nonchalant, unfriendly, and borderline jerk. He even advised us to sue Westgate and the Hilton because he admitted that the Owners do not receive quality customer service and the cleaning service was a breach of the contract, but there was nothing he could do. David Siegel and all the other corporate officers are nothing but criminals in nice suits. Karma is real and they deserve to be hit with all the seven figures punitive damage awards, other civil lawsuits, and hopefully criminal sanctions, allowed in the U.S. judicial system.

Please take my warning and NEVER STAY AT A WESTGATE RESORT! Do not even waste your time and sit through a timeshare presentations. The free dinner and show is not worth your time. They will feed you a bunch of lies and trick you into an unnecessary debt.

Tried calling front desk, I got security. Security give me "sales", they tried putting me into Mrs. Closing officer again. We call back, they finally put me through to Mrs. Closing officer's "supervisor". I asked him if I needed to come down there to get out of this, I told him I knew I had ten days and I wanted out. He informed me to refer to the email I was sent. Huh! I said "no there were no instructions". He told me no cancellations were done there. No one there done that. I just got upset and hung up. But I did send a certified letter with my signature saying I wanted out. Don't know what's gonna happen, no one will answer my calls now. That certified letter should have done it. But I was lied to and pressured into it. It is not an economical way to vacation believe me and pray that I'm out. The ten day law "cooling off period" is there for a reason no matter what they say..

By the way, that maintenance is almost half of the mortgage that was paid. Therefore, the big spider in the big house will suck me and many others until the day we die or we can sell it to our worst enemy! Please, learn from my ignorance! Read the fine print, then say No!!!!!! Say no to the scam.

I will be sure to tell everybody I know to never never ever take a tour or anything with this company and you can be sure I would never purchase a timeshare from them. I'm sure if I look up government regulations, they cannot keep doing this. With all the new federal government regulations on banks or mortgage companies financing homes to people that cannot afford it (and it’s not based on just the income), these resorts are forcing people to sign for a timeshare is wrong. This needs to stop.

The daycare for small children was always full and the spa advertised has not been built. Of course, I didn't find that out until I used more of my points to buy a spa finder gift certificate. Also, I tried to sign up for 2 weeks at this location. They only gave me one in the two-bedroom and then forced me to take the one-bedroom. Then they wanted me to check out before 10am on Saturday, but not in to the other room until after 4pm that evening. Of course, they would be glad to hold all of our bags and more of them for us. Like I would trust them with anything after the treatment we got for not buying another $40,000 with them. They finally relented on that because I signed up for the new room on Friday night and was not due to check out of the old until Saturday, but they were still going to hold me to the times, making it impossible to do much on that Friday.

The consequences were that we were treated like **, paid way too much money for terrible internet connections and found out later that the discounted tickets we purchased from them in exchange for the 90-minute brief were more expensive than what was sold at the gate. DON’T EVEN TRADE YOUR HOME RESORT FOR THIS TURKEY! By far the worst resort I have stayed at service wise. They just want your money and as much as they can get.

I asked the salesperson to cut through the chase, that everything sounds nice and I needed to see pricing. He finally brought out the pricing and I informed him, it was not affordable to me. Of course, the sales pitch continued even as I constantly stated No... And he became very upset and was yelling. He brought tons of attention to our table by yelling and hitting the table. He stated I wasted all his time. I realized my children had been gone for a while and just wanted to receive my park tickets and leave. That was not at the least going to happen. He brought over another sales person after sales person and kept saying "You're VIP and I don't know why you are VIP status, but there has to be a reason." I, in turn, did not respond. He really embarrassed me and became too aggressive and hostile. I became afraid and was too embarrassed to let him know I could not really afford the timeshare. I continued to tell him I cannot take advantage at this time. The humiliation continued and he came in close proximity of me and stated, "I wish I could talk to you alone without your significant other." He then brought a friend sales person over to convince me more. It was the same sales pitch for hours over and over again.

I felt threatened and felt I was not going to receive my park tickets I paid for in advance and started asking if I could leave, but he would not take no for an answer. I felt backed into a corner and since he won't let me leave, I signed a contract in order to leave. I had a horrible experience not only with my flight delays, but the experience with West Gate was not a great experience. I was tormented and yelled at by a sales person at West Gate Resorts simply because I did not want to purchase a timeshare and was pressured and held for many hours, until I made a purchase. I was stressed to the extreme. It was a pressured sale I did not want to purchase. Each and every time I kindly said no, I was yelled at and pressured more. I kept stating I just want my tickets and head to the parks. Not only was I pressured, I was sexually harassed by your sales guy who eventually shoved his phone number to me in my hand once my significant other turned his head! Unwanted!

This was very uncomfortable. I have never experienced such an ordeal and unprofessionalism in my life by such an Organization with such fortunate prominence. I feel no one should ever be subjected to such torment and pressure. It was uncomfortable and very embarrassing for my children to encounter. I was not only forced into signing a contract from your sales person, who constantly kept asking me for my credit card. It caused me financial burden. I feel they owe me a free trip back to Disney World. I was not able to feed my children and was too embarrassed to admit I needed the money. I constantly stated just because I purchased this trip did not mean I was rich. After stating that and held for several hours, they still would not let me leave. So I signed the contract to get my tickets to leave and had to find a taxi to get to the parks each and every time exited and/or entered a park.

I not only was pressured into sales I could not afford, they kept me sitting at the table for 2 more hours just to get paperwork done. I not only missed the full advantage of the parks, my children were rushed through every enjoyment because of the sales people took up our time that should have been spent at the parks and just because my children and I did not enjoy our trip or park experience. I paid $1,740.31 for the entire trip that was wasted by your sales people. Travelocity Hotel Corp which is a part of Westgate Resorts has ruined a first time trip and experience for me and my children.

Original Review: May 30, 2013

My wife and I have been owners at Westgate Villas for 27 years and have a deed for a certain week. My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and wanted to go to our timeshare because we had paid over $900 taxes and maintenance. A couple of days before going, someone called asking if we wanted to sell our timeshare. I said no. My wife called ahead to let them know that we might be late because she had chemo and was not sure if we might be getting there late. She was informed that if we did not get there by Monday, that they could rent it out. Is this legal? Upon checking in, I told them that she could not be around crowds of people because of her chemo and would not be able to attend the "update" meeting, but they still took my $20 cash for the meeting for the next day. I got my $20 back the next day because my wife was not with me and I reiterated that she had chemo and could not be around crowds.

I gave them a list of items needed to be repaired as an owner does. My wife called while I was getting our new owner's cards, crying and upset. A maintenance man had come into our timeshare while she was taking a shower. She got a call from a woman in maintenance and she told her to tell him to leave (short version). I called the front desk and informed them that no one is supposed to come into our timeshare without us allowing them in. They are to call first. The next maintenance man did an excellent job fixing the sliding door. That night, a woman called me and said I missed my appointment. Again, I told her they would not let me upstairs without my wife. I told her that my wife had chemo and could not be around crowds.

We learned of something else with security. Our door opened twice - once when we're there and once when we were not. Had to call security twice and they did not show up. They did call and say that security was outside the door after I had left and my wife was there alone. It seems the ball lock was keeping the door from shutting properly. Security did ask my wife if it was fixed while we were there and my wife said no. Later they did call again saying a maintenance man was outside the door. He told my wife to use the security lock. She told him that does not solve the problem with security when we are away. The ball lock was not installed properly because my wife could not open the door when we returned.

When checking out, we gave them another list to fix and left a message in the timeshare that the ball lock needs to be installed properly for security reasons. Do not know if it was done. We came to have a peaceful week with my niece, her husband and child. They learned something about being owners at Westgate Villas. Never had a problem like this happen before with security. It seems that it has gotten bad in the last 2 years because last year, we didn't get to check in until 6:00PM which our check-in was 4:00PM because we chose not to go to the update last year. We have had guests each year and they have learned that it is not worth being owners of a timeshare. These were the future buyers and Westgate has lost out.

After an exchange of words with a manager type person, I was finally given my paper to go and find my way to the prize desk to collect my gift. Please listen. I have nothing to do with Westgate. You will leave feeling like you have done something, but they will have screwed you and not even asked your permission. Stay away from Westgate.

At this point we were taken through and asked if we wanted any drinks or sandwiches, etc. There was a whole lot of food on offer for free, which was nice. We then sat down with a very pleasant man who got to know us. Then for the next hour and a half, he told us all about owning a condo and timeshares. He was an absolute leisure to talk to; however, it became apparent that this type of arrangement would not be financially justified in our current situation. Once the gentleman had spent the best part of nearly 2 hours trying to convince us, he eventually asked for his manager to come over just to ask if we were satisfied with the service provided. We were very honest and told the lady, his manager, how great his service was (although by this time, we had been in the building for two and a half hours - a whole hour more than what we had been told).

At this point the lady went on to offer us more deals as we were "special" customers, as we we from the UK. But when we further declined the gesture, her mood quickly changed and she became extremely rude indeed. She became very insulting due to the fact that we did not wish to make a financial commitment and left the table without saying goodbye. Originally, we were told at the marketing store for the company that we would receive: (1) a free meal at a restaurant of our choice for two; (2) free tickets to a show times two; and (3) $100 betting money in a casino. When the manager lady left, she told us our gifts promised would be on the way any minute. 15 minutes later and we were still sitting there whilst our salesman continued to try and persuade us on and on. At this point, after being there for over 3 hours, we were both starting to become quite agitated.

We feel this 15-minute window was used as another opportunity to try and keep us there. Eventually, another lady came around with some paperwork and went through our gifts we were promised. At this point, she went on to try and offer us further special offers for being special clients and continued even more to hard sell their products to us. At this point, I repeated the fact that we did not feel the product was right for us and we had been in the tour for nearly 3 hours. We were then taken to their office where we received our free gifts. The free meal of our choice was in fact $10.50 off a meal each. The free tickets to shows still included a charge of $5 approximately, but was for back seat rows and the charge was only for box office charges. The $100 betting voucher was for a casino out the way in the old town also.

My wife and I are so angry at the manager in the building and couldn't be more insulting. We just want to let other people know, who are curious about this company, as we feel the 3 hours as a 1-on-1 tour was very intense indeed. Although the customer service was good from the gentleman serving us, we could not believe how awfully rude his manager was. I would hate anybody to experience this.

When I talked to my boyfriend, he said the front desk called and asked if we wanted room service and he said no thanks. They addressed him by my last name as soon as he answered but he did not correct them because the room was in my name and he figured it was standard practice. At any rate, my credit card got charged full rate for the room and Disney tickets $204 extra because they said I did not meet the qualifications for the vacation package. Now, I have to jump through hoops to dispute it with my credit company. Brian, the welcome center manager, is the ring leader and can't be trusted for help.

Okay, we were told when we purchased we would receive a deed. I questioned Monica why everyone I talked to told me it was in the mail and would take 7-10 business days. She said, "Well, it could take 6 months to get a deed." I told her that we have been waiting a year. Then she changed it and said it could take 6 years to get a deed. I told her she had to be kidding me. She said no. Then I questioned her why she told me that Westgate doesn't mail out deeds. She again said, "Sir, it has been requested and you should get it."

All they do is lie at Westgate. If I can but stop one person from making the stupid mistake in purchasing a timeshare from them, it would be worth all the hassle. Why lie? I guess since they got my money, they could care less about us. I do have a friend who wants to take overpaying the (over $600.00) yearly maintenance fee and take the timeshare. So maybe there will be a happy resolve to this after all. But Westgate lies and happily they are going to be someone else's problem now!

It was about 3.30 pm. I could tell my children were really tired & hungry as we had breakfast about 9 or 9.30 am so I agreed to buy the time shares. We finalized the agreement at about 4 pm as we were there for more than 4 hours but we were only supposed to be here for less than 3 hours, I was so tired that I didn't know what was going on. All I knew was that I had to make a call and they would do the rest. In 2010, I tried to contact Westgate to make the exchange week as it was my first time. I had no idea what I was supposed to do, so I rang them up on the number, spoke to the operator who gave me another telephone number to ring. So I did; then that person gave me another number to ring. By then, I had spoken to nearly 5 to 6 different people but the last person I spoke to helped me which took more than1 hour to sort out the payment as no one knew what was going on. Then, I had to ring again to a different person to book an exchange week just to find out that the availability is from September which is no good to me. Things were not disclosed clearly and were misrepresented by the agent.

I'm sorry to say that the Westgate agents had lied to me, it has been more than 4 years, but I still have to pay the Maintenance and Taxes & I haven't used the exchange week yet. Due to bank crashes, I am in a bad financial state & so tried to sell the timeshare. The only people we were contacted by were the resale organization which in my mind is as bad as those who sell timeshares in the first place. By the time I had lost about GBP800 to them. So once more, there was more money to pay. I have to say we pay the maintenance fees even though we are unable to use it due to ill health & shortage of money. It seems we are stuck with it unless you know better. If Westgate had any decency, they would buy back from those who hit difficulty through finance or ill health. But Siegel doesn't give a damn for anyone except himself.

Two years ago, due to bank crashes, we were in a bad financial state & so tried to sell the timeshare. The only people we were contacted by were the resale organization which in my mind are as bad as those who sell timeshares in the first place. By the time we had lost £1,500 to them, we had been put n the hands of legal people working for Westgate. So once more, there was more money to pay. I have to say we pay the maintenance fees even though we are unable to use it due to ill health & shortage of money. It seems we are stuck with it unless you know better. If Westgate had any decency, they would buy back from those who hit difficulty through finance or ill health. But Siegel doesn't give a damn for anyone except himself.

Every location that I have heard a pitch (Hawaii, Orlando, etc.), they tell you that this metro area is the most desirable and that trading is a snap. Do yourselves a favor people, just say no. You will never be happy. I love watching these people beg for a sale and we have a blast saying no to these thieves and getting their free/discounted items. We will keep doing it until this industry stops preying on middle class families trying to purchase memories.

We contacted attorneys but no one would help us. We also contacted the Timeshare Advocacy companies but all they wanted was money to do what I could have done myself, so that's exactly what I did. I kept sending them cancellation certified letters and calling them repeatedly until one day, they gave in. They said that they were going to refund my down payment and send me a letter stating that the contract was cancelled. I did not believe it so I waited about a month, but they did what they said they would do, without me having to pay one more dime to anyone else.

I had to learn the hard way, unfortunately. I am thankful though, that it all worked out for me in the long run. It was all resolved within 5 months. I know all of you who are in the same situation can do it too. You just have to be persistent. Good luck to all who have been scammed by Westgate!

These places were really nice, no denying it. But when we got back, he handed us a price sheet: $45k for a 3BR unit, crazy, for one week. Then, he disappears and some lady comes over to us (his so-called manager) and proceeds to tell us we can have special access to foreclosure units. She shows us the floor plan of a 2-bedroom lockout loft, and tells us it's $9,800. She told us there would be three meals per day (I looked this up online and nowhere did it ever mention a meal plan), that we could trade this week at this particular resort for two 1-6 day stay somewhere else (to get a total of 12 days for our week). She then says, "This is how it works, every other year here in Orlando and then every other year you can stay at any other place you want to."

So, $9800 for a Biennial unit. She was so full of crap, it's not even funny. We said no, then she disappears and another guy (this is now the third person) comes over and asks us what he can do to make this happen. We say we just don't want to make any hasty decisions, we can't afford this, etc, and he drops the price to $8,000. We said no, so he disappears and now a fourth person comes over and drops it to $7,000 (well $7,500 with a $500 cruise credit). That's when I said, "No, seriously, we are not going to buy anything today. Sorry." So, another freaking guy comes over and this guy (probably a former NY'er, by the way!) comes over and has a major attitude, then tries to sell us a vacation plan for like $1,250. We say no, then no again, then no again, then no again. All the prior people come back, etc, and then our original sales guy came back. We said no and he said okay, he'll get us the paperwork for the discount ticket voucher and that we have to go stand on some (long) line to get the tickets validated. So, I went outside and got into the car while my husband stayed on line for another half hour.

When he came out, he said they tried to sell him a week of vacation, and then some lady from the gift shop practically accosted him to get him to come into the shop (he refused and came out all mad). This was a disgusting display of manipulation, lies, hard-selling techniques, and bait and switch as I've ever seen and I spent most of my life in NYC! Do not get these discount tickets. It's so not worth it. You can't escape these people. The 90 minutes is just the warm-up. You will, I repeat, you will get stuck there for hours and hours! Read the reviews. Do your own research, but do not get pressured into buying anything same-day, people. Buyer beware! These thugs should be ashamed of themselves, and my husband definitely took this as a lesson that we will never ever take the easy way out of stuff: to get discounts you have to sit through sales presentations to get!

Sales people show you the newest or upgraded units for you to buy, but when you book, you get the worst units and this is if you are able to book. In five years, I have not been able to exchange my unit for other Westgate Resorts (e.i. Myrtle Beach, Miami, or Las Vegas Planet Hollywood) not even with 11 months in advance. Also, Westgate exchange fee is higher than interval ($150) and has considerably fewer choices, a total scam! We just returned for our second visit to Orlando and the unit that we were given was far away from five stars. Where are all the maintenance fees going? Super dirty textile chairs, clogged sinks, old TVs, broken remote control, bathroom fan broken, rusty and scummy bathroom doors and not cleaning services.

We bought park tickets through the Westgate line and, guess what? When we went to pick them up and after a two 30-minute lines, they couldn't find them and no one seemed to know what happened. A day later, they figured that the salesperson had entered our reservation number wrong. Finally, they have us a proof of purchase to pick the tickets at the door of the park another line. The sales person told me that the convenience of buying the tickets through Westgate was to avoid lines at the ticket windows at the parks. Lie, lie, lie. It was not true and more hassle! We were contacted by Diamar ** who wanted to hear about our experience, but the truth was she wanted to sell us an upgraded unit. Can you believe this? We are trying to get rid of our unit and the horrible deal we got into and Westgate wanted to keep selling to us? What's wrong with these people?

After taking our report, she contacted her manager Angelica ** who was very rude and offensive. She was pushing us to see one of the newer units, which we were not interested at all and were very clear about our disappointment with Westgate. But she kept pushing. We told them we had to go and that the only thing we wanted to do was a maintenance report. Then she pulled a paper with some numbers that we were not able to review and she wanted us to sign the sheet. She explained that our current unit has devalued and by signing it we're declining to upgrade our unit and accepted our current unit at degraded value. We told her that we were not signing anything and we will need to review what she was telling us with a lawyer. She snatched the paper from my hands and told us that we should leave. I couldn't believe it! I asked her if she was kicking us out and she said yes. Well, we left.

Maybe she thought that because the whole conversation was in Spanish, I was going to put up with her insolence. Oh no! I found the house director, Brian **, and told him about this. Hopefully, he does something about it. This is the most horrible experience I have ever had with a resort! Westgate sales people are so pressured to sell that they engage in dishonorable tactics. Please don't believe anything they said to you, at least you see it in paper and be aware that they still won't deliver what it is in paper. You cannot trust these people! I will discourage anyone who is thinking to buy a timeshare with this WasteGate (that is the perfect name). It is a waste of money and not worth the hassle.

Fast forward to a month ago. When I called to reserve a stay at another Westgate resort, I was told "the rules changed in April of 2012 such that a unit can be held for only a year". Since we were a "no show" in the year that we owned our 3 bedroom (we had been using the efficiency one year and the 2 bedroom the next all along), we were not entitled to a stay in 2012. I ranted, was passed to someone else, and then told that "out of courtesy" we would be able to book a stay for this year, but we would have to pay the $150 "deposit" fee! It got better. No resort had availability for the week we wanted. Of course, there was no record of our being told we couldn't deposit our unit last year, no notification that we would not be able to bank our unit or a portion of it for only a year, which really defeats the purpose of a 3 bedroom lock-off. And certainly no notification that the fee to use a home resort is now more than the Interval International deposit fee of $139!

Well, I just had to pay $811 in HOA in order to book "my" week. I could have rented the same condo as a non-owner for about the same price. Don't buy the BS and be sucked in to becoming an "owner". The Westgate Resorts I've seen are fine, and they're great for a vacation - as a non-owner. As the saying goes, "It's a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there."

He told us he put his kids through college this way and made about $55,000.00 in renting his timeshare out and he would help us do this. He would give me the website and help me set this up. He also gave me his cell number to contact him. When we went to close, they did not mention all the additional fees I would have to pay. On January 1, 2012, I got a phone call from Westgate and I actually thought I was paying one lump fee for maintenance, I guess I really misunderstood her, so I paid more money out. But after we signed, I asked if there was a three day revision if we changed our mind. She never told me what it was but she did inform me that we would charged to get out of this contract and never once did they inform us that we could not sell this until we had this for a year.

My husband and I our stuck. Tex never helped, we were duped and the Resort closer only talked about how she enjoyed and loved her membership with Westgate and she uses it all the time. We are broke paying this and today I cancelled payments to them. We can't afford it. I made the biggest mistake in my life and I'll be paying for it for a long time. I can't even hire a lawyer to help us out of this ordeal. Buyers beware, if you aren't given time to think about what you have been told or what you have seen, walk away, learn it from me and others not to get scammed like us.

I called two months before my scheduled visit to reschedule and was told that I would have to pay an additional $200.00 to reschedule my visit due to the fact that the promotion was over. What promotion? It would seem to me that they would honor the fact that I was told that if needed, I could change or cancel one time. That was the selling point for me. Now they want an additional $200.00 after I have paid the cost of the vacation pack and the waiver fee.

So after we found this out (30 days after we signed the contract) in Gatlinburg, TN, we could not cancel the contract. We were told we'd be charged $80-$100 extra per night to accommodate our family of six anywhere else unless we want to stay in Gatlinburg every time we vacation then it would be free! I then called the account services number I was given to discuss my contract with them and that I had been lied to and scammed. They told me they started this customer service call center to handle complaints from the new owners. So I said, "That means you have a reputation of doing people wrong, right?" He went on to say that I was sold a V season contract, to my surprise, which means a value contract and that me and my family could only travel on our even years for free (no additional costs) to a Westgate Resort eight out of 52 weeks a year.

By the way, these weeks are during January, school season. So, I would have to pull my kids out of school to go on vacation. As it stood, I already placed a $1500 downpayment and setup on a monthly payment plan to pay for a timeshare that me and my family couldn't use not even during the even years. He went on to explain that I could travel the other 44 weeks out of the year for an additional $500 charge! So I would have to pay $500 a week to travel during the summer, plus $80 a night to get a room that would accommodate my family of six. An additional $1000 or more every time we vacation. How are we saving any money? He then went on to explain how he fixed this issue by upgrading me to a new unit that accommodates six people, two bedroom at every Westgate Resort and an all season contract.

Of course, my payment would have went up an extra $100 and the balance of my loan has to go up too. This is how they rip you off. They sell you something you don't want at a cheap price, lure you in and then they got you! With only a 10 day cancellation (not enough time to understand you have been screwed and lied to) so you will have to call account management number and upgrade to get what you really want by financing more money and it costing you double what you planned on paying to get what you want. In addition to write up a new deed, I will have to pay an additional $1000 down to get it revised. When I already put $1500 down at the time of the sale. Please contact me, Shirley Mae **, and let me know if there are other options. I will post my complaint to every website out there.

We were told that all weeks were red so it didn't matter what week you owned. You could go to any Westgate at anytime and just pay the exchange fee ($135) that would never change. Now that it's changed and if I want to go any holiday or summer months, I would have to pay an extra $750 plus the $150 exchange rate. Why have this?

I could take a friend and have them visit the facility and the cost was about $400. How crazy is that? I have been an owner since 1992, have paid off my unit and get hit with crazy fees. How is that right? We need to start a class action suit and maybe they will fix what's broken and start paying attention to owners!

They forget that if it wasn't for the original owners, they wouldn't be where they are today! I know people who purchased dirt and the building never broke ground. At least, I can go into the unit that I own every other year and actually see it. I also have been paying all these fees year after year and haven't used my timeshare in about six years. I have lost my last three weeks because it was too expensive to exchange when I needed to use it or the weeks weren't available.

Can anyone say scam? It's enough of us to get a class action lawsuit and when they have to buy back our timeshare or pay us for weeks that we couldn't use, they will wake up, smell the coffee, and start back servicing the customers and not themselves!

To make a long story short, my partner liked the idea of a timeshare, but I did not feel good about it. My intuition had me feeling stressed regarding the entire sales pitch. She was convinced it would be great if it was not so expensive and the downpayment was lower. Well, magically they made it happen, but the downpayment was still out of range. Once again, they messed around with a few numbers, and in the end, we ended up with a vacation traveler package that I was not thrilled about. We gave up the deposit before the tour and had the rest scheduled for later in the month, along with the monthly payments for the package.

On the way back from our vacation in Las Vegas, my partner realized the package was not what she initially thought. We cannot cancel it; I had to cancel my bank card, and I have to fight the rest of it. They consider this an ownership program and mortgage. It is a lousy traveler program we did not obtain all of the information for, and it is full of information that was pitched with lies! I did not have a good feeling regarding it, but my partner wanted it so badly; and we are stuck with a mess!

I would never recommend this company! They are very pushy, and they do not care of your situation or reasons for not wanting what they have to offer! They try, belittle you, and make you feel like you are passing up an opportunity of a lifetime. It is a scam and joke!

They called me every few days to ask what was going on. I told them that the broker did not keep his word of helping me with a payment extension, as promised when we signed the documents at the resort, in the case of an emergency. I explained to them that I intend to make my payments, when able, and that I would contact them. I did just that. I contacted them when I was back on my feet. A more "reasonable" employee worked with me to find an "affordable property" that we could afford. I gave them my debit card information, and arranged two payments to supplement the down payment of the property.

Two weeks before the payment date, something told me that the numbers were not adding up. I looked at the original "signed" proposal that was given to me by WG Resorts. It had an interest rate of 11.99%. Next, I compared that to the new property they proposed. This contract said 17.99%. In this case, that is a difference of about $4,000, which made this property about the same as the original one. They were making their money back on interest. However, they did not tell me that they were changing the interest rate over the phone. They waited until they got my debit card number to send me an email, with the new contract terms. At this point, I was stuck. They had access to my debit information. I called them and complained. The property manager told me over the phone, that my original contract was not for 11.99%. However, I have the original signed proposal showing that we were sold on that rate. He directed me to read all of my documents. When doing so, I found that the salesman and/or sales manager changed the proposed rate, within the contract documents. Unfortunately, I did not catch the change in numbers.

So they sold it to me, even signed a proposal, stating 11.99%. Then they changed the numbers in the final contract, with hopes that I would not catch it. Sad for me, I didn't. The property manager, via telephone, told me that it is my responsibility to look for those things in the documents. He also said that he believes the sales manger was confused while multitasking, because they do not offer rates lower than 12.99%. Yet, I have a signed sales proposal, showing the interest rate they lured me with. So we both have signed documentation, showing two different rates. Unfortunately, I believe the contract may hold more weight than the original proposal. Once again, I was forced to stop my debit card, in order to prevent WG Resorts from further action. Now, I am concerned with the effect this will have on my hard earned credit score/report. Please advise.

After buying a vacation for one unit, all season, per week or per year, it was now all very confusing. I thought it was a great idea at the time! So my first experience was for my wedding in September 2008. I called countless times and always transferred to someone else and told I had to pay more or not enough notice to occupy the unit! I was calling as early as May. How was that not early enough?! I kept calling and always the same response, so I gave up! In the meantime I kept paying my monthly payments, but when the bill for the other fees came in I said enough!

First of all I didn't have a home, a "unit", a "home"—I don't have anything to show for those outrageous amounts of dollars they are trying to obtain from me. That was only one experience, not to mention a couple more. So I refused to pay anything for something that I will not own or have ever! They stopped hounding me for a while but they are back with a vengeance and threatening foreclosure! I will obtain legal council and the BBB. I don't want my name slandered and into a very negative remark on my credit bureaus for 7 years! Will I get a response by filing this complaint?

I have been harassed about the payment I am supposed to make on this vacation that I don't need. I have been looking at all the class action lawsuit talk on line for about 2 years and still nothing has happened and I do not think David Siegle is especially worried about it. I do not think he has a lot of respect for the people who have bought into his scam. The only time the company pays any attention to anyone is when a payment is not made. Hello! Set a date and have anyone not satisfied with Westgate not make a payment on that date and I guarantee it will get his attention.

My fiancé and I arrived at the resort around 8:30 a.m. and provided the customer service representative with the requested information (ID and credit card). The customer service representative completed the check-in process and my fiancé and I were directed to the waiting area. We were later greeted by a salesman, Robert, who was very pleasant and stated that he would not pressure us into purchasing anything and that he wanted to show us the property and its amenities. The salesman provided us with an excellent tour of the property. Upon conclusion of the tour, the salesman offered to sell us a timeshare property.

We kindly declined the offer. At this point the salesman's supervisor offered to sell us a timeshare at a reduced price, and again we kindly declined the offer. The salesman, Robert, returned and began pressuring us into purchasing the property. I kindly declined, at which time the salesman, Robert, offered to make a deal with my fiancé and again I stated, "Thank you, but not at this time." At this point, the salesman, Robert, stated that he would get someone to check us out. Finally, a third, very rude, salesman returned and stated, "I'm not going to try to sell you anything"; however, he once again attempted to sell us another one of their products.

The salesman stated that I was being unreasonable and senseless for not accepting the deal that he was offering. I again stated that I was not interested. The salesman then stated that I, not my fiancé, had to sign a release form to conclude the presentation and then I would be able to receive the agreed upon gift (2 tickets to Universal Studios). The form stated that I, not my fiancé, am ineligible to attend any Westgate Property timeshare presentations for life. At no time was I ever indignant or belligerent, so I'm not clear as to why they felt the need to ban me and not my fiancé from future presentations. I guess because I was in the way of them selling to my fiancé that they felt the need to take such action.

I declined to purchase the timeshare and was forced into signing a release stating that I am not eligible to attend any future Westgate Resort presentations. However, my fiancé was not asked to sign such a release. It sounds a little discriminatory to me and I'd be open to discussing with any attorney or others interested in a class action against this resort and their unethical practice. This clearly contradicts their policy of not pressuring anyone into purchasing anything which is written in their contract. Needless to say, 4 hours later, I walked out of the resort with my 2 Universal Studios tickets; however, I only committed to a 90-minute tour. Beware!

I worked out a very temporary solution of making half payments, which would be added with additional interest, for 3 months to my balance. I told them that my situation was long-term. I even borrowed from friends and family to make payments. It was hard to reach anyone from Westgate, it took weeks sometimes. And when I did, she responded to fill out a hardship application again. I tried to explain, she told me I should not have bought a timeshare, that I should just take a vacation. I even told her that I have not used it and maintenance fees would be due again. I bought it in Aug and by Dec I was paying fees. I kept paying for fear of a negative impact on my credit and my endeavor to buy a house. I tried selling it, renting, donating and even transferring it. Who wants this responsibility when people are actually giving it away for pennies!? And Westgate does not have many compliments on the internet. I have so many sleepless nights. I am a very responsible person, but I stopped making payments. It's either the timeshare or food on my table. It is not such a hard decision then.

When I inquired about letting my parents use the "Reward" week, I was told that it was "non-transferable" and could only be used by me. I am unable to use my free week as the location and available weeks do not fit with my vacation schedule.

This limitation to using this free week was not made clear. I tried to have the week assigned to my parents, but this was impossible.

I don't understand how it makes a difference if I invite my parents to use my "Rewards" week instead of me. How does this affect Westgate in any way?

After two days and over 5 hours of submitting to pressure sale tactics, we had declined several attractive offers and had stated that it was our final decision. By then we felt harassed by your employees because even though we continuously said no to their offer they continued to harass us with multiple offers. Employee #10041 visited our table, identified himself as the manager and offered to hold their offer until 2014 if we agreed to purchase an upgraded week stay at any Westgate facility including the Westgate Palace in Las Vegas, specifically for $200.00 dollars,

We agree to this offer to finish this whole situation at the moment and handed over our debit card for the $200.00 payment. This was done in a rush with the manager presenting to us the agreement, going over it quickly, and then presenting the other paperwork in short order. This was not revised because as it was clearly known to your employee we were in a hurry to leave since our grandsons were arriving that same afternoon, and they held us there for 2 hours for two days in a row of pressure sale tactics.

We explained that the card was furnished for the $200.00 not an agreement for an automatic debit payment.

Your employee engaged in misrepresentation of facts with intention to defraud and had done so during regular work hours, while performing duties at his place of work and within the scope of his responsibility which places liability for this illegal fraudulent actions under Tort Law, directly on Westgate Corporation lap. The failure of Westgate Corporation to address this situation points to the real possibility that this type of action may be well known and encouraged by sales management and allowed by Westgate Corporation.

We are not interested in engaging with Westgate in any type of litigation but we do demand respect and will not stand for any underhanded dealing carried out by your employees. Our only request is that Westgate Corporation honors the agreement made with us in good faith and ceases in their attempt to collect payment on this ill-gotten contract.

Our car's windshield was vandalized, which cost us 6 hours -- two the night it happened filling out paperwork and talking to staffers who made promises (read other complaints -- promises, promises!!!) and $100 out of our vacation budget. We were told we'd receive a call from their something-or-other security department, to at least discuss this. That was July 22; still waiting... ???

That same night we found the vandalism, we got back from a Disney park and WE HAD TO PARK OUR CAR 3 TENTHS OF A MILE FROM OUR UNIT. I am not exaggerating. I'm 6'3" and it was 652 steps from the elevator at our unit -- which, by the way, sounded like a garbage truck falling off a building as it went up and down.

I was told by the manager on duty the morning we checked out -- same exact name as the author of "A Tale of Two Cities," "Great Expectations" and "Nicholas Nickleby" (no lie, I have his card in my wallet still) that there were plans to build a parking garage. "Where will people park while THAT'S being built?" was my only response... since we had such fun with what limited parking they already had. (Somebody needs to teach that resort's architect how to COUNT. 16 parking spaces for 48 units per building. Wow.)

And yes, just as Mandy said, we found roaches. I've got some good footage of one in my wife's toothbrush bag, matter of fact.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that when we finally left that upholstered sty, i checked our messages... and Mabel also left us a message one day at 7 p.m. to tell us that a 6 p.m. activity had been cancelled due to rain. How awesome is that? Woohoo!!

West Ghetto is a more apt description. What a DUMP.

If I could have, I'd have given this resort ZERO stars. One, is one too many!

David Siegel, the alleged owner/CEO/HMFIC, should be reading this, but like everyone else, he's probably too busy being important to care about that kind of thing. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Learn from it and look elsewhere!

Westgate resorts will not compensate us in any manner. We also have tried to exchange our week for the Las Vegas Planet Hollywood Towers and cannot ever get an available time. However, if I go online and book a week at the Planet Hollywood Towers, there are weeks available anytime I want to go. It seems they should give preference to owners before anyone else. We are stuck with a timeshare that does not meet our expectations and that we would have never purchased because we already own another one in Orlando. We feel deceived into buying something that will never exist.

We happened to stay at Westgate Smoky Mountain in November. We got hooked into another sales pitch for Gatlinburg. I have since found out that Westgate Resorts is in bankruptcy. Isn't "Full Disclosure" a law? No one is being told of the bankruptcy.

Let this be a lesson to anyone considering a timeshare at Westgate. We paid a god amount of money for a dump. We couldn't give it away. We bought the timeshare for our children and our grand children. This is just a scam.

The maintenance fees are terribly high, about $800 dollars, and it definitely makes timeshare holidays uneconomical. Even if you ignored the huge cost of buying the timeshare in the first place.

I would be interested in joining a group/class action or having help in selling/getting out of the contract, obviously not involving any scamming company, of which there are many out there to try and con timeshare owners once again!

My timeshare has been paid off for 25 or more years. When I first purchased, I loved it. That was before they were taking the general public and book them for units at the timeshares rather than putting the timeshare owners first.

Now when I apply for an exchange, it is never where I originally put in for nor is it comparable to what I bought. I bought a 2 bedroom with a loft at Westgate in Orlando, Fl. When I want to take a friend of another couple, they will not work with me and they always try and give me an efficiency rather than what I bought due to "nothing is available". Why? Because they are renting out to the general public rather than to the owners.

Once I was also told that due to my having purchased so long ago that I would not be placed in some of the newer units at newer resorts when I was trying to go to make reservations. Year before last, I made reservations in Destin, Florida and I was placed in a refurbished "Motel 6" like environment and had friends with me. They had to stay in another room next to us. I have never been so embarrassed in my life.

About five years ago, I invited one of my lifetime friends to go with me on vacation in Florida, and when I checked in to the place that they had reservations for me, I about died. The door to the balcony condo was falling off the track and we could barely open it and the unit was so old that it looked terrible and it was also not clean. I complained but to no avail.

Also, as I read others comments and experiences, what I have noted is that some are now paying $350 and up for maintenance fees. My maintenance fees are now over $750. Of course, now you have the yearly fees for dealing with RCI or Interval International. They are just as difficult to work with, again, you can never get the place or the "2 Bedroom" comparable that you bought.

You would think with all the dissatisfaction among the owners that someone would address this. I guess they just want money. This is really a scam.

I know that if we, timeshare owners, will all contact our congressmen/women and senators, we can possibly get something started to stop this scam and rip off.

The two of us were accosted by 3 separate trained sales teams, who relentlessly and without any respect besieged and forged ahead on us, until we were into a delirious state of submission. There was no identification of the employees. There was no explanation as to why they were keeping us there against our will. There was no explanation given as to why our credit card was being held by another party downstairs etc. We were lied to as to how much time we would have to nullify and negate the deal. The exit clause time period we were reassured was 30 days. They didn't give us any! We were lied to as to what the properties were really truly worth and what type of market demand there was for them. We were lied to when they told us that they would immediately purchase it back or rent it out for us if we chose to eventually go in that direction. We were never shown any credibility reports on Westgate.

The whole experience was nothing but a farcical charade. They ushered my wife and I into a little small room down a long hallway, where a two-way mirror and a microphone were awaiting us. We were just told to sign the ''X's and in our bid to exit this now, the seven-hour nightmare. I did. We hadn't eaten in 24 hours and were worn to the bone. Not to mention, we lost a full day's holiday. When we eventually exited the building, it was pitch-dark outside. That was about 6:40 pm. We arrived there at 10:45 am. There was nothing to eat. And we were just continuously pestered by a steady onslaught of salespeople, who would not leave us be. Shame on Westgate! Since then, I have paid out $5,000. My girlfriend and I are broke and can't travel or get our teeth fixed as a result of this. After consulting with three legal barristers, they have advised me to just walk away, and consider a ''fraud suit against CFI Westgate''.

Filthy and filthy hair in the bathtub, white powder all over bathroom floor, and bathroom drawers. When we complained out it said it would be taken of; but nobody ever showed up. Unit had no shower, which I need because of being disabled. Had stains on carpet, heating, air condition thermostat was so old, can't even read what it says. Had to maintenance come down and he couldn't read it either. He had to go back and read up on how it worked. Door lock didn't work after we went to one of the shows, called maintenance and he couldn't fix it, had to get his supervisor.

He couldn't fix either and had to go back to get proper tools to completely disassemble door lock. I stood out in the cold. TV's were at least 15-20 years old and the remote didn't even work. Of course the unit shown on their presentation was nice and clean with new HD TV’s. Also you had to pay $5 per day for Wi-Fi. Even the older motels, hotels offer free Wi-Fi. You would think after spending thousands of dollars you would get this small little amenity at no charge. That’s it in a nut shell, but I could go on and on. I am looking forward to being contacted by an attorney. Thanks for your time in reading about Westgate; and definitely do not buy!

Then 5 months later, I finally got a hold of this so called a closing agent after I called her under a fake name and false pretenses. I then revealed myself to her and she told me our account has been cancelled but we called the resort and it was all a lie!

They got us all! They kept telling us it was an investment, we could make profits,etc. They never made it clear that is was in fact an expensive stay at luxury hotel! My friend lives in Florida, she was laid off and is struggling right now and she is forced to pay for that scam!

Again, never sign any contract. They are not true to their word and they take your money then run. When you ask to speak with someone who at West Gate to answer your problem, they will put you on hold and the same person you spoke with before will be the one stating that a manager or supervisor can not assist you. On top of that, one of West Gate's employees told me they received the payment when another (the same day) said they received no such thing. Pinnacle has been very helpful. After sending payment to West Gate, Pinnacle has contacted them 3 times. After finding out that West Gate had received the payment, Pinnacle said "Imagine that, when the vacation package is almost to expire, they've received the payment. They just don't want to award a vacation to a hardworking person who paid for it".

Our maintenance fees have gone up almost $200 since our home resort became a Westgate property and we are getting absolutely nothing for it except being nickled and dimed to death for every exchange we try to make. They charge an additional $250/week if you want to stay at another resort during a holiday week. And this year, they are telling us that the second and third weeks in February are both "President's Week." Our children found airfare they could afford for the week of 2/11-2/18, but now will have to forget about going because they cannot afford the extra $250 and neither can we! You would think in these tough economic times that this company, who encourages family vacations, would forget about this additional and unnecessary fee! How do I get out of this timeshare without ruining my good credit?

Now, on 7-11-10, I spoke to Mr T. a Rep for Westgate and he started out with how did you buy so cheap something is wrong. I said nothing is wrong. This is what my contract at home said 4 units sleeps 4 in every unit. "Oh no," he said, "You need to go with this." He shows me a different floor plan and suggested I buy for$ 6000 more. He is crazy. Now he tells me I should be happy for what I have because it is for free. I responded nothing in life is free. I pay a mortgage for this timeshare and a maintenance fee. Now on 7-19-2010, I called the headquarters and tell them what happened. They put me on hold then came back and said they will call me back in a few, as soon as they have a manager available. No phone call was made they never called me back.

We were told at signing that we would receive a free week, if we paid our mortgage in full within 30 days. This was also not true as we found out it would cost $499, which is more than the price of an exchange. We were also advised that we could sell our timeshare as a business venture, and the saleslady, Marluisa, would help us set it up as soon as we got home from our vacation where they sold this to us. We placed several calls and emails to her in March and did not get any return answers. We tried to cancel the contract within 30 days, which was the amount of time they took to activate the account.

Carmello got the letter of cancellation and this was the only time anyone in this business wanted to "help" us with our membership. It turned out, he was there only to try to get our money as this is when Marluisa finally called us. But then again, it turned out to only be a scam again as all the information she gave us was a scam, and not a real business venture. She also told us one of her clients would be calling us to buy our vacation week, but we have since still not heard from anyone. In order for us to try our timeshare as a business venture, Carmello said we had to have our deposts paid in full. To this day we have not had any service from Westgate nor any return calls. This information given to you to pursue any class action suit you may have against this company.

My husband's hours got cut at work about a year into our payments and we couldn't afford to make payments any longer. I tried talking with them and did all the hardship stuff last year without any help. So now, we are threatened with foreclosure. They expect me to make multiple payments to catch it back up, when I couldn't even pay my monthly payment anymore. My husband and I don't want a foreclosure on our credit, but looks like it's the only way out. The salesmen up there told us so many lies and I really wish there was some way to stop them! They definitely made things sound so good and easy. But who knew they were lying about almost everything? They even told us that they didn't and wouldn't put anything on your credit, which now we see as a lie or they couldn't put the foreclosure on there. We paid so much into this place and haven't even been able to use our week!

Well, if the representatives would have been smart, they would have given us the 3rd bedroom at a reasonable cost and tried to make a sale, but no. Their "representatives" are stupid. So, we arrived for the vacation/wedding. We had so many issues with our condo. It practically ruined our week and the wedding. When we checked in, they "rushed" us over to another desk to where we were "booked" for a Westgate Update meeting. We went and it was another "high pressured" sales meeting. When we told the "sales rep" about what the original salesman told us, she pulled our sales record and she told us that, "No, that is not what the salesman sold you. What he sold you is not upgradeable." She said she was sorry for wasting our time on this.

By that time (the day after the wedding), we were so mad. Within the week of arriving back home, we called the "customer service department" to log an "issues" ticket against what had happened while we were there. We got a ticket number and never got a response. So, I looked up Mr. Waltrip, COO of Westgate, and left a lengthy message about the many issues and problems we had during our stay. We never heard anything back. So, I logged another ticket and we have someone doing an in-depth investigation. If anyone wants to start a lawsuit against Westgate, please send me information. We want to join in.

About 2 years ago, I paid my maintenance fees and about 2 days later my account was still sent to collections where I was met with the rudest person I have ever spoken with. This is the best way to describe it: it was like we were having two different conversations. I said, in a pleasant voice, "I just want to let you know, I already paid this." She responded with "Stop screaming. You are a liar and and a deadbeat." It's almost like she was putting on a show. I actually said to her "Who are you putting on the act for?" She continued as if I said nothing. I called Westgate. Not only did Westgate do nothing, they sent me a nasty, inappropriate letter stating I owed an additional $300 for maintenance because I paid the maintenance fees late. I was put off, but I paid it because I would lose the timeshare if I didn't pay for it.

This year, my maintenance went up another $100 even though the company claims to have a record year in sales. If there are so many "new owners", shouldn't their maintenance fees offset current owners' costs? I am ready to start a lawsuit. I am a lawyer myself and have spoken to several of my lawyer friends looking for their assistance in this matter. I am willing to put some work into this if others are willing to be plaintiffs as well. Please contact me at **.to discuss. Thanks.

Next day when we came, we were taken to the second floor of the casino. At the front desk asked again why we are here and was told again for tour which is going to take only 1.5 hour. Our tour turned into 6 hours nightmare in the noisy room full of the other people. Even from the beginning Westgate real estate agent Douglas didn't tell us the real purpose of this meeting. After he finally came to the point that he wants us to buy timeshare, I personally told him "no, we are here on vacation and doing any timeshare shopping". He continue to press on us on telling us about buy-back program as well as how great benefits are of being a member of Interval International. That Interval International provides its members with discount prices on cruises, hotels and resorts. I told Douglas that I want to take all document with me, research them and get back to him but he told me that this is one time deal only and it will be off the table tomorrow. He also told us that we risk nothing since Westgate has a wonderful buy-back program. So after 6 hours kept in the room we ended up buying partial week in PH by Westgate.

As soon as I received my Interval International membership card I was able to quickly find out that Interval International does not have any cheaper prices for hotels, resorts or cruises then any other travel agencies. I called Interval International and told about this. I then contacted Douglas by email and told I want to sell my timeshare and ask him for help. Even then he didn't tell me that there is no buy-back program. Instead he told me to wait until City Center is built up. I waited for another month or and then sent another email asking to sell my timeshare but Douglas ** already quit the company and was unable to help. I would like Westgate to fully refund my money by buying my timeshare back as they told they were.

Anyway, the manager came to the table and continued to tell us a cheaper price which alarmed us that they could adjust the price so drastically. There were several red flags, so to be polite, we told the manager we would like the time to go home and think it through before making such a large purchase. He questioned what is there to think and I told them I want to research the company and the value and know what I am getting myself into for such a big decision. He then asked me if I had heard of Toyota as he wrote Toyota on a piece of paper. I just starred at him and he said if you research them you will see they are a multimillion dollar company that kills people what do you hope to learn about us.

I at that point said I am a done because my husband sitting to my right works for Toyota and you have now insulted the people who put food in my families mouths. As I was walking away, he said well they kill people, we are wanting to give you a future. At that point, I was enraged by his rudeness and discrimination of my husbands employer.

We went to get our $20 deposit back and the manager came into my face and questioned me "did you really tell another person not to buy from us?" Yes I did! As I was leaving, I told everyone I saw and will continue to. This is the biggest rip off and waste of money I have ever seen in my life. They ruined a day of our vacation!

I found Westgate's promotion when I planned a vacation at Orlando to celebrate my wife's birthday. I called and asked, it looks too good to be true. I am wondering if there is any restriction. "No! Not at all", the salespersons told me except you have to attend a tour of our timeshare presentation. It takes 90 minutes. I wanted to know what is timeshare so I bought their 3 nights hotel and 2 parks package with $137.14.

Nov. 2nd 2005, my wife's birthday, she, my baby daughter and I went to Westgate and listened to a lady's presentation for an hour. Then there came the sales manager Ben ** and he asked me "can you make decision to purchase one unit today?". I told him I would like to think about it, but I really could not buy one right away. Ben took out a piece of paper with a title of Tour Dismissal and wrote a reason: "Language Barrier and asked me to sign it".

What he did not know is I am a PhD, currently a Federal Scholar at the Georgia Tech, and had taught a State University in Michigan while my wife is working for a famous American company and her major is English. Does it mean anything? I was curious. "No, no.", Ben laughed. "Absolutely doesn't mean anything!". "Why do I have to sign it?", I asked. "It will save your time, you do not have to spend another 30 minutes to do the tour. You sign it and bring the copy to the Welcome Center (at another building) to pick up your package", Ben explained with smile.

It is great. I said to my wife and signed it. When I handed the note to the front desk of Welcome Center, the clerk told me this note meant I agreed I was not qualified to pick up the package. I thought there must be some misunderstandings, so I went back to the hall and asked for Ben. After a long while, Ben came out, told me to give the note back to him and to follow him. I assumed he was going to the Welcome Center with me.

When we walked through an empty place, Ben turned around. His face became long and cold. "You already signed the paper, I am not going to give you anything. You have to leave right now!". "What!", I was astonished. "You lied to me". I required refund. He refused and said "leave now or I will call security to force you to leave". I ran back to the hall and requested to see Ben's supervisor. An employee agreed to call the upper management, however, there came two securities.

A very tall, strong security told me "Follow me to the small room. I will not beat you up!". "No sir!", I replied. I will stay in public. Afterwards, two deputy sheriffs appeared. Ben told the deputy I was trespassing and blah blah before I let him know the whole story. The deputy asked Ben to give him the note and handed to me after he read it. Now I got the evidence back. "Do I look like I have language barrier to you, sir?", I inquired. "No", the deputy answered. I asked him to be my witness. He agreed and gave me his name card. However, he told me he could arrest me if Ben insisted. "We don't mind to put you and your wife into jail", the security said aside. "But we will be very sorry to put your 4-year old daughter into jail!". I was frightened and left.

Since I had already checked in the hotel, I called Westgate's reservation to complain. In the first place, they said the hotel was also canceled. After a long negotiation and the representative talked to her supervisor, they agreed I could stay with no more charges. However, I have never received the two parks tickets. "Do I sound I have language barrier to you, ma'am?", I asked the representative. No, she answered. When I told this story to my friend Prof. G. of GT, he made a call to Westgate as gallantry. Westgate forged a bigger lie for him that I threatened to blow up the Welcome Center. Their strategy was to discredit my name as terrorist instead of any remorse. It made me determine that I have to pursue the justice. It could be more convincing if Westgate made up that I would sing a protest song in their Welcome Center instead of exploding it. Eventually, I did write a song. I am peaceful and determinant.

Ben took my money and stole what I had already paid for. He lied to me twice in one morning and cheated me to sign an untrue document. Language Barrier is an extremely vicious excuse that will make foreign tourists consider it is their bad to lose the package. $137 is a very tricky amount that most of foreign tourists will give up to fight for. Even if language barrier was true, it is a definitely inappropriate and illegal insult of discrimination. Ben wanted to take advantage that the foreigners are not capable to defend themselves in communication skills. The most incredible part is I went to a store, paid the money and met the threat that I and my family will be put into jail.

I wish that I had not wasted my money on a Westgate timeshare. I could be using that money for a home right now. I would like to join in a class action lawsuit against one or both of these companies. There are so many complaints against Westgate on this and other websites. They should be forced to buy back all of the timeshares they sold.

After digging out the paperwork, I called back again and spoke to another rep (Jessica) who had me fax the paperwork stating that the partial week could be exchanged for a full week with Interval International. I called back after faxing the paperwork and spoke to a third rep who then told me that she had gone over the paperwork with her supervisor and they would honor the exchange for this one time only. I told her that nowhere on the paperwork or in the sales presentation were we told that the exchange for Interval International is available for only one time. That means for the rest of all the years that we own our timeshare, we are limited to exchanging our partial week to the only 20 or so resorts within the Westgate Properties which are in locations that we have no interest in going!

I asked to speak to her supervisor (Ingrid) who was on another call. The rep said that Ingrid would call me back today. So far, there has been no call which is no surprise. This is a good bait and switch scheme. Even with paperwork, Westgate won't honor what they have printed! We want Westgate to refund our money and resell the timeshare to someone who wants to go to Las Vegas all the time (or only to their other 20 properties-- for a fee).

We are in the process of paying for a timeshare that will limit us to locations that we have no desire to visit for years to come because Westgate won't honor its own exchange process with Interval International as described in Westgate's paperwork. It will be a waste of over $11,000 (not including biennial maintenance fees and property taxes) since we can't use our week to go where we want!

What a scam outfit, they just got fined by the FTC for releasing personal info. This company will go to the lowest level to get 5 dollars from you, do not buy! Undo amounts of stress. I am considering not paying their fees anymore, I can not see any value in this.

We decided after looking into prices of the shows that we were interested in, that we're available to go ahead and listen. They showed us the new Westgate Resort condos available in the new towers that were being built at the Planet Hollywood Casino. After the showing. we went down and ended up spending an additional 4 hours listening to the sales rep trying to talk us into buying a time share there in the new towers because as the rep said, "Of all the locations that Westgate has to offer, this location would provide the biggest gain in ability to transfer to other locations as we would like to travel."

After my husband and I constantly told him no that we were in the process of buying our first home that was to begin being built within months of our return home and knowing that it is quite easy to go over budget in that situation, the guy turned to us and actually had the nerve to ask which was more important... having a home now, or being set-up for a future with guaranteed vacations to decrease the amount of pressure and stress we were feeling from our jobs? I was shocked that he literally had the gall to ask such a thing! At that point exactly, my husband started getting up and said we were done.

The guy quickly recovered and apologized and instead offered us a deal for a vacation there in Vegas at any point over the next two years staying at their new condos in the casino for $800. After the amount of money that we had spent to just get to Vegas and then do stuff and eat, we figured that wasn't such a bad deal as we could invite up to I think it was 8 other people to join us. However, in dealing with their payment department I have repeatedly ran into one thing after another with them. First it was that we didn't receive our payment vouchers and they were trying to double charge us.

After getting that situation squared away I started sending off the checks. Now on the payment stubs it says that the due date is the first of each month, but after the 10th of that month you are required to pay an additional $10. So we were in the process of moving into our new house over Christmas and I had packed the payment slips and you know how it goes with trying to find things when they're packed away during a move. Especially when you really need them! So I knew I was going to be late on the one payment and made out my check for an additional $10.

The next month the payment was processed by the 7th of January. And just recently I went on a cruise that I was not going to be back from until February, 7th. So I sent my check out early and made a phone call to them to ask that they not process the check until February 1st due to otherwise the money will not be in the account to cover it. The rep on the line said that it was fine and wouldn't be an issue. Well I came to find out, I received a letter in the mail while I was gone that due to my payments not being on time for December and January, that they were not just charging me the extra $10 as requested on the payment form, that they were charging me $20 total per month that the payment was late.

I got into an argument with the woman on the phone because not only was there nowhere stating that I would be charged their $10 plus an additional $10 from wherever else they pulled out of their butts, but the payment that should have been considered on time in January was also being charged the $20 as well. To make matters worse I asked her about the payment made in February because I had a bounced check fee on my account. She claimed that I had not spoken to anyone about the payment being processed on the 1st. So whomever I spoke with apparently never actually put that information in the computer. Then she turned around and said that it wouldn't have mattered anyway because as soon as they receive the check. it is automatically processed which could take as little as 2 days or up to 10.

I was livid and asked to speak to her manager. She actually laughed at me! Then informed me that there was no way for her to transfer me to her boss and that she would have to give her manager my information and wait for her to call me back. It has now been about 5 days and I have not heard one peep from their company. The woman that I had been dealing with commented that if need be "since I can't seem to make my payments on time", that there is always the online payment option, which charges you I think $5 extra per time you use it, or the online payment option which can also apparently charge you the late fees as it doesn't process payments timely either.

So basically you either have to suck up paying more than necessary no matter what payment method you use, or put a check in the mail and pray to God that it gets there and is processed at just the right moment. Finally, however, I spoke with a representative from my bank and settled on a Web Bill Pay program that they offer even though I just found out that Westgate Resorts is supposed to offer that, too but no one bothered to mention that to me. I guess they just like making things as difficult as possible for anyone dealing with them after reading some of the other complaints filed by others.

My husband and I both agree that if we had it to do over again that we would not have wasted our time at their presentation and definitely would not have wasted our time taking them up on their "great deal" of a vacation! My suggestion to anyone looking at becoming involved with this company is don't do it! Don't waste your hard earned money and precious time over the stress of it!

We received our Visa card after one of our friends bought a 2 bedroom, every year, but it only had $200. We called Westgate and we asked why it only had $200 when the pamphlet clearly says it should be $600. They said that our friend only bought a 2 bedroom unit every other year, therefore we were only eligible for the $200.00 We spoke to our friend who bought, and he says that he did buy every year and showed my husband the paperwork that shows that it was for every year. He has already referred someone and they bought, too. He received a prepaid visa with his $600 on his card.

We then ask him to call our friend who bought the 2 bedroom every year to confirm what we were telling him and gave him the number. Within a few minutes, the man from Westgate called us back and still insisted that he only purchased a 2 bedroom every other year, when my husband actually saw the paperwork that stated otherwise.

This is how we are treated as a 4 bedroom owner that is paid in full. And in response to some of the other complaints about having to pay for everything at the resort, yes, as owners, we have to pay for anything we do there. I, too, think that sucks. As owners, everything should be free. This past year, we went down with 12 of our family members. While the rest of the family stayed at the unit, we had a salesperson come to our door with a golf cart and transported us around the resort to show us the new units. We were served a nice breakfast and once again treated like royalty. After sitting through the all day sales pitch, my husband plainly told them that we were not interested in doing anything with our week.

They were trying to make us split up our unit and downgrade to a 3 bedroom. Our sales person got up from our table, left and was no where to be found. We had to walk back a very long distance to our unit. Since we didn't buy, we didn't deserve a golf cart ride back to our unit.

I was treated like I was stupid because I didn't know that. When someone tells you the first unit is gone, no longer my responsibility, I took them at their word. I was also told when I purchased the first unit that Westgate would buy it back if I found I couldn't afford it. That's a lie. I called a friend who is an investigative reporter for a local TV station. I am considering turning all the paperwork over to them and let them run with it. I suggest that anyone with a problem with Westgate go to their local TV station. That will really get the message about Westgate out.

During that presentation, I was told a number of untrue things such as:

4. My contract states that my monthly mortgage payments are due on the 11th of the month, but I advised the Closer that I would not be able to make my monthly payments until the 15th of each month. I was told that that would be no problem.

The original price of the unit on a bi-annual basis was approximately $13,000. I paid $1,100 down and consistently pay $177.00 per month. Thus far, in this transaction, I have paid:

Total: $ 4,136.72

I have never been late on my payments and have never once used my condo at this point (for the majority of 2008, it was still under construction). My unit was not even ready for use by week 14 of this year. I was told that I would have to stay in a different unit if I were to have wanted to use my timeshare week this year. I banked my week and when I called to have my week transferred to the Westgate property in Daytona Beach, FL. last Monday, October 5th, for the week of March 21, 2009 to March 28, 2009, I was told I could not complete the exchange without paying the $130.00 exchange fee. I was prepared to pay the exchange fee, but was then told there was no availability at the Daytona Beach resort because it was Spring Break and the property was booked. I was told I would be put on a waiting list for the next 10 days just in case something opened up.

On October 7th, a message was left on my home phone number that a unit had become available but that I only had 24 hours to call back to complete the exchange. I have always been contacted by Westgate at my work number, but this particular day, the person called my home number and left the message. I did not receive the message until today, October 12th. When I called to see if the Daytona Beach property still had availability, I was then told that since my payment is due on the 11th of the month, the exchange could not be completed at this time. I was told the payment is past due so the system will not allow an exchange to take place. For the last year and three months, I have consistently made my payments on the 15th of the month. I have over $4,000 invested in this property and I am being hassled about wanting to exchange my week for a trip in March over a $177 payment that would be received by the end of this week.

The reason all of this upsets me so much is that I have been repeatedly lied to while working with Westgate, service has been inconsistent and inadequate and I feel like I was taken advantage of during the sales process. It has not been easy working with customer service to exchange my week. There is always a reason why the exchange can’t take place, whether it is lack of availability or that the other Westgate resort only allows check-in on certain days of the week.

It occurs to me that if I continue to pay faithfully and never use my unit, you have essentially made out like bandits in this situation. I have just one week every 2 years in my unit. If there are 25 units in each building paying approximately $177/week, you are receiving $230,000 approximately in mortgage fees alone annually for that one building. Every procedure you have in place to make the use of the unit convenient is not convenient and requires I jump through hoops. I would think that someone who has invested over $4,000 in their unit would be able to make a reservation for March of 2010 considering there will be an additional 5 payments made by March of 2010.

I am fed up with this process and working with your company and I am requesting that you buy back this property from me, because your company is deceitful and exercises practices that essentially cheat people out of their money with nothing gained in return. I am requesting a refund of the $4,000 that I have paid into the unit and that I am released from the deed. I am certain that the Federal Trade Commission and other consumer advocates would be interested in knowing about the unscrupulous business practices exercised by your team members. I am prepared to pursue this until I receive a satisfactory resolution. I look forward to an expedient response on this matter.

We called Westgate about buying back the timeshare, but they won’t even though they told us they would before we bought it. They tell me that my only option is to sell it on my own or rent it. I have looked into this and it seems that the timeshare resale industry is a scam as well. It seems that in order for me to sell it, I would have to bribe thousands of people with a fancy breakfast and tickets to a major theme park and use mafia-like salesmen to scare them into making a purchase. But I would not wish this upon my enemy. Well, maybe Mr. Siegel - he's right up there with Bernie Madoff.

I read where someone wanted to get a bunch of people together and file a complaint with them. Well, I will help. We need so bad to get rid of this timeshare. Times are tough right now and I feel like I am throwing my money away. I can't even use it and probably wouldn't. Also, they told us there was no credit check, and if we didn't pay for at least six months then it would go back to them. Well, there is another lie because I called about it and was told that if that happened then it would go into foreclosure just like a mortgage. How can they legally do that if no credit was ran? Something needs to be done about this. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. Thank you so much.

Although my timeshare is paid for, the maint. fees are very unaffordable. I have put the timeshare for sale almost 4 years ago with a company I paid over $400 for and nothing has happened. No one wants Westgate - their reputation is so bad.

On Monday, the 8th, we went to meet with her at Town Center and, lo and behold, we were sent through the same sales pitch that happened 2 yrs prior. She then introduced us to Jimmy ** who proceeded to tell us what a great deal we had in front of us. Through all of this process, it should be known that the atmosphere is extremely high pressure, confusing, and very noisy, creating extremely difficult circumstances to make a decision of this magnitude. A 1/2 hour promise turned into a 4-hour ordeal, with my wife and myself succumbing to the relentless sales pitch. We then were escorted to an office to sign all of the paperwork, essentially locking us in, so we thought, with no recourse.

At that time, our vacation had turned into a horror-ridden nightmare leaving us to wonder what we had gotten ourselves in to. On Tuesday, 4/7, my wife and I had decided to call Tatianna, our initial contact, and try and cancel the purchase. She agreed to set up a time to speak, but promptly handed us off to Mr. Jimmy **, who outright lied about our rights to cancel the contract. He then told us how we could call a real estate company that would handle the sale of our the time share. At this point, we were confused and felt helpless as to what our rights were.

This meeting was on Wed, 4/8. Because of his deceiving us into having no recourse, I knew any chance of cancelling before departing for home was out of the question, and would have ruined the remainder of what was supposed to be a special vacation, so we did not pursue it any further. Our flight home was departing on 4/12.

After getting home and trying to sort out our options, I decided to do some investigating online on Wed., the 15th, to see if there was anything that we could do to get out of this mess. Upon visiting several websites, I discovered that Florida has a cooling-off period in which purchasers have the right to cancel within 10 days of receiving all of the documents. Unfortunately, we had used up the vast majority of the 10-day period and had to act fast. Luckily, my wife spoke to an attorney that is very familiar with timeshares, and Westgate in particular, and we were told that in the paperwork we were given, there is a section stating your rights to cancel. We scoured through what we had and found the page with a small paragraph stating we had 10 days from receipt of the documentation, which unfortunately is the only thing that they processed in a timely matter, the reason being, Florida law states that this period begins when you receive all of the paperwork. So we had all of it in hand on Mon., 4/6, losing the majority of the 10 days while still being on vacation.

This is no doubt a deceitful way that Westgate has leverage because people go over the 10-day period while still being on vacation. When you first arrive, they set up a presentation almost immediately in hopes of a purchase being made right on the spot. Then, they will process all of your paperwork, which ultimately starts the 10-day clock, leaving very little time to cancel in the near future. On Wed., 4/15, we hurried home after work to compose a cancellation letter and made a trip to the post office sending it out certified mail with return receipt. The law also states that the 10 day-period is when you send the letter, not when they receive it.

We have retained a lawyer in the event of further recourse on the part of Westgate resorts. We have also closed the account that was used for the partial down payment. My advice to anyone is to stay away from Westgate Resorts. They are crafty scam artists who will bleed you for every red penny. I personally will never have anything to do with them ever again. They most definitely have a monopoly on tickets to Disney, SeaWorld, and other attractions in the area. So, don't be fooled by cheap attraction tickets. It comes with a price, and it can be a horrific one. You will get the tickets cheaper, but most definitely spend a day at a Westgate timeshare presentation, which will waste the better part of a day, especially if you refuse to buy. They will wear you down until they have some form of money from you. Stand your ground and don't be fooled. The old saying applies, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.