Recinding a purchase

[putzer]

My wife and have recently returned from Arizona were we stayed with friends at the Westin Keirland. Our friends have been starwood owners for a number of years now, and seem to be happy with the organization. We, on the other hand, have had no experience with time shares and thought it might be a good idea to sign up for a presentation. We were warned that this was going to be a sales pitch and that the sales person would be trying very hard to get us to sign on the dotted line. At the end of the presentation we ran the gauntlet of sales people and managers and got out without signing. But my curiosity was peeked and some of what they were saying made sense i.e flexibility, points rewards, travel miles, quality and number of resorts etc.. So we discussed it that evening and went in the next morning to make a deal on a studio at Lagunamar in mexico. I was feeling good about the deal until we got home. I started researching time shares and came across TUG. My eyes were quickly opened to the world of time shares, the good, the bad and the ugly. I immediately started second guessing my purchase. I was still interested, but realized that in order to make a better decision, I needed more time to research this further. To that end I sent a registered letter to the people at Starwood, addressed exactly as shown at the end of the purchase agreement and within the 10 day cooling off period allowed, exercising my legal right to recind the agreement and requesting a refund of my down payment. I also asked for confirmation via email or phone. I decided to be proactive regarding the confirmation and started calling the Starwood office in Florida two days after the letter went out and was able to get confirmation that they had indeed recieved the letter. They said that we would have to wait until March 24th to recieve our refund and that we would NOT be recieving confirmation via email or by phone. Does this seem right or should I be concerned?
Your response is greatly appreciated.
thanks
Putzer

[falmouth3]

It sounds like you did everything right.

Welcome to TUG.

Please spend time here learning about the ins and outs of timesharing. You'll also learn the good and the bad. Feel free to ask lots of questions. You'll probably get about 42 different answers. But at least you'll have a lot of input.

Good luck!

Sue

[DeniseM]

Hi and welcome to TUG!

Everything you described sounds correct, and I have never heard of anyone rescinding a Starwood purchase within the legal rescission period, who didn't get a refund - Starwood is decent about that.

Now you can take your time, do your homework, and decide if timesharing is for you, with no pressure and all the time in the world.

I suggest you start with the Starwood FAQ at the top of the forum and be sure you investigate other companies as well. Starwood definitely isn't the only game in town and they have some issues:

Escalating double digit maintenance fees (My Maui MF has increased $1,100 since 2004!)
Collusion with Interval International to control/remove exchange benefits
Poor communication with owners
Excessive developer control of the boards of directors
Handling of defaults & foreclosures
Rental practices

The TUG Advice page, linked in the red bar at the top of the page is also a good place to learn the basics of timesharing.

[putzer]

Thanks for such a quick reply, Sue. There seems to be an awful lot to learn about TS but I'm sure happy I came across TUG when I did.
Thanks again
Putzer

[putzer]

Good to here, denise. Thanks.
Putzer