[ 2013 ] Rescinding Contract with Westgate

Too late for me to rescind, how do I make the best of this?

Hi everyone,

I bought a Westgate timeshare back in 2011, and I know this will sound pathetic, but I hardly know a thing about it.

Like many people, we were fooled, tricked and given lofty (false) promises. We were told the presentation would be 90 minutes. We left our 3 kids in our hotel room while we went for the presentation. 3 hours later, we were still stuck with the sales lady and my kids kept calling me because hotel staff was knocking on their door to check out.

I was anxious to get back to my kids and the sales lady would not take no for an answer, even bringing a supervisor to sweeten her offer. We finally gave in, against our better judgment and rushed back to our kids.

Unfortunately for us, we did not know about our right to rescind until much, much later. Bottom line, we were stuck with this timeshare.

Initially, I had tried to make the best of it. We were given automatic gold membership into Interval International. I tried and tried to find weeks that would coincide with my off-weeks and my kids' off-weeks, but I found it near impossible. I gave up and eventually the Interval membership expired.

We did get to travel to our "home" timeshare in Orlando 3 times over the years, staying at Westgate each time. We never deposited the weeks, just used our home weeks.

We also used one of our weeks at Westgate Flamingo Bay in Las Vegas this year.

I have many unused weeks although I don't know how to confirm that information. Westgate's owner site only shows how much you owe and how much the maintenance fees are.

Now it's 2015. The kids are older and we finally have more flexibility on when /where to travel.

So what's my best course of action? Renew my membership with Interval? If so, how do I know what level membership to pick? Basic, gold or platinum? Is there a better forum board for Westgate suckers like me?

Since I'm stuck with this money-sucking leach contract, I want to make the most of it.

Thanks,
Lynn

sunstar715 said:

Hello all,

I've read up quite a bit on here and have decided to cancel my contract with west gate. I just have one question, and it is probably a really dumb one. What is the contract number? Where on the contract for purchase can I find that? I know its probably very obvious, but I want to be 100% sure I am doing this right.

Thank you!!

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RainDrop said:

<snip> Unfortunately for us, we did not know about our right to rescind until much, much later. Bottom line, we were stuck with this timeshare.... <snip>

So what's my best course of action? Renew my membership with Interval? If so, how do I know what level membership to pick? Basic, gold or platinum? Is there a better forum board for Westgate suckers like me?

Since I'm stuck with this money-sucking leech contract, I want to make the most of it.

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I am reluctant to say anything about Westgate except to always strongly recommend staying as far away from them as is humanly possible, but that particular advice is obviously both too late and completely useless for your current situation --- that ship has sailed.

If you choose to retain this ownership, keep paying, and try to make the best possible use of it, your options are relatively few. You can use the deeded week(s) as you have done in the past, attempt to "exchange" internally (as you've done), or use an outside exchange company, with which you report having had little or no success. Trying to rent out your week in order to try to consistently cover or exceed your annual maintenance fee costs would be a very tough (...and likely very frustrating) exercise, since available timeshare weeks in Orlando are frequently regarded as being "a dime a dozen".

You have mentioned a lack of success with Interval Intl, but you have not indicated whether your particular resort is perhaps also affiliated with (much larger) RCI.
You don't identify your resort by specific name, but I see in a (2009) RCI directory a Westgate Leisure Resort in Orlando, affiliated then with RCI; resort i.d. #4206.
If that is your resort and it is still affiliated with RCI (...very likely), then RCI membership is another potential "exchange" option to consider --- but I have no idea of the "trade value" of your unspecified unit size or unspecified week number (trade value is expressed as a RCI-created form of "currency" called Trading Power Units or TPU's).

Maybe also consider (free) membership in Dial an Exchange, to further expand exchange inventory options. However, unless I'm mistaken, among those three exchange companies mentioned so far, only Interval International allows ongoing searches to be conducted without the (irreversible) commitment of depositing a week first.

The high hurdle everyone faces with any and every exchange company, regardless of membership "level", is that if you are constrained by school schedules then you are necessarily competing with many others in the exact same boat who are looking for the very same weeks. Simply stated, the "deposited" inventory is limited and finite --- and, to borrow an analogy, there are "a lot of dogs after the same bones". You might get yourself closer to the front of the line with "gold or platinum" levels of exchange company membership, but in the end it's still a long line with a limited and finite amount of available inventory available and plenty of others in line in front of you.

I wish I had more positive input to offer. Maybe others can provide a brighter perspective or better suggestions, but frankly I can mostly just offer you my condolences. You're likely not going to be able to sell (or even give away) this Westgate product to anyone else, although you might be able to deed it back (only with Westgate's advance knowledge, cooperation and overt consent, of course) if you ultimately chose to just give up entirely on this whole enterprise. Otherwise, I can only suggest that you look at whether RCI membership might actually work better for you, by potentially at least giving you access to a bigger "pot" of deposited exchange inventory.

Personally, I don't think that a higher level of II membership alone will likely do much for you, but I would be both delighted and pleasantly surprised if someone else weighed in here with an informed viewpoint based on first hand experience which completely refutes that stated personal belief; I claim no such first hand experience with II.

P.S. To answer one of your other questions --- no, there is no Westgate-specific forum to be found here on TUG.
Whether there is a Yahoo (or other) Internet group for commiserating Westgate owners I do not know; maybe someone else can / will weigh in on that issue.

I didn't call, and they have not called me. Whew! I don't think we will get any money back; it was for the discounted tickets, which we received. We "broke even"...

The tracking says the cancellation letter was received, and I have all of my receipts (even though they left the package and return receipt at the post office). So I am very happy!

Thank you so much, Theo!

Tracey

One Question

I am grateful to have found this thread. Without going into a lot of details, I had a lapse in judgement during a recent Westgate pitch, and immediately regretted it. After stewing a few days, I finally decided to look into what my options were, and was grateful to find this and other sites alerting me to the Right of Rescission and 10-Day window in Tennessee.

I have sent them written notice to the Ocoee address exercising my right of Recission, postmarked today, 5 days after I signed the contract.

I also pledged in the letter to send the promotional materials (brief case) back under separate cover.

Do I return the black binder/briefcase (with the shady hidden contract compartment) back to the same address I sent the cancellation, or do I send it back to the resort where I was (nearly) hoodwinked?

I realize this question was asked earlier in the thread, but the answer was more "don't worry about that unless they ask." I appreciate that, but I'd rather dot my i's and cross my t's on this one. So, if anyone knows the preferred destination for the return of the promotional materials, I would be grateful.

Oh, and for your tally, it was around 8k (no money down, but they signed us up for the Westgate Mastercard, which would start being charged if we didn't pay off the balance prior to 60 days.)

Thanks!
--
Mr and Mrs J

J's, send it to the resort, attn, Sales. The office in Ocoee has no use for those materials. Just keep the postal receipt in case they try to bill you for it.

We are glad you found us, and congratulations for rescinding in time. While Wastegate has nice resorts, their predatory sales practices, and the fact that they strip any benefits from resales, makes it impossible to recommend them.

If TS still interests you, stick around TUG. Learn all about TS, and be ready to make an informed decision. Meanwhile, wait until the down payment is credited to that card, then cancel it. Expect it to take up to 45 days, with no progress report until the credit mysteriously appears.

If ( when) Wastegate calls to try and change your mind about rescinding, don't answer. No good will come of talking to them.

Best wishes, and Welcome to TUG.

Jim

Waiting Game

Well, they received my rescission notice three days ago, exactly one week after the contract was signed. So far, we haven't heard a peep. The wife was sending back the binder to the resort today, including their "$1000 Travel Savings Card" and "Bonus Week Certificate" they provided at closing.

As I mentioned, they are completely unresponsive, other than the return receipt for the rescission notice which should hit my mailbox today or tomorrow. I am grateful but surprised. Today is the last day of the Rescission window as I figure it. I wonder if they're going to wait until the window is closed before trying to get us back on the hook? Regardless, the family knows not to answer any calls from TN or FL in the coming weeks.

Is there anything WG must do to acknowledge the cancellation of the contract, other than refunding any deposits/downpayments, etc.?

well done!

glad you found us in time to save $8k! And im extra happy that we cost westgate another few thousand bucks =)

jgjenkins said:

Is there anything WG must do to acknowledge the cancellation of the contract, other than refunding any deposits/downpayments, etc.?

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They are under no obligation to notify you a cancellation is complete. Look for the refund in the next 45 days +/-

jgjenkins said:

Is there anything WG must do to acknowledge the cancellation of the contract, other than refunding any deposits/downpayments, etc.?

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Nope. There is no requirement to acknowledge receipt or provide a progress report on the rescission. Only a requirement that they DO process it, and that they have up to 45 days to accomplish the refund of any down payment.

Jim

Question about down payment charge

We didn't put any actual money down when we were at the resort. They put the down payment on a Westgate Mastercard (Which I thought we were going to have 60 days same as cash on, but I'm not exactly surprised that apparent promise isn't meshing with reality).

Anyway, we got the first statement on that card today, and it has a payment due on 11/20/15, which is well within the 45 days WG has to refund our money/ credit our account.

I am under the impression that we should probably make the minimum payment and then wait for Westgate to credit the full down payment amount back to the card?

jgjenkins said:

I am under the impression that we should probably make the minimum payment and then wait for Westgate to credit the full down payment amount back to the card?

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No. Dispute the charge since you have rescinded the contract. Cancel the card.

Free at last! (Hopefully)

Happy to report that when we called today to dispute the charge and cancel the WG Mastercard, we were told there was no balance on the card, because WG had credited the down payment amount back to the card on 10-28. Closing the account went off without a hitch.

That appears to be confirmation I was looking for that they are honoring the rescission.

Hopefully, we're out of the woods. Thanks again to everybody for all of the advice.

Now — since the core argument for a timeshare was arguably sound, in that we spend a fairly significant amount of money on at least one (and usually two) vacations a year, often in the Orlando area thanks to kids 14 and 9 years old respectively — we may need to start perusing the other threads on this site for (now cautious) prospective owners.

jgjenkins said:

Happy to report that when we called today to dispute the charge and cancel the WG Mastercard, we were told there was no balance on the card, because WG had credited the down payment amount back to the card on 10-28. Closing the account went off without a hitch.

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Great news! Thanks for letting us know.:whoopie:

jgjenkins said:

Now — since the core argument for a timeshare was arguably sound, in that we spend a fairly significant amount of money on at least one (and usually two) vacations a year, often in the Orlando area thanks to kids 14 and 9 years old respectively — we may need to start perusing the other threads on this site for (now cautious) prospective owners.

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look at renting! you can rent anywhere at any time in orlando!