HJS We're Owners - It's Not Worth the Money
Westgate Timeshare Resort Issues
Date of Incident: 12/29/2003
I found your experience at Wwstgate Resorts as related on your webpage very interesting. My wife and I are presently owners at Westgate Lakes in Orlando. We perchased a 3 bedroom dual unit in 94 or 95, I'm not really sure which , and we have used it every year since . To say that the Westgate orginization has not lived up to our expectations is an understatement of the greatest magnitude. I actually went with the intention of purchasing a timeshare and was fairly well prepared for the high pressure tactics they employ. Our salesperson was very personable nad as a matter of fact is still employed there. She started us off in the 30k range and passed us off when I laughed at that price. The "manager" she passed us off to was a real slmeball and I actually enjoyed dealing with him because I knew what to expect. To someone who is not familar with the practice of high pressure sales I am sure the experience would be very unpleasant. I think I was able to get a pretty good deal as we paid around one third of the asking price and by putting down a sizeable down payment was able to obtain 0% financing for 30 months on the balance. My reasoning on purchasing a timeshare was to force myself to take a vacation as I tend to be somewhat of a workaholic. Even with the terms I was able to get it is still an expensive vacation. For your information the taxes and maintenance was $315 / yr when we purchased and the current charge has escelated to $716 / yr. At these prices I feel that I have the right to expect everything to be first class. The administration is incompetent at best, the maintenance of the units is a bad joke and no one is responsive to complaints. I use the Owner's Breakfast (sales pitch) as a venue to vioce my displeasure at the sorry state of the units. After one particularly horrendous experience the only response I recieved was an offer of employment as a maintenance supervisor. At the current rate they are collecting around $30k/yr/unit for maintenance. One year we were placed in a substitute unit because of damage to the unit we purchased. When we tried to get into the 'B" side of the unit we found that the door was chained from the inside. We called our representative and when the maintenance people were able to break into the unit they found that it had been completely trashed. We were then moved to a third unit which was supposed to be ready for occupancy. We compiled a list of 17 major defects in the unit, most of which were not corrected when we signed out the next weekend. This has been typical of our experience at Westgate Lakes.
In good conscience I could never recommend the timeshare vacation option to anyone.
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