Rants
We bought a one bed room unit for one week under Diamond Resort Hawai Collection in Jul 2009 in the point system (sorry we did) at KBC. We called customer service why our 2012 maintence fee has increased to $2434.53 and received a letter from Diamond Resort today stating we have an assessment fee of $1103.70 for Diamond Resort at Poipu for the water Intrusion fee for 2012. A total of $25,356,399 for water intrusion fee for Club owners in 2012. We have never disclose such major defects in Poipu and all the Hawaii Collection Club owners are responsible to the construction and repair of such major restoration. If club owners do not pay the fee, Diamond Resort will issue collection against club owners. This will impact to our credit rating. This is totally unfair to the buyers of non-poipu owners. Why should we pay for the resort maintenance fee for other resorts which we did not purchased. Is this a SCAM? How can we filed this action together as one voice against DRI? Which organization we can file the complaint that would be more effective to stop the DRI action.
Edward L.
When you purchased into the "Hawaiian Collection", you also bought a share in Poipu. You also bought a share of the $65 Million repair bill. This was a well known issue in 2009. If it wasn't mentioned, you might have a claim for fraud.
I would suggest you check out www.poipuowners.org and join up. There is good advice there about what actions you might take. There is nothing immediate, but the long range goal would be to remove DRI from managing our resorts.
Robert H.
Gary..... "Needless to say, we are staying put with our deeded week, but the fiasco at Poipu has got me a tad bit nervous about the management situation." and you should be!!!
"People appear to be dumping their weeks on the open market, too. I am assuming that these folks are in over their heads financially on unrelated issues and need to raise cash anyway they can. How else can the sale of a week for which I paid $18K sell for $4k (before closing expenses)?"
Halems said it right, the poipu deeds are not worth a dime and the reason they are dumping them is because many of them either realize that this crap will never stop, many of them own multiple weeks that they paid over $20K for each week and they are being billed for $6K + $1800 in maintenance fees every year for the next 3 years for each week, and others realize that they will be assessed even more when the default rate or cost of repairs are higher than anticipated.
Several companies will allow you to "donate" your week if you pay them $12,000 for the "donation". That alone should alert you that there is a real problem here!
www.poipuonwers.org is growing in numbers.
Keith P.
ATTENTION POIPU OINT OWNERS! Here is the announcement for which we have all been waiting! The lawsuit has been filed! It was filed Friday in Federal District Court in Hawaii. COPP will be mailing out a note with the lawsuit attached. It will also be going up on our website. I think that we will have DRI's attention now! What did Mr. C say? Yes, that's right, there are "10" unhappy customers. We'll see...
David L.
So I own a deeded floating week at Poipu every odd year. The assessment really has me upset since the maintenance fees are already so high for a time share that I no longer use. I purchased in 1995 and got a very good price but now want to sell. I saw two resales for $1.00?? should I just return to Diamond and count my losses?
Any suggestions or thoughts?
Milagros A.
I am one of those owners trying to sell my timeshare for $1.00, and have been for 4 years, with no luck. I dread the day the new maintenance bill comes in the mail, I can't pay it. Last year I finally got them to let me pay monthly, but that was after I was months over due and had several thousands of dollars in fees added to my bill. They will not let me out of my deed, they won't take it back, even for free. Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do about 2013 fees or getting rid of this timeshare?
Dawn H.
My husband and I will be headed back to Poipu on 12/29/12 for a 2 week stay. We actually own 3 deeded weeks. We have been paying both the annual fees and the "water intrusion" fees under duress.
If there is something we should know, say or do while we are on site this year, please let us know. Thank you.
Linda and Richard Neilsen theneilsensay@gmail.com lindan236
kpaul5257 wrote:Dear CDOPP member,We want to wish you a very healthy and happy New Year along with the hopes of regaining control of our resort at Poipu this year. We have made some progress since the last newsletter and will keep you informed of the events.
Our president Rich Batchelder and his wife Connie were in Hawaii recently and visited the office of attorney Patrick Kelley. He is the legal councel assigned to our case by the attorney general's office in Honolulu, RICCO. They had an interesting meeting and Rich clarified many of the issues we are having with DRI. They have had many complaints from owners of several timeshare developments on the islands and are concerned that the malcontent could lead to lower tourist travel. This is a very real concern due to the huge revenue they depend on from the tourists. Rich explained how escalating and out of control annual dues are often not paid, resulting in foreclosures and more take-over and control by the management companies. Proper designation should be "mismanagement". We hope they will become pro-active and help us. Please write a letter informing them that you are part of a group of 500 owners and expect them to take action in our behalf. Write to Regulated Industries Complaints Office State of Hawaii Dept. of Commerce and Consumer Affairs 235 So. Beretania St. 9th floor Honolulu, HI 96813 Attention : Mr. Patrick Kelley, Esq. phone 808 586 2660
Send your proxy vote immediately to Joe Williams he lives on Kauai and will hand deliver them to the board at the meeting on Jan. 18. Simply fill in the box at the top of your ballot that says "I THE UNDERSIGNED DO HEREBY CONSTITUTE AND APPOINT fill in Joe Williams Be sure to sign where it says SIGNATURE OF MEMBER fill in DATE fill in SIGNATURE OF JOINT OWNER( your spouse) fill in DATE Return to Joe Williams 2321 Kanio St. Lihue, HI 96766 He will fill in our candidate of choice, have the ballots certified by an attorney and turn them in at the meeting to DRI.
Please let us know when you plan to vacation at Poipu so we can forward information to you that you can pass on and help our membership grow.
We are in the process of coordinating our activities with the timeshare owners at Kanapali, Maui which is also mismanaged by DRI. Many owners are very concerned about the direction (misdirection) their vacation investment is going and plan to do something about it. A concerted effort on all parts would benefit us all.
We have also been in contact with the owner's group at the timeshare Polo Club in Las Vegas, also mismanaged by DRI. They are making progress with their complaints and we are learning from them. BEST WISHES FOR A GOOD YEAR
Cordially, Myra Orta, secty CDOPP poipuowners.org
Linda N
Michael, what were you expecting that the COPP settlement doesn't offer? From my perspective, they got a great deal more than I ever expected. When dealing with a "deep pockets" company like DRI, they will usually just try to drive a group like COPP into bankruptcy with legal maneuvers.
I consider this a great victory.
Now, we actually have a chance of taking control of the Board and really having the opportunity to manage OUR resort.
Robert H.
halems wrote:Michael, what were you expecting that the COPP settlement doesn't offer? From my perspective, they got a great deal more than I ever expected. When dealing with a "deep pockets" company like DRI, they will usually just try to drive a group like COPP into bankruptcy with legal maneuvers.I consider this a great victory.
Now, we actually have a chance of taking control of the Board and really having the opportunity to manage OUR resort.
Yes, you might... But every Points Member will loose their rights to use the Point at Poipu... After all DRI owns so few actual units and I believe that they could never accommodate those members with their paid for unit days... DRI will still get to vote the Trust Shares in any election..
Michael D.
We also hoped to get a court/Attny Gen. to rule on whether DRI is in violation of Hawaii law by even having ANY employees/family members on our Boards at all. DRI won that issue with the settlement. Also, Hawaii law requires Boards to have a minimum of nine members but DRI got around that by raming through a quick resolution to have both BOD's remain at five members (they control both BOD's with three members). Further, DRI has a senior VP as President of one BOD and he also is a prominent member of the other BOD so we really have not gained anything in that issue.
We can take some hope of getting at least one owner on the BOD's, but DRI has thousands of votes now and will get all the votes by taking over the defaulted deeds/ponts as part of the settlement. The result is likely to be that, we owners, will pay for the vast majority of the total reconstruction of all ten buildings to result in the "grand hotel" Mr. Cloobeck envisioned. Building four is in the final stage of completion after being completely "gutted" on the interior and, for some reason, a complete new set of roof tiles. The big concern we should have is the (probable) cost over run in the next four plus years and the subsequent dunning of all of us for the money to complete the rebuild. DRI said that "cannot happen" since they have an "ironclad" contract with Layton Construction Corp, but we'll see!
Jim Helm
Rebecca H.
As I said, the settlement is a sham... It just continues to prove that Corporate Greed and Deception usually buy out what they cannot win, as they can stall for decades... I walked away and am glad we did, it just felt like we were defrauded by DRI at every juncture of the relationship... It does make me wonder how that settlement came about... There was never any discovery nor any actual challenge to DRI's past actions that appeared dishonest and illegal... I think all of you were sold out
Michael D.
we walked away from 31,000 points that we paid $ 54,000 cash for... I am not sure what your circumstances are, what you paid or what you still owed... But we were very aggressive about our continued complaints, and when the 'water intrusion' fee's were announced we had enough... We lost $54,000 dollars, and to this day I believe that DRI is a despicable dishonest company involved in an onging fraud to all of its members... My opinion
Michael D.
Michael.... We're wondering if you can be more specific. How were you "more aggressive?" We paid cash, $71,000 plus we're not paying the enormous other fees. We can't do it any more, but also received threats if we just gave them the whole thing. It's the worst investment we ever made and we just want out of it! Did you use an attorney? Who did you talk to at DRI? Any further input will be much appreciated. Jim
michaeld414 wrote:we walked away from 31,000 points that we paid $ 54,000 cash for... I am not sure what your circumstances are, what you paid or what you still owed... But we were very aggressive about our continued complaints, and when the 'water intrusion' fee's were announced we had enough... We lost $54,000 dollars, and to this day I believe that DRI is a despicable dishonest company involved in an onging fraud to all of its members... My opinion
Jim H.
Please tell me they turned down that "generous" offer. We were convinced to do that same kind of conversion, at about the same price. Now we have to pay the maintenance fee EVERY year, but our points are not equal to the amount needed to stay 1 week, so we can still only stay every other year, but must pay the huge expensive fee every year. It is a HUGE ripoff!!
john665 wrote:OK, my parents are owners of the resort. We stayed at the resort with them and overall it was a nice experience. However, and this is a biggie, the staff invited us to an "owners update".At the update, they were informed that one of their years weeks was based upon the "old" way, when the Embassy owned the resort. (They own two every other year ownerships). The other year is based upon the "new" way, where you get points with Sunterra. They tried to upgrade their ownership so their partial ownership could be put into Sunterra's pool of property. So, by doing Sunterra a favor, they would have to pay an additional, nominal fee, of $8500. Wow, they'd already paid $26000. Then, just to get the privilage and a few extra points, they have to pay $8500.
It felt cheap, like sitting in a used car sales office.
Anyone else have this experience??
Otherwise, the grounds are great. I don't really like the pool as I love to swim laps, and I really miss having a beach on site to snorkel
cheers,
j
Jacqueline B.