Diamond Resorts raises maintenance fees again!

I just paid my Los Abrigados and Premier Vacation Club maintenance fees and the increase was 6.5% overall. $49 increase over $880 2013 LA $ $140 increase over $2037 2013 PVC. Little disproportionate between the two, higher than "stated" inflation rate, but better than it has been. Still, sometime when I retire in a few years, this will become unaffordable being it is 250% over what it was once Diamond took over.

The Points System is like selling air, there are no limits to the number of memberships they can sell... So when they acquire a junk resort and add it to any collection its just another patch of air to to add to the selling myth of future vacations... The sales rhetoric can paint a glorious picture, but the debt will increase many folds over a short period... We walked away from a 57,000 $$ investment, sold to us on lies and misrepresentations... Its an economic yoke around your neck and will get much heavier in the years to come...

Hi Bill - I also own at Powhatan and would like to get out of paying my maintenance. Have you had any luck getting out of your deed?

-Jim

Jim: my advice, if you are paid up on maintenance fees, is to write to the HOA telling them that you intend to walk away from it, giving them the option of allowing you to quitclaim it back to them instead of them foreclosing on you. If they have any sense they should accept your offer, as foreclosing cost them legal expenses.

I went to the Members Forum on the Diamond web site and posted a poll that asked the following question: "Do you feel that the maintenance fees you pay are a good value."

Apparently the moderators of the forum, who are Diamond employees, did not approve that post. No surprise there. I guess that is why there is only one message posted.

I did not telegraph my position since I really wanted a fair survey, but my answer would have been "NO."

Michael, You said you walked away from your time share that was sold to you. How did you get out of it? DRI won't buy it back. We want to get out of being an owner all together. We can't afford the maintenance fees. They went up a 100% from $921 to $1995. Does anyone have any advise? Signing up for DRI is probably one of the worst decisions we have ever made. It makes me sick to think that we will be stuck with this for the rest of our lives. And that our children are bound to be stuck with it if something happens to us. Please help if anyone has some good advise.

michaeld414 wrote:

The Points System is like selling air, there are no limits to the number of memberships they can sell... So when they acquire a junk resort and add it to any collection its just another patch of air to to add to the selling myth of future vacations... The sales rhetoric can paint a glorious picture, but the debt will increase many folds over a short period... We walked away from a 57,000 $$ investment, sold to us on lies and misrepresentations... Its an economic yoke around your neck and will get much heavier in the years to come...

joans350 wrote:

Michael, You said you walked away from your time share that was sold to you. How did you get out of it? DRI won't buy it back. We want to get out of being an owner all together. We can't afford the maintenance fees. They went up a 100% from $921 to $1995. Does anyone have any advise? Signing up for DRI is probably one of the worst decisions we have ever made. It makes me sick to think that we will be stuck with this for the rest of our lives. And that our children are bound to be stuck with it if something happens to us. Please help if anyone has some good advise.

michaeld414 wrote:

The Points System is like selling air, there are no limits to the number of memberships they can sell... So when they acquire a junk resort and add it to any collection its just another patch of air to to add to the selling myth of future vacations... The sales rhetoric can paint a glorious picture, but the debt will increase many folds over a short period... We walked away from a 57,000 $$ investment, sold to us on lies and misrepresentations... Its an economic yoke around your neck and will get much heavier in the years to come...

You cannot sell your points, there is no market, and if you do find a person willing to buy them DRI will not allow them in the exchange program, and they would only be good in the collection you belong too... In my opinion DRI is an ongoing criminal fraud, but that is just my opinion... We walk away fro our 55,000 + $$ paid for in cash membership.. I feel DRI stole $$ 55,000 from us, we got nothing of value from DRI, yet they have our hard earned money... Where is any of that an Honest Business

I checked into a company that would take my timeshare for free but the closing fee was a couple thousand $.

If you go that route, have an attorney look it over. I have read about a number of these transactions where the seller is still liable for expenses!

NEVER pay anyone money upfront to sell or take your timeshare off you hands. You and your money will soon be parted and you will still be stuck with your timeshare.

I'm curious if when you walked away, I assume not pay fee and let them foreclose if they did that. Did you write the 57K loss off your income taxes? I did that when a REIT went belly up but the company was defunk, not us walk away.

maryannh62 wrote:

I'm curious if when you walked away, I assume not pay fee and let them foreclose if they did that. Did you write the 57K loss off your income taxes? I did that when a REIT went belly up but the company was defunk, not us walk away.

No, we just walk away... I do not know if it was possible to write it off our taxes... But the troubles with DRI began immediately when we first tried to use our points at the Point at Poipu, we were not able to get into the resort and had to rent a near by condo for the month, after paying 55,000 for the membership... My opinion is that their business model which is undisclosed to any prospect in the sales process is of a fraudulent intent... Like I have said they are selling air...

Hey guys I've been reading these messages primarily because we're at the point where DRI resorts don't offer us anything. We purchased the timeshare in cash and have 15,000 points w/ our "membership". How can we get rid of this in the least financially invasive way possible? There is so little they offer that we enjoy that a. doesn't have an out of this world mandatory all inclusive fee and b. doesn't require more points than paying cash for the resort would be. We just want to wash our hands of it and we're looking for the best way to do it.

As an example. They have a resort in Jamaica that is an "affiliate resort Grand palladium resort and spa " that was 7,000 points plus $120.19 per person per day. I then went to the resorts website and attempted to book the same room/dates and it was only $25.44 more expensive than the all inclusive fee was. So after factoring in the maintenance fee for those 7,000 points we were paying $975 more for that week than we would if we just walked in off the street. We cannot continue to pay good money over bad any longer on this time share. We want to cut our losses but are unsure of the best way to do it. Any input anyone could give would be most helpful.

That is the most asked question, how does one get out from under Diamond Resort's extremely high maintenance fees? One thing that is clear is never pay anything up front because that is another shark attack. You could try selling it on eBay, maybe for $1.00. But I am thinking of just walking away. What are they going to do? Trash your credit report? How much do you care about that? If you are trying to get a mortgage you can probably explain that they are time share crooks. I think a lot of people are doing just that. Look at their financial statements. The delinquency rates are high. in my HOA out of 23 million in maintenance fees, five million is bad debt and three million is shown as a "developer delinquency contribution." So is that a 35% delinquency rate? Have you seen anybody on this forum say that DRI has gone after them with a collection agency or legal action? They have our money so they can just foreclose and sell it to the next sucker.

2015 maintenance fees are out. Mine went from $1163 to $1242. Higher increase than the CPI but less than past increases. My comparable property in Mexico charges less than $450. You are right, it no longer provides much value.

I guess my question here is, has anyone who has paid the initial cost up front gotten out of this thing? I also would be curious as to the legal repercussions of ceasing to pay MFs. Can they come after us legally and garnish wages as we are not destitute or insolvent? I have a an attorney friend looking over the contract we signed. I did notice that in one of the pieces of paper it states that all diamond resorts are 1/2 price at 60 days but we've come to find multiple diamond owned resorts that do not do this. Calling they stated it was at the resorts discretion. There are so many things that we were told that hopefully can be determined to be a breach of contract on their part in some way, shape or form.

Dave

daveb430 wrote:

I guess my question here is, has anyone who has paid the initial cost up front gotten out of this thing? I also would be curious as to the legal repercussions of ceasing to pay MFs. Can they come after us legally and garnish wages as we are not destitute or insolvent? I have a an attorney friend looking over the contract we signed. I did notice that in one of the pieces of paper it states that all diamond resorts are 1/2 price at 60 days but we've come to find multiple diamond owned resorts that do not do this. Calling they stated it was at the resorts discretion. There are so many things that we were told that hopefully can be determined to be a breach of contract on their part in some way, shape or form.

Dave

YES, I paid 55,000 $$ cash for 31,000 points, became so disgusted with Diamond Resorts as we could not get a reservation at The Point at Poipu for over 2 years after paying that plus our MF... Then they tried to tell us that because we did not use our points, we would loose them... We rolled the first years points over but could not use them the second year because there were no vacancies during the time we had off... So we had to rent a condo near there for the month we had off... After a few more years our MF went from 1250 per week of Ocean front to 2400 per week plus the 'water intrusion fee' of over 12,000 $$... I told them I would no longer use my membership and would no longer pay any more... We did walk away, they only refunded to us the MF for the last year that we paid them but did not use any of the points for that year...

Do you mind if I pick your brain off this site about the process you went through?

Thanks Dave

michaeld414 wrote:

daveb430 wrote:

I guess my question here is, has anyone who has paid the initial cost up front gotten out of this thing? I also would be curious as to the legal repercussions of ceasing to pay MFs. Can they come after us legally and garnish wages as we are not destitute or insolvent? I have a an attorney friend looking over the contract we signed. I did notice that in one of the pieces of paper it states that all diamond resorts are 1/2 price at 60 days but we've come to find multiple diamond owned resorts that do not do this. Calling they stated it was at the resorts discretion. There are so many things that we were told that hopefully can be determined to be a breach of contract on their part in some way, shape or form.

Dave

YES, I paid 55,000 $$ cash for 31,000 points, became so disgusted with Diamond Resorts as we could not get a reservation at The Point at Poipu for over 2 years after paying that plus our MF... Then they tried to tell us that because we did not use our points, we would loose them... We rolled the first years points over but could not use them the second year because there were no vacancies during the time we had off... So we had to rent a condo near there for the month we had off... After a few more years our MF went from 1250 per week of Ocean front to 2400 per week plus the 'water intrusion fee' of over 12,000 $$... I told them I would no longer use my membership and would no longer pay any more... We did walk away, they only refunded to us the MF for the last year that we paid them but did not use any of the points for that year...

There is always so much misinformation on this site as it pertains to DRI. I recognize that there are many unhappy owners here, but some of the responses are either downright inaccurate or partially untrue. I would advise folks to either go to Timeshare Users Group (tug2.net) or to Facebook to the Diamond Resorts Members page. The Facebook page has over 3000 OWNERS from across the world with some who are happy and some who are not happy. However, the information IS ACCURATE.

charless345 wrote:

There is always so much misinformation on this site as it pertains to DRI. I recognize that there are many unhappy owners here, but some of the responses are either downright inaccurate or partially untrue. I would advise folks to either go to Timeshare Users Group (tug2.net) or to Facebook to the Diamond Resorts Members page. The Facebook page has over 3000 OWNERS from across the world with some who are happy and some who are not happy. However, the information IS ACCURATE.

I would challenge yo to tell me what information is inaccurate or partially true....? What is Un TRUE.... ?

the Facebook page is largely European points owners seeking help on how to navigate the arcane rules about using their points.

This forum is a place where people who feel they have been/are being ripped off by DRI can exchange horror stories.

Are you a shill for Mr. Cloobeck?