do not buy a timeshare from Bluegreen
Complaint
Ben Travis
Country: United States
Do not...I repeat...do NOT buy a Bluegreen timeshare under any conditions. No matter how sweet it may sound, it is a rip-off. My wife and I bought one, and we are in a continual state of regret about it. It is virtually impossible to sell (the same amount of points we bought for $10,000 are selling for about $3,000 online), plus we have yearly fees of about $700 that must be paid for us to even be able to keep using it.
Here are some of the things you may not hear while you're in a Bluegreen presentation... we didn't:
-each year you will have to pay both "maintenance fees" and "club dues," which for us amount to over $700. If you don't pay, you can't use any of your points at all until you do pay.
-many of the resorts they tell you about can only be booked in 7-day increments, which means you'll take that trip and no others for two years because you'll use up all your points on that single trip.
-we just found this one out... if you don't have the points, you can't book a trip... for example, we get 12,000 new points in July, so I called to book something in August. Well, I can't do that until I "have the points." Of course, by the time the points actually show up, all the places will be booked for the summer. We're all paid up on maintenance fees and club dues, so we will definitely get the points, but too bad... we have to wait. The person on the phone even sympathized with me and said he understood what I was saying, but too bad.
-they say they will help you rent your timeshare, but this is a joke. Your timeshare will never rent for anything near what you need to maintain the fees on it, much less pay it off.
-take a look at this web site to see what points are actually worth if you buy them on eBay: http://popular.ebay.com/ns/Real-Estate/Bluegreen.html If you really desperately want Bluegreen points, don't buy them from Bluegreen.
-they tell you that you can book things just a day or two in advance, but this is almost never possible in real life. Things are booked up months in advance.
Owning a Bluegreen timeshare is like a weight that you have to drag around with you for the rest of your life. There are many places that will rent timeshares if you like that kind of thing, and you can usually get them fairly cheap and without any obligation for the future. When I imagine paying $700 a year for the rest of my life, it feels amazingly scary. Don't do it. You're locking yourself into something that will never end when there is absolutely no need to do so.
They give you the free trip, then take advantage of how little you've researched timeshares when you're in the presentation. They tell you this price can only be offered this one time, and that you can't take another trip. It's all cheap sales techniques, and they wouldn't be necessary if it were something people really benefited from.
We even looked on the internet during our sales presentation... if only I had come across a letter like this, we probably wouldn't have bought, and we'd be much better off. At least take a few days to think about it. If they can't give you that long to think, they're tricking you anyway.
Buying a Bluegreen timeshare is a terrible decision. They, like many salespeople, will tell you whatever you want to hear to get you to buy, knowing that they will not personally be accountable for any misrepresentations of the truth later on.
One thing they promised us is that we could rent our timeshare. Now they've done away with that aspect as well, so you either use it, keep paying about $700 in fees each year along with whatever you paid originally, or you just lose the points. Every letter we receive is something else they're taking away from us.
The most recent thing that happened was that we had tried to rent ours out for 10,000 points (most of our points) before they decided to stop letting people do that. So I called today, 10 days in advance, to check and make sure it was rented, since this is the cut-off for when I can cancel without losing points. So the guy on the phone told me that yes, it is rented. And I asked, "Well, what happens if the people cancel sometime in the next 10 days?" He said, "We don't have any control over that, sir." And I said, "I understand that, but I don't either. So what happens to my points if they cancel?" And he said, "Well, you lose those points."
So some renter I don't even know can decide to back out at the last minute, and I lose 10,000 points and don't get to travel or make any money from my timeshare for 2 years! That seems fair...
Everything Bluegreen does seems to be a way to get themselves more money and screw over their "valued customers."
And Bluegreen, if you're reading this, don't bother calling me trying to get me to revoke the complaint... we're trying to sell our timeshare as quickly as we can and hopefully never have any interaction with you for as long as we live.
Here are some of the things you may not hear while you're in a Bluegreen presentation... we didn't:
-each year you will have to pay both "maintenance fees" and "club dues," which for us amount to over $700. If you don't pay, you can't use any of your points at all until you do pay.
-many of the resorts they tell you about can only be booked in 7-day increments, which means you'll take that trip and no others for two years because you'll use up all your points on that single trip.
-we just found this one out... if you don't have the points, you can't book a trip... for example, we get 12,000 new points in July, so I called to book something in August. Well, I can't do that until I "have the points." Of course, by the time the points actually show up, all the places will be booked for the summer. We're all paid up on maintenance fees and club dues, so we will definitely get the points, but too bad... we have to wait. The person on the phone even sympathized with me and said he understood what I was saying, but too bad.
-they say they will help you rent your timeshare, but this is a joke. Your timeshare will never rent for anything near what you need to maintain the fees on it, much less pay it off.
-take a look at this web site to see what points are actually worth if you buy them on eBay: http://popular.ebay.com/ns/Real-Estate/Bluegreen.html If you really desperately want Bluegreen points, don't buy them from Bluegreen.
-they tell you that you can book things just a day or two in advance, but this is almost never possible in real life. Things are booked up months in advance.
Owning a Bluegreen timeshare is like a weight that you have to drag around with you for the rest of your life. There are many places that will rent timeshares if you like that kind of thing, and you can usually get them fairly cheap and without any obligation for the future. When I imagine paying $700 a year for the rest of my life, it feels amazingly scary. Don't do it. You're locking yourself into something that will never end when there is absolutely no need to do so.
They give you the free trip, then take advantage of how little you've researched timeshares when you're in the presentation. They tell you this price can only be offered this one time, and that you can't take another trip. It's all cheap sales techniques, and they wouldn't be necessary if it were something people really benefited from.
We even looked on the internet during our sales presentation... if only I had come across a letter like this, we probably wouldn't have bought, and we'd be much better off. At least take a few days to think about it. If they can't give you that long to think, they're tricking you anyway.
Buying a Bluegreen timeshare is a terrible decision. They, like many salespeople, will tell you whatever you want to hear to get you to buy, knowing that they will not personally be accountable for any misrepresentations of the truth later on.
One thing they promised us is that we could rent our timeshare. Now they've done away with that aspect as well, so you either use it, keep paying about $700 in fees each year along with whatever you paid originally, or you just lose the points. Every letter we receive is something else they're taking away from us.
The most recent thing that happened was that we had tried to rent ours out for 10,000 points (most of our points) before they decided to stop letting people do that. So I called today, 10 days in advance, to check and make sure it was rented, since this is the cut-off for when I can cancel without losing points. So the guy on the phone told me that yes, it is rented. And I asked, "Well, what happens if the people cancel sometime in the next 10 days?" He said, "We don't have any control over that, sir." And I said, "I understand that, but I don't either. So what happens to my points if they cancel?" And he said, "Well, you lose those points."
So some renter I don't even know can decide to back out at the last minute, and I lose 10,000 points and don't get to travel or make any money from my timeshare for 2 years! That seems fair...
Everything Bluegreen does seems to be a way to get themselves more money and screw over their "valued customers."
And Bluegreen, if you're reading this, don't bother calling me trying to get me to revoke the complaint... we're trying to sell our timeshare as quickly as we can and hopefully never have any interaction with you for as long as we live.
Comments
How good can a deal be when you need to get it right now unless it becomes void. The play the game where you tell no to the guy and then comes the manager and he tries to make other offers.
Sometimes they give something away for free. They did it with me. I left with a smile and $125.00 in a Bsaa Pro Shos gift card and a visa gift card. I did not care that they tried making me feel guilty. I encourage others to go to the presentation get the free stuff and walk away.
We are lucky that we have the internet. We need to keep on posting these practices and make others aware of the strategies.
I told the person who did the presentation, "What about the complaints online?" He said that I should not pay attention to those because they sell a lot and they can not make everybody happy. Yeah right . :-)
We're going to Hawaii for our 40th Wedding Anniversay in May....I am so excited that we can do that!
And even though it's going to cost me something, it's a lot more affordable to do it through Bluegreen!
We've been to Club 36 in Las Vegas 4 years in a row during December for a week during the National Finals Rodeo! We take our best friends with us and we take care of their room and we're able to take care of my cousin's room and his kids room for that week also. They live about 250 miles from LV and it had usually cost them over $2000 for all of them to stay there during the Rodeo. Club 36 has become like a second home to them now every year and I'm so thrilled to be able to do that for them!
Yes, this was an investment in vacation days or weeks....I knew that going in.We'd not taken a vacation until we were 50 years old....and now, at 63, we've been many, many places.
My sister has a condominium in Gulf Shores on the Gulf Coast that cost them $250,000 and they pay almost $5000 per year for maintenance fees and dues in the condo association there...and that's the only place they ever get to go....when they can get the time.
My wife and I have a whole catalog of places we can go.....when we get the time.....and we've only got $20,000 invested and it costs us about $1400 per year in maintenance fees and dues, etc.
Who's got the freedom?
And my "know-it-all" brother-in-law can't figure it out how we are always going places!
Thanks to all previous posts, and posters, I can go with my eyes wide open. With gift cards from Bass Pro, so far I am way ahead...
As for customer service, I am very pleased on how I am treated with respect. Units are cleaned and cared for, no problems there.
If you are unhappy with your timeshare and don't know what to do, I suggest going to the Timeshare Users' Group (TUG) at www.tug2.net and asking for advice. (The Bluegreen Yahoo Group is also good, but TUG is easier to use and has more people offering advice.) TUG is a large forum for timeshare owners. A lot of people on TUG are happy timeshare owners, so if you start off there by saying how horrible timeshares are, you will probably get a negative response. A better approach is just to explain what you own, say what it is you want to do (unload your timeshare or get a reservation at a particular resort or rent out your ownership, etc), and ask for advice on how to accomplish your goal.
What you should NOT do is pay a large upfront fee to anyone offering to sell your timeshare or rent it out for you. These are scams.
I own two Bluegreen timeshares, but I do not belong to Bluegreen Points. Instead, I own flex weeks. I get very good value trading my Bluegreen weeks through RCI, but it does take some practice and knowledge. If you want to get good vacations out of your Bluegreen ownership, people on TUG can help you do that.