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Conflict of interest: Wyndham/RCI?

[Q=jamess524] Until I stayed at a wyndham resort over the weekend, I didn't know that they owned RCI. My experience, though, makes me wonder if there is some kind of illegal conflict of interest in the relationship. After cheking in at the Kingsgate reort near Williamsburg, VA this weeknd, we accpeted $75 in gift cards to attend a 21-question "Wyndham evaluation." I knew enough to expect that the “evaluation” was going to be more than 21 questions, but what actually happened really turned me off to Wyndham. For a half hour or so, we chatted with the sales rep about our current property and how we use it, building up to his pitch on Wyndham’s point system. Then he said “I’m going to pull up you RCI account to see if it’s configured correctly.” I told him I was not comfortable with that and he replied “Since Wyndham now owns RCI, I can do it whether you give me permission or not.” That, to me, is totally unfair (information is power in negotiation), so I called an end to the meeting and walked out. My wife stayed behind long enough to find out that we needed to do an evaluation of the session to avoid being charged for the cards we received. We did, and when the second rep doing the evaluation asked, I told him why I was unhappy and that it made me wary of doing any business with Wyndham. He then replied “Since Wyndham now owns RCI and the most properties in the business, you don’t have much choice.” Maybe that kind of arrogance works for some customers (maybe it’s how they get people to pay full price for properties that can be had a resale for a fraction of their price), but it was a total turn-off to me.[/Q] Just came back from a Wyndham meeting in Myrtle Beach,S.C. I was told at check-in that it would be a Group meeting with lots of people; not a time share sale presentation. We were to be told about the resent change from RCI to Wyndham. Resent made me think six months, not three years. We never received any notification at our home about this change. Anyway, we arrived at the meeting and it was not a group meeting, but an individual meeting. As above, it was a very friendy, get to know you and what you own conversation. Also, our reoresentative wanted us to say something negative about RCI. I have nothing to say negative. RCI has always been very helpful to me. Of course, then comes the big sales pitch and how we would not be able to exchange with RCI in the future, or if we did, we would have less than 900 under places to choose from instead of the 4500 plus units that we have become use to having. In otherwords, as long as we were content to go to our home resort for the rest of our life and our children and grandchildrens life, we could stay status quo; but if we wanted to ever exchange to a good location we needed to convert to points and buy more timeshare. We own the equivalent of three weeks....i only get three weeks vacation every year....i can't use anymore timeshare and i can't really afford to pay and send family members and friends on vacation. So, obviously I don't need or want more timeshare ownership. Like the other person, he went in back and pulled up all our information ; said we had a block on our account (whatever that means) and wanted to run a credit report on us so he could see if we were eligible to purchase more timeshare. We told them we did not want to purchase and were basically treated like we were stupid and this was our last chance to remedy that. We left and my husband was very mad. I ususally likd to go to these things because i always come away with some useful information. Not this time. I came away very depressed, but still have my money. I hate it when they lie to you about what the "meeting" is going to be about. The only thing that was true, was that we did have to fill out a questionere. Guess we will wait and see what is going on with RCI.