| Wyndham 10-Step Plan "Free Yourself from Corporate Greed" |
| Greedy? | Self Dealing? | Breach of Duty? | Conflict of Interest? |
|
What Actions Can You Take to Protect Your Interests? Even though we generally brag about the great vacations we have and
cherish the memories shared with our families while vacationing, there is one
thing that all timeshare owners also have in common – we like to complain. The only difference is, this time we need to
stop complaining to one another and let our voices be heard loud and clear. If you’ve finally had enough of the
diminishing value of your FairShare VOA timeshare, then start at the top of this
list and let your complaints be heard by taking each of the following actions. If you are serious, steps 1 to 8 are a MUST! STEP 1 - Write a letter or email to the FairShare Plus Plan
Manager. The Plan Manager is currently
Deanne Gabel. Her email address is: deanne.gabel@wyndhamvo.com Her mailing address is: FairShare Plan Manager You can alternatively fax your complaints to
Ms. Gabel at 407-370-6375.
Click here for an example letter to send
to the FairShare Plan Manager
Brian Keller, President brian.keller@wyndhamvo.com Gary Byrd, Vice
President gary.byrd@wyndhamvo.com Peter Hernandez, Secretary
and Treasurer peter.hernandez@wyndhamworldwide.com Their mailing address is: President Click here for an example letter to send
to the Board of Directors STEP 3 - Write a letter to Wyndham Vacation Ownership. Write a letter or email to the President and
Chief Executive Officer of Wyndham Vacation Ownership, currently Franz
Hanning. At a minimum, you should at
least provide him with a copy of the letter sent to the Plan Manager and Board
of Directors. His email address is franz.hanning@wyndhamvo.com His mailing address is: Wyndham
Vacation Ownership, Inc. Attn: Franz
Hanning, Chief Executive Officer Click here for an example letter to send
to Mr. Hanning STEP 4 - Submit a formal complaint to the Arkansas Attorney
General. Our timeshare ownership interest
has been assigned to the FairShare VOA, which is a non-profit Arkansas
corporation, governed by the laws of the state of Arkansas. The Arkansas Attorney General is Dustin
McDaniel. His Assistant Attorney General
who is responsible for consumer complaints and inquiries relating to corporate
fraud is Bradford Phelps. The Office of the Arkansas Attorney General has an online complaint form
that can be accessed at: http://www.arkansasag.gov/complaints_consumer_online.html
If you do not have the time
to fill out the online complaint form, at a very minimum, forward their office copies
of any letters sent to the FairShare Plan Manager, VOA Board of Directors,
and/or Mr. Hanning. Add a note to Mr.
Phelps that you would appreciate the Attorney General’s office investigating
this matter to see if there is any evidence of corporate fraud. Send via email to: bradford.phelps@arkansasag.gov
and oag@arkansasag.gov (send to both
addresses) His mailing address is: Office of the Attorney General Attn: Bradford Phelps 323 Center Street,
Suite 200 Little Rock,
Arkansas 72201 Click here for an example of a completed
online complaint form Click here for an example letter to send
to the Attorney General STEP 5 - Submit a formal complaint to the Florida Attorney
General. Wyndham Vacation Resorts, Inc.
operates out of Orlando, FL. They have
appointed themselves as our FairShare Plan Manager, VOA Trustee, and Board of
Directors, without allowing any input, feedback, or disclosure to or from the
owners. Any information to help
enlighten Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum about what this corporate
giant is currently doing to their owners should be of great importance to
him. Again, at a very minimum, forward copies of any letters sent to the
FairShare Plan Manager, VOA Board of Directors, and/or Mr. Hanning. His email address is: ag.mccollum@myfloridalegal.com Optionally, his online
complaint form is at: http://www.myfloridalegal.com His mailing address is: Office of the Attorney General Attn: Attorney General Bill McCollum The Capitol PL-01 Tallahassee,
Florida 32399 Click here for an example of a completed
online complaint form Click here for an example letter to send
to the Attorney General STEP 6 - Submit a formal complaint to the Florida Division
of Timeshares. Since there are so many
timeshares in Florida, they have a special government agency that monitors
their activities, called the Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshare, and
Mobile Homes. You need to download their
timeshare complaint form at: http://www.myflorida.com/dbpr/lsc/documents/complaint_english.pdf Then mail or fax it to the Florida Division of Timeshares. Sorry no online submission. Their mailing address is: Department of Business
and Professional Regulation FL
Div of Condos, Timeshares and Mobile Homes 1940
N. Monroe Street Tallahassee,
Florida 32399 You can alternatively fax your complaints to
both 850-488-7149 and 407-317-7230. Since many of you prefer email, you may also
want to drop an email to the Director, Michael Cochran at: michael.cochran@dbpr.state.fl.us
. We have had responses from one of his
Administrative Assistants, Shelia Fields, so you might want to copy her on any
correspondence as well at: Shelia.fields@dbpr.state.fl.us Just as before, it would
probably be a good idea to forward copies of any letters sent to the FairShare
Plan Manager, VOA Board of Directors, and/or Mr. Hanning. Click here for an example of a completed
timeshare complaint form Click here for an example letter to send
to the Florida Division of Timeshares STEP 7 - Submit a formal complaint to the Federal Trade
Commission. The FTC deals with issues that injure us economically, which Wyndham has
clearly done. They are the only federal
agency with both consumer protection and competition jurisdiction in broad
sectors of the economy. If they get
enough complaints about any one company, they WILL investigate and force the
appropriate authorities to take action. The Federal Trade Commission has an online complaint form that can be
accessed at: https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?Lang=en Click here for an example of a completed
FTC complaint form STEP 8 - Owner Awareness/Membership Drive. There are over 360,000 timeshare owners who
belong to the FairShare VOA. Ultimately,
it may take a 75% vote of the ownership to take action against Wyndham. We need a serious effort to spread the
word to as many owners as possible about what Wyndham has done to our ownership
and what actions they can do to help.
There are at several simple ways to do this: Word of Mouth – when chatting by the pool on your next vacation,
let other owners know what is happening and invite them to this website to
obtain more information. Business Cards
– before your next vacation print out the business cards directing other owners
to this website. Pass them out to other
owners you come in contact with during your stay. Also, before departing, be sure to leave any
extras in a public area at the resort so even more owners get the word. Click here for printable business cards
with this website information Flyers –
before your next vacation print out copies of the “Wyndham Owner’s Beware”
flyers. Pass them out to other owners
you come in contact with during your stay.
Again, before departing, take a few moments to tape some in the
elevators, leave some at people’s doors (in the USA Today is a great place,
because you know that room is a Wyndham owner), and in any other public area
where they might end up in the hands of other owners. Click here for an example of the front of
the “Beware” flyers Click here for an example of the reverse,
which is list of lost benefits to owners Internet – Spend an hour or two browsing the various consumer
advocate website and leaving comments to frustrating and complaining Wyndham
owners. Show sympathy for their
situation and invite them to join this website to learn more about how to get
the most out of their ownership. It
would be a good idea to also direct them to the “Wyndham Timeshare Owner Tells
All” video at: http://wyndhamvideo.com . There are literally hundreds
of websites out there where people are complaining or discussing Wyndham
timeshares – investment websites, ripoff websites, blogs, etc. It won’t take too long
searching with Google before you find some new potential owners to invite to
our website. Blogging is very popular
these days and there are many vacation, investment, general interest, local
interest, and newspaper blogs out there that will allow you to add
comments. Make your point, then leave a
link to this website. Even a simple thing such as
adding this website link or the one for the video above to your email
signatures will help to spread the word.
Owner Updates
– Only for the truly bold and/or angry owners.
Go to the updates and share the business cards with other prospects as
well as salespeople. Also, if you are in
a single-party consent state, tape your conversation and see if they are
continuing to pitch the benefits that Wyndham has taken from us as an incentive
to purchase more developer points.
Before leaving, have some fun and ask if they’ll put in writing that you
can rent your units, make some money, transfer your points, have unlimited free
guest certificates, sell your timeshare and have VIP benefits transfer, etc.,
etc. Picketing –
This needs to be a coordinated and collective effort. Each jurisdiction has differing laws about
how to legally picket. For multiple owners
who live in close proximity to a resort, we can start to coordinate for days to
picket, research the approval process (if applicable), and coordinate for local
press coverage. Banners and signs at the
entrance to a resort or near their sales area will make Wyndham very unhappy,
even if there are only a few picketers.
Also, we need much video of this.
The more locations we picket and get video of, the more likely we are to
get network news interest in our situation. STEP 9 - Write a letter to Wyndham Worldwide. Write a letter to the Chairman of the Board
and Chief Executive Officer of Wyndham Worldwide Corporation, currently Stephen
Holmes. This was put so far down on the
list, because it is very unlikely Mr. Holmes will ever see anything mailed to
him, but if you have already made it this far and taken all the other steps,
what’s one more postage stamp??? His mailing address is: Wyndham
Worldwide Corporation Attn: Stephen Holmes, Chief Executive Officer Seven
Sylvan Way Click here for an example letter to send
to Mr. Holmes STEP 10 - Become
Active with Your POA. Each resort that you own at has a Property Owner’s
Association that manages it. Many of
these are managed by Wyndham and have at least a few Wyndham employees on the
POA’s Board of Directors. Every year,
all owners should receive notice about POA Board Meetings. No matter what the composition of your BOD,
it is important to make them aware about our discontent with Wyndham’s
management of the VOA and recent changes.
Consider running for the BOD yourself and lobbying from within the POA
to voice our concerns to Wyndham. If you
decide to attend a Board meeting or even run for a position on the BOD,
announce it on this website so other owners know to provide their proxies to
you. Other actions to take. If you’ve really made it this far and taken
each of the above steps, CONGRATULATIONS!
You deserve a pat on the back before continuing. The below list of additional locations to submit complaints or publicize
our efforts will be updated frequently.
Please advise if you have a consumer or government agency, newspaper, radio
or television station, or any other recommendations to help Wyndham owners get
the word out and/or take actions against Wyndham for the theft of our vacation
ownership. Here is a website with a list of the Attorney Generals for each
state. It would only take an extra few
moments to pass on the same information provided to Arkansas and Florida to the
Attorney General from your state. http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/stateattorneygenerallist.php Here is a list of the governors, senators, and representatives for each
state. Again, it would only take a few
more moments to let your elected officials from your state know what Wyndham is
doing to owners from their state. http://directory.usayfoundation.org/
The Orlando Sentinel seems to be sort of biased towards timeshare
companies, but Wyndham Vacation Ownership is headquartered out of Orlando, so
it won’t hurt to drop them an email or carbon copy them on emails sent to
others. If they see just how many owners
are affected by Wyndham’s actions, they are certainly going to get involved. The Managing Editor is Mark Russell – email is mrussell@orlandosentinel.com The Tourism Journalist is
Sara Clarke – email is skclarke@orlandosentinel.com Their website is http://www.orlandosentinel.com Here is a website for Tom Martino, a consumer advocate who has a
nationwide-syndicated radio talk show.
He is very anti-timeshare and might take an interest in our situation
with Wyndham. http://www.troubleshooter.com The longest running publication specifically for timeshare owners is
Timesharing Today. If they received
enough complaints from Wyndham owners, they would likely publish an article
about the situation. Send your complaints
to the editor at editor@tstoday.com or if you want to
submit an article for consideration, email:
articles@tstoday.com . Believe
me, this is one publication that gets the attention of the entire timeshare
industry. Their website is: http://www.tstoday.com/ |
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