Manhattan Club Lawsuit

It shouldn't be forgotten that the owners that continually paid all of their fees and taxes did so at a higher rate in order to support the property when others chose not to pay. Those were people of character whom decided that regardless of Manhattan Clubs owners behavior, they were not going to violate their contracts. Two wrongs don't make a right and those that chose not to pay should not be rewarded.

I have been paying my fees and using my days for the past three years. I was scammed into paying an additional 5K by RCI to give us a leg up for reservations. The way it was described to me was that RCI had a priority block of rooms at MC that allowed us to make reservations AHEAD of the owners. Dopey us...we fell for the scam and paid. We have been able to get our weekend every year that we wanted. HOWEVER, when we were "simply owners" we could not get the time we wanted and had to settle for what MC offered us...usually Monday nights in order to use our time...as it was a use it or lose it situation. The straw that finally broke the camel's back for me was when I needed a room last year for myself so I could visit with friends in NYC from Canada and I could not get a room via RCI desk or through MC.... BUT I WAS ABLE TO GET AN APARTMENT THROUGH EXPEDIA FOR $300.00!!!! How ridiculous was that? An owner could not get an apartment nor through RCI but could by going to Expedia! So glad that these bums are being tossed out and hopefully the place will be managed properly so that those of us who have paid thousands of dollars and annual fees, will get what they thought they bought.

I just spoke to Lynne O'Donnell of TMC. She said she is an employee and doesn't know what is going on with the settlement and that the AG is still hashing out the details and has no idea how long things will take.

I inherited 2 properties. I kept one and paid my fees and gave the other back for $100 to the club because I could not afford a combined total of almost $7000 in fees and had no desire to spend 2 weeks in NYC. I did not get the final papers or the $100.00 because while that was in the works the AG implemented his investigation and TMC weren't allowed to finalize the deal. I was required to do an ancillary probate with the state of NY which required me to have the timeshares assessed for their value. The one I gave back is supposedly worth $20,000...Lynne said I would never get that on the open market. I told her I may not want to go through with the give back until I see what the settlement has to offer as I did it give back under duress. She said if that is the case I will have to pay 3 years of fees...which is fine with me if I could get $20,000 for the timeshare. Anyway for anyone interested I thought I would share and I have to say, when speaking to Lynne, I felt like I was talking to the old regime. Nothing has changed there.

http://gothamist.com/2017/08/17/midtown_manhattan_timeshare_admits.php

"Character" equals allowing yourself to get scammed and donating thousands of dollars to a criminal enterprise?

Every instance is different but in the case of my parents they haven't been able to use TMC in a number of years and were not able to divest themselves of it as promised, so finally after paying the fees without even using the place for a few years there was no other option (wish they had actually stopped paying sooner). If you want to blame someone for the ridiculous fees blame TMC for their fraudulent operation, not other scammed owners.

About the "reward": It has been stated above that $6.5 M was the amount TMC charged in fees for ONE YEAR, meanwhile they raked in (scammed) many times that over the previous years, and a few hundred dollars for each owner that paid fees many times that each year is not much of a restitution. If there is no other remittance (buyback, etc.), or at the absolute minimum being able to get out of the contract, the judgement is barely a slap on the wrist monetarily and the owners are still screwed.

carole487 wrote:

It shouldn't be forgotten that the owners that continually paid all of their fees and taxes did so at a higher rate in order to support the property when others chose not to pay. Those were people of character whom decided that regardless of Manhattan Clubs owners behavior, they were not going to violate their contracts. Two wrongs don't make a right and those that chose not to pay should not be rewarded.

hi sharon177, if owners paid their maintenance fees and taxes, they had the RIGHT to use their week or whatever amount of time they purchased. but the RIGHT is not necessarily a given entity. they may not have been able to get the specific time that they desired; because of that problem, if they couldn't take alternate substitute accommodation time, they lost the time they paid for...maintenance.

now we come to some reasons their desired time wasn't available: that time might legitimately have been booked completely by other MC OWNERS. on the other hand, eichner and his band of thieves may have rented that space through booking.com, hotel.com or other online hotel reservation sites, making less time available to owners. eichner may have double dipped: owners paid maintenance and did not get desired reservations because space was rented to NON OWNERS. would you put that past eichner? I WOULDN'T.

your not being able to pay your maintenance fee is understandable because the current maintenance fees amount to (for many) 400% more than it was after their initial purchase. my maintenance went from around $6-800 per week to the current $25-3500+per week, an exorbitant, irresponsible, selfish, raise by greedy money mongers in the style of madoff (but not called a ponzi scheme.) i think this opinion would be shared by many of us owners.

perhaps the settlement arrangements of the NYSAG VS THE MANHATTAN CLUB/EICHNER law suit, as dictated by the court will see to it that the duped and defrauded owners get generous consideration and compensation for the financial losses they sustained because of this unfortunate purchase.......YOUR NEW YORK CITY "HOME AWAY FROM HOME" as told to us when we first sat down with the lying salespeople in the infamous 2nd floor sales office.

keep in touch.

chris

sharon177 wrote:

Did the owners who paid their fees also use their time? I honestly would have paid my fees if I'd had the money but $3726 CAD annually was very difficult to find. It is heart breaking for us as we love going to Manhattan. I'm sure my unused days were sold on Expedia or similar websites so income was still received and yes it went to Eichner, but so did the maintenance fees.

carole487 wrote:

It shouldn't be forgotten that the owners that continually paid all of their fees and taxes did so at a higher rate in order to support the property when others chose not to pay. Those were people of character whom decided that regardless of Manhattan Clubs owners behavior, they were not going to violate their contracts. Two wrongs don't make a right and those that chose not to pay should not be rewarded.

didn't eichner and gang VOID their part of the CONTRACT as , the NYSAG'S INVESTIGATION (and ultimate court victory) clearly prove?

deborah,

you're sooooooooooo right: NOTHING THERE HAS CHANGED..............same ol'....same ol' all the good employees appear to still be under the thumb of the evil svengali!

deborahs528 wrote:

I just spoke to Lynne O'Donnell of TMC. She said she is an employee and doesn't know what is going on with the settlement and that the AG is still hashing out the details and has no idea how long things will take.

I inherited 2 properties. I kept one and paid my fees and gave the other back for $100 to the club because I could not afford a combined total of almost $7000 in fees and had no desire to spend 2 weeks in NYC. I did not get the final papers or the $100.00 because while that was in the works the AG implemented his investigation and TMC weren't allowed to finalize the deal. I was required to do an ancillary probate with the state of NY which required me to have the timeshares assessed for their value. The one I gave back is supposedly worth $20,000...Lynne said I would never get that on the open market. I told her I may not want to go through with the give back until I see what the settlement has to offer as I did it give back under duress. She said if that is the case I will have to pay 3 years of fees...which is fine with me if I could get $20,000 for the timeshare. Anyway for anyone interested I thought I would share and I have to say, when speaking to Lynne, I felt like I was talking to the old regime. Nothing has changed there.

I totally agree with all of your message. I've been an owner for seventeen years. My maintenance at that time was under 800.00 dollars. Now for the same amount of time it's 3500.00 Also like everyone else we can not get the days we want We were promised days and of course as time went on it was impossible to get anything The maintenance just keeps on going up up up the rooms become less and less and impossible to get We would like to see the maintenance go down. Also it would be great if we had the option to sell our unit if we want It's saddens me to feel that we've just been victims of this horrible scam I would also like to thank all the people that help make this situation come to light .hopefully there's a light at the end of the tunnel

It would not be fair to have debt forgiveness of any unpaid maintenance fees. Every year, since the outrageous increase in maintenance fees, the $3500+ was very hard for my husband and I to pay because we are on a fixed income. However, in order for us to keep our good credit rating, TMC allowed us to pay a monthly amount until the annual amount was paid in full. This is how we have been paying our maintenance fees for the past few years. In 2016 we did not use our TMC timeshare and was unable to rent it and still had to pay our maintenance fees.

hi kathleen,

kathleenf77 wrote:

It would not be fair to have debt forgiveness of any unpaid maintenance fees. Every year, since the outrageous increase in maintenance fees, the $3500+ was very hard for my husband and I to pay because we are on a fixed income. However, in order for us to keep our good credit rating, TMC allowed us to pay a monthly amount until the annual amount was paid in full. This is how we have been paying our maintenance fees for the past few years. In 2016 we did not use our TMC timeshare and was unable to rent it and still had to pay our maintenance fees.

hello kathleen, from your contribution here at redweek.com, it seems that you're very scrupulous and conscientious, perhaps willing to "turn the other cheek"; admirable traits to be sure. i, and i assume many other owners would not be as understanding as you indicated you are: "It would not be fair to have debt forgiveness of any unpaid maintenance fees". in my opinion eichner voided his part of the contract with us as shown and proven by the new york state attorney general's victory in his court case against TMC AND EICHNER. your credit rating would not have been maligned by non-payment of maintenance fees. however, non payment of a mortgage, if you had one on your purchased week(s), would have lowered your rating. you're giving too much credit to TMC when you state: "TMC allowed us to pay a monthly amount until the annual amount was paid in full." my, how wonderfully magnanimous eicher and TMC were to extract the exorbitantly outrageous maintenance fees from you on a monthly basis.............and your NOT BEING ABLE TO USE YOUR TIME. i fully understand your good faith efforts; however, all eichner was interested in was raking in your hard-earned dollars, so he was so (sarcastically) so very kind to let you pay the fee in installments. eichner is a very shrewd, clever and fraudulent business man interested only in building his property empires with your and others' ill-charged money/fees.

so kathleen, i hope you and the rest of us defrauded, scammed and duped owners get our just financial and real estate dues that the court settlement will, in good conscience, hand down to us.

stay as nice and fair as you appear to be; you're most likely a better person than i, MAIS, CHACUN A SON GOUT.

HAPPY LABOR DAY, and keep in touch.

chris

Sharon, do you own at the Manhattan Club?

Great article share! Do you have a Timeshare with these people?

I have been reading for months now the incredible news articles, that involve this unbelievable timeshare scam. Want to thank Chris and the rest of the Red Week for their reporting. We bought in 2001 and are dealing with this dishonest company ever since. Thanks again for your efforts and informations. Brigitte

i respect carol's comments, but ditto to your response. eichner voided his end of the contract when he lied to purchasers at the sales presentation, and continued to defraud and scam us via his ultra-exorbitant raises in maintenance. there are no qualms about any owner NOT PAYING MAINTENANCE FEES ON A ONE SIDED CONTRACT. all owners must be duly rewarded by the court for our financial and usage losses.

keep in touch.

chris

thomasm832 wrote:

"Character" equals allowing yourself to get scammed and donating thousands of dollars to a criminal enterprise?

Every instance is different but in the case of my parents they haven't been able to use TMC in a number of years and were not able to divest themselves of it as promised, so finally after paying the fees without even using the place for a few years there was no other option (wish they had actually stopped paying sooner). If you want to blame someone for the ridiculous fees blame TMC for their fraudulent operation, not other scammed owners.

About the "reward": It has been stated above that $6.5 M was the amount TMC charged in fees for ONE YEAR, meanwhile they raked in (scammed) many times that over the previous years, and a few hundred dollars for each owner that paid fees many times that each year is not much of a restitution. If there is no other remittance (buyback, etc.), or at the absolute minimum being able to get out of the contract, the judgement is barely a slap on the wrist monetarily and the owners are still screwed.

carole487 wrote:

It shouldn't be forgotten that the owners that continually paid all of their fees and taxes did so at a higher rate in order to support the property when others chose not to pay. Those were people of character whom decided that regardless of Manhattan Clubs owners behavior, they were not going to violate their contracts. Two wrongs don't make a right and those that chose not to pay should not be rewarded.

carole487 wrote:

It shouldn't be forgotten that the owners that continually paid all of their fees and taxes did so at a higher rate in order to support the property when others chose not to pay. Those were people of character whom decided that regardless of Manhattan Clubs owners behavior, they were not going to violate their contracts. Two wrongs don't make a right and those that chose not to pay should not be rewarded.

Presumably people of character were lucky to get their desired reservations (whatever the reason was), received their OPs at the time of purchase, were not lied by the sales representative at the sales pitch, did not experience problems with paying exuberant maintenance fees, were not charged without authorization by MC , etc. Good news. In my case, like many other owners, it was the MC who violated the contract, not me, I was provided with disinformation and lies in regards to the fee raise and reservation policy, received OP after paid of purchase in full, was lack of reservations, got poor room condition when booking was available, was charged against my will, and was a subject to a mortgage fraud. It seems people of character do not have a point to fighting against the MC and should be out of rewards and restitution.

We are in this together - whether we paid our MF or we didn't. People see a settlement and IMHO they get unrealistic expectations about what will happen as a result. As such, it turns into people being upset with each other as opposed to with the MC. I hope it all turns out great but in the mean time as owners let's remember where our frustrations stem from. Just my 2 cents.

Alex, Tried sending u an email but it kicked back. Can u please add me to the class action suite. My Email is gpaccagn@verizon.net.

Thanks

Gary Paccagnini Owner since 2002

I have been following this thread for years and still can't believe the mix of comments. It's as if every day is Groundhog Day but before reaching the state of enlightenment! The only question remaining for me are the details of the formal settlement. The only thing I've heard about is the press release. Now that the AG has reached a settlement, the burden of a private attorney has been lightened; however, I still doubt any private attorney is likely to take on this case given the resources required to fund it, the amount of time required to litigate it and the difficulty of collecting enough to make it worthwhile. Most of the rest of the comments I have read are either speculation or personal invective or bickering about who is more worthy, none of which is helpful. Thank you again, Jeff and Redweek , for faithfully tracking this and being the only reliable source of information on this topic.

RE: DustinM 41 HOT NEWS: AG Settles case with $6.5 million settlement against Manhattan Club

Sharon, do you own at the Manhattan Club?

Yes Dustin, We have owned a 1 bdrm 2 bathroom since 1998. We enjoyed many visits over the year for many years. We always got the days we wanted but I booked long ahead. We love Manhattan. Then recently things changed and the maintenance fees have become unreachable. It's not really by choice that our fees go unpaid.