Rants

Go to Point at Poipu Board of Directors forum within Redweek. It appears that we have two forums going on the same website. Several of us are voting for Robert Halems, as we owners all agree that we need to band together to regain control of the Board.

So we were 'owners' of a partial ocean week at Poipu. I guess we were gullible because we went with the conversion for 'only' $3000 with the promise that we were actually getting 2 weeks worth of points, that it would open up all of the Diamond system, and that we were still deeded 'owners'. This sounded a lot like what used to be TrendWest and is now Wyndham, which has always offered excellent service and a lot of flexibility, even for exchanges. We had become very dissatisfied with the escalating maintenance fees in that the grounds and interiors of the units have deteriorated quite a lot since we bought, so what is the money going for? I pay less than $600 per year to Wyndham for the same 10,000 points I pay to Poipu $1400 this year! Why? I am pleased to have found this forum. Even though I may be in a different category now, I welcome comunication about 'my' resort. We love the location and always have a wonderful time once we get there. To tell you the truth, even as 'owners' of this specific week at a specific resort, the service has always been substandard, reservations agents attitudes very unaccomodating. Compared to Wyndham it sucked from the service and availability angles, and we still had difficulty getting access to our deeded week even before all this started. We would love to support alternative representatives on the board who will represent all of us who use this facility. Maintenance fees that high mean it should look like the Hyatt by now. BTW: will we still be paying these high fees even though we are now in a points system? We were stuck with this bill this year (2009) even though we converted and Diamond wouldn't talk to us until we paid up. Thanks to all of you for your posts.

We are forming a group to ad an alternative voice and move the Board of Directors towards more active representation of the membership.... Yes the cost increases are out of control, with no real cause that we can identify... Diamond Resorts Management does not look at the Members as a group that they owe their jobs too, and look at us as an "Accounts Receiveable" and their not very accountable to our problems... Many of us were at the Annual Meeting on Kauai in February, and the dissappointment of the members present was very loud and pointed... We need to gains members support and votes when the next election come around, so join our group, as it is yet tto be formalized... We will create a forum to communicate our thoughts... Michael migueldd45@aol.com

I am sorry to say this is exactly why we sold our timeshare at Poipu. Right before the market tanked we sold and turned around and bought at the Marriott in Maui. We have never been dissappointed with Marriott and yes the service at Poipu is less then 3 stars, not even close to 5. Good luck to you all!

Diamond acquired Sunterra a while back. Diamond has also put employees on the board by flooding the ballot with their names with no indication that they are employees. They now have the majority on the board. Our fees just went up 50 %! The fox is guarding the henhouse on holding a line on expenses. They are pushing hard to convert deeded owner to points. In this process, not only do you pay them a sizable fee, you GIVE them your property deed! They are effectively getting people to give them money as they acquire DEEDED property in Hawaii. A real Madoff operation.

Count us in! dlindenm@me.com

The official board is now controlled by DRI. They got representatives elected to the board by not identifying them as DRI agents. They will not give those of us interested in reaching other owners contact info so that we may change the makeup of the board. Other management companies have been contacted and would charge less for their services. DRI has been telling people that they are the new owners of Poipu Point when in fact they are just a management firm which is employed by US! All of this needs to change. A company charging less would mean reduced annual fees for us all.

Messages on a forum like this are the best way to mobilize to take back our resort. The fees are too high and a new management company would mean lower fees AND better service. Many have noticed that the employees are no longer as happy as they once were. Let's move forward with the take-back.

Unless we take back the board from DRI and fire them and bring in a new management team, I doubt that any bills will go down.

Just received the Call for Resumes for people who want to run for the Board. I plan to submit mine and would like your support. As we have discussed, the key is to actually limit the number of non-Diamond employees who run so that we don't dilute the votes.

Unless we can gain control of the Board, the future is a hopeless string of maintenance fee increases.

I PAY for a weekly timeshare in Poipu and have been pretty disgusted with the whole thing. I bought from Poipu/Sun Terra in August '07 and got several free airline tickets and 1 yr free maintenance of $1000 a year to close the deal. Then Sun Terra told me the finance company would need to see several payments before escrow closed properly and you would beable to make reservations in Jan '08. In Dec '07, I got an invoice for $1000 from Sun Terra for annual maintenance. I called finance and they said that the free 1yr maint was for the remains of '07. Realizing that I got screwed for not reading everything properly, I tried to make reservations for end of July 08 and nothing was available. So, I kept trying daily to go online and call to reserve dates to no avail. Finally about late March I found a week open but not the dates I needed. So, I took it hoping something else would open. Remember I haven't purchased my tickets yet either. A few weeks later in mid April after trying to check everyday,all of a sudden every date and every unit within the club was available. Don't know what happened. But was able to get my preferred dates. July '08 had nice stay other then the update visit with the sales team. Since we were already on the screwed points system we figured how could it get worse. Well, we relunctantly bought another 2500 more points at the price we bought 10000 per point the previous year which almost guarentees us an ocean view annually. THE POINTS WILL NEVER CHANGE is what we obviously didn't have the time to read. Dec '08, new invoice for annual maintenance $1500. Price increase due to Utility company raising local prices and revamping parts off the resort. Could not go in summer of '09 so we banked points for next year. Dec '09, new invoice for annual maintenance $1954. How do we stop the hemmoraging?

I'm not sure there is any way to stop the maintenance fee increases in the points system. DRI can just decide to charge whatever they want and you have no control. We are attempting to get control of the weeks ownership into the hands of "real" owners. If that happens, the possibility exists that we could stop DRI from inventing charges and raising the fee. Hopefully, that would limit the amount DRI could justify raising the points fees.

I've read through the "rants" for the last few years, but there's nothing recent. The whole timeshare business is such a scam. We paid a fortune for our ocean front weeks, then added a garden for week to make up the right number of points. More scam. We use what we can towards maintenance but it certainly doesn't cover it. We'd sell in a heart beat for half what we paid. Sigh..... Anyone have any news?

You would be incredibly fortunate to get half. I have been offered deeded weeks for free if I would take over the maintenance fees.

But I have enough right now.

It appears that the pressure being placed on DRI by the weeks owners is having some impact. Stay tuned.

DRI points system is nothing more than a sales pitch to swinddle vacationers out of thier hard earned money. The more people they sucker in to their imaginary points system the weaker us deeded owners get.

Ask any DRI POINTS OWNER how easy it is to get tha vacation of your dreams the sales guy promised.

DO NOT GIVE DRI anymore money than you are forced to through their "TRUST" ha System or what ever they are calling it now (I guess thay need to change the name every now and then to keep their salesmen from getting too much grief or cancelations when the sale party euphoria wears off and they begin to the due dilagence necessary to make a capital purchase in the first place.

The previous statement is my own personal opinion.

Vacation Owner

The request for candidates to run for the Board of Directors has just gone out for 2011. I am again submitting my name as a candidate. I am committed to owners taking control of our property and holding DRI to a proper relationship. They should be running the property for us, not the other way around.

Please vote for me, Robert Halem when you get the chance. DRI holds a large block of votes because they control the points, but there is hope.

Thank you.

Bob.... We will vote for you, the problem continues in that it is still impossible to get the membership list to communicate directly with members, and having any correspondence filtered through Diamond, well we know they edit anything that goes through them... Diamond in my opinion is an ongoing criminal enterpreise specializing in fraud, not much will change until a State Attorney Generals Office gets seriously involved... Richard and his group made them nervous, but as yet nothing has changed... Michael

Everyone,

Listing rants might make you feel better, but it won't get you anywhere. Please file your written formal complaint with State of Hawaii, like I did. They will investigate and respond in writing to you. You must fill out a formal complaint form in your own words. Their contact numbers are: phone 808-586-2653, fax 808-586-2670, or e-mail www.hawaii.gov/dcca/rico It is up to each of us to either take action and ban together, or suffer the consequences. It is that simple. PS - Bob, I intend to vote for you again.

Dear CDOPP member, We want to wish you a very healthy and happy New Year along with the hopes of regaining control of our resort at Poipu this year. We have made some progress since the last newsletter and will keep you informed of the events. Our president Rich Batchelder and his wife Connie were in Hawaii recently and visited the office of attorney Patrick Kelley. He is the legal councel assigned to our case by the attorney general's office in Honolulu, RICCO. They had an interesting meeting and Rich clarified many of the issues we are having with DRI. They have had many complaints from owners of several timeshare developments on the islands and are concerned that the malcontent could lead to lower tourist travel. This is a very real concern due to the huge revenue they depend on from the tourists. Rich explained how escalating and out of control annual dues are often not paid, resulting in foreclosures and more take-over and control by the management companies. Proper designation should be "mismanagement". We hope they will become pro-active and help us. Please write a letter informing them that you are part of a group of 500 owners and expect them to take action in our behalf. Write to Regulated Industries Complaints Office State of Hawaii Dept. of Commerce and Consumer Affairs 235 So. Beretania St. 9th floor Honolulu, HI 96813 Attention : Mr. Patrick Kelley, Esq. phone 808 586 2660 Send your proxy vote immediately to Joe Williams he lives on Kauai and will hand deliver them to the board at the meeting on Jan. 18. Simply fill in the box at the top of your ballot that says "I THE UNDERSIGNED DO HEREBY CONSTITUTE AND APPOINT fill in Joe Williams Be sure to sign where it says SIGNATURE OF MEMBER fill in DATE fill in SIGNATURE OF JOINT OWNER( your spouse) fill in DATE Return to Joe Williams 2321 Kanio St. Lihue, HI 96766 He will fill in our candidate of choice, have the ballots certified by an attorney and turn them in at the meeting to DRI. Please let us know when you plan to vacation at Poipu so we can forward information to you that you can pass on and help our membership grow. We are in the process of coordinating our activities with the timeshare owners at Kanapali, Maui which is also mismanaged by DRI. Many owners are very concerned about the direction (misdirection) their vacation investment is going and plan to do something about it. A concerted effort on all parts would benefit us all. We have also been in contact with the owner's group at the timeshare Polo Club in Las Vegas, also mismanaged by DRI. They are making progress with their complaints and we are learning from them. BEST WISHES FOR A GOOD YEAR Cordially, Myra Orta, secty CDOPP poipuowners.org

I am a deeded owner (one week/year oceanview since 2001). I am presently visiting KBC. The day after we arrived, we meet with the "sales" reps for DRI where they tried (in vain) to sell us (for ~$5800) additional points PLUS convert our deeded week to 8500 points thus giving us enough total points for God knows what. They actually pulled our past 2 refusals from their files to give us this "opportunity". The salesperson also indicated that we (as deed holders) were a rarity (= minority) at this point, and that once every week was finally sold, that we would no longer be given this chance to convert our deeded week. I am assuming after a bit of reading that this is a common experience. Needless to say, we are staying put with our deeded week, but the fiasco at Poipu has got me a tad bit nervous about the management situation. People appear to be dumping their weeks on the open market, too. I am assuming that these folks are in over their heads financially on unrelated issues and need to raise cash anyway they can. How else can the sale of a week for which I paid $18K sell for $4k (before closing expenses)?