Manhattan Club Lawsuit

janicef119 wrote:

How can I stop main thence fees they charge to my credit card automatically?

janice, call the finance (maintenance/tax fees) office IMMEDIATELY and tell them to remove your credit card immediately. BE SURE TO REQUEST A CONFIRMATION/REFERENCE NUMBER OF THE REQUEST/TRANSACTION. TMC (OR ANY OTHER COMPANY) ISN'T ALLOWED BY LAW, TO KEEP YOUR CREDIT CARD INFO ON FILE UNLESS YOU AUTHORIZE IT. BE SURE YOU DO THIS RIGHT AWAY; ASK OF THE NAME OF THE PERSON REMOVING YOUR CREDIT INFO. AGAIN, DON'T DELAY: DO THIS NOW OR FIRST THING IN THE MORNING.

chris

janicef119 wrote:

I have owned the Manhattan club for over two years and have never been able to make reservations. Every time I request I am told not available. What should I do. HELP,

DO NOT LEAVE YOUR CREDIT CARD INFO ON FILE TO PAY MAINTENANCE FEES. HAVE THEM REMOVE THIS INFO IMMEDIATELY. THEN, DO NOT PAY YOUR MAINTENANCE FEES. YOU MUST PAY CITY/STATE TAX FEES OR BE PENALIZED BY NYC/NYS. THIS IS NOT EXPERT LEGAL ADVICE, BUT I HAVE DONE THE SAME THING..................NOT GOING TO PAY MAINTENANCE FEES UNTIL THE NYSAG/TMC LAWSUIT IS SETTLED. CONSULT AN ATTORNEY FOR FURTHER ADVICE ON WITHHOLDING MAINTENANCE FEES, BUT I'M WITHHOLDING MINE.

irenes93 wrote:

One very smart owner clarified the details of the stipulation about notifying owners. Owners only have to be notified after the AG's office accepts their proposed 89th amendment. Then owners have to be notified of the 89th amendment.

TMC doesn't have to do anything in 30 days except try to send papers to the AG.

The So Ordered Stipulation is dated October 20, 2014 (Steven Leibman incorrectly stamped it 2013 but it's obvious that's an error) so 30 days aren't even up yet. Note there is a different stipulation dated October 22, 2014 but that does not address the 30 days.

TMC had to "use best efforts" to submit a proposed 89th amendment to the offering plan to the AG's office. All TMC has to do is do their best to get a proposed 89th amendment to the AG's office within 30 days, TMC doesn't have to notify owners of anything within 30 days of the stipulation.

Once the AG's office reviews the amendment for deficiencies (no time frame is given for the AG to review the amendment) the AG then sends it back to TMC to "cure" or fix the deficiencies. There's no time frame ordered for TMC to fix the amendment.

Once TMC files a corrected amendment AND the AG accepts the amendment then, and only then after that filing, does TMC have to "distribute the amendment to all current owners." As the AG has an open ended time limit to review the proposed 89th amendment and TMC has an open ended time limit to make corrections there is no way to pinpoint a date by which TMC has to distribute the amendment to the owners and the 89th amendment is the only thing TMC has to distribute to owners.

irene, we owners are all still in the proverbial and realistic DARK!!! please inform us of exactly what the "89th amendment" is. PLEASE DO THIS AT YOUR EARLIEST CONVENIENCE, so that we can be reasonably informed as to what's going on with the NYSAG/TMC lawsuit. if it's anything that i think it is: eichner is buying time for his cadre of experts to come up with a scheme to keep screwing us out of time and money, of course in a shaded legal manner. we can't let this mercenary money man continue to keep us under his thumb.

please give us the info we need asap.

thanks chris volpe

eileenm241 Hi Irene:

How can I get involved? I am sick over reading all this -starting from page one. I stopped paying the charges and have only stayed at the Manhattan Club once from the time we bought it in 2005. I just finished paying off the loan we used to purchase it. We owe nearly $6,000 in back charges and late fees. I was going to set up a payment plan to get up to date when I stumbled on this site, the AG action and the FB site. I am not sure what I should do. I just want to be done with this nightmare. The MC has offered an amnesty to me if I agree to forego the three years of weeks I did not pay the charges for. They sent me a great deal of legal paperwork to sign which I do not really understand. Do you have any advice?[/

eileee, my (totally legally uninformed) opinion: DO NOTHING, ESP. PAYING YOUR MAINTENANCE FEES (NYC/NYS TAXES MUST BE PAID OR PENALTIES WILL ENSUE). SIGN NOTHING SENT BY TMC UNTIL THE LAWSUIT IS SETTLED. ONCE THAT OCCURS ITS STIPULATIONS WILL DIRECT OUR FUTURE ACTIONS AND OBLIGATIONS..............AND OUR RIGHTS.

chris volpe

Call finance office and tell them it is no longer a working card. You do not want them to have your credit card number.

Write to the AG's office of NY. The Address and all the information in on this blog in earlier post or just go onto AG's website.

Write your situation about ownership in a letter to the AG office.

To cease being charged the TMC maintenance fees either cancel the credit card used and have the credit card company give you a new number (which they gladly will), or call your credit card company and advise them that the charge is in dispute and you are not going to pay it. The credit card company will put the charge in abeyance for 30 days while they investigate and the make a determination. When I did this with Amex the MC failed to get back to Amex within the 30 days and Amex agreed to remove the TMC maintenance charges.

The CNBC TV Expose on The Manhattan Club scam is set to air tomorrow 11/20 on Power Lunch between 1p EST & 2p EST. The only reason why the segment would get bumped is due to the markets. In that case I will let you know. Otherwise I will send you an email in the morning letting you know an exact time for the piece as the show does not schedule the time until day of.

Valerie Patriarca Producer CNBC Business News 609.414.3449

THE FOLLOWING IS ON tripadvisor.com, a major retailer of THE MANHATTAN CLUB accommodations; this is one of the issues keeping us owners from getting our desired reservations. i wrote the following description/review of THE MANHATTAN CLUB. i strongly suggest that we all write something similar on trip advisor and any other travel site that advertises THE MANHATTAN CLUB as a HOTEL, and not a TIMESHARE WHICH IT IS:

MY REVIEW: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g60763-d99321-r240598380-The_Manhattan_Club-New_York_City_New_York.html#UR240598380

PLEASE CLICK ON IT OR COPY/PASTE TO VIEW ITS CONTENTS.

chris volpe

My husband and I purchased a one bedroom unit in1998 and "upgraded" in 2000. We have had the same frustrations. We want out of this time share and are tired of hefty maintenance fees and unavailability. We will happily fill out survey and join the lawsuit. Msmiller@stny.rr.com. please forward to us. Thank you for seeking justice!

Did anyone catch the CNBC expose?? Wish we had some earlier notice. Just saw this post but it's too late.

Chris, definitely a good idea to vent our victimization on TripAdvisor.com but I don't see your post. I do see many TMC guests complaining about everything; the rooms, the service, the staff, etc.

It is also frustrating to see that TMC is being aggressively marketed as a Hotel ... and we thought it was our timeshare. No wonder we could never get our accommodations.

Here is the clip of the CNBC expose on the Manhattan Club that aired today

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000331987&play=1

Irene Smalls

Thank you, Chris.

Irene, thanks for sharing the clip. I actually watched it when it aired and saved it to my DVR but I am glad the link is here for followers of this thread. I am saddened and worried nothing will be resolved.

On sellmytimesharenow.com alone there are 20,040 TMC owners looking to sell. TMC says they have 14,000+ owners for their 286 rooms.

We are going to need paid clerical help to contact the owners. Our committee is too small to handle 20,040 owners. Alternately, if we can find a computer programmer to write us a program to pull TMC owner details from the web or a company that specializes in developing lists that could work as well. Any with ideas or suggestions please contact me.

Time is important. TMC is trying to settle the AG's case as soon as possible.

irene, i'll do whatever i can to help. let me know, and i'll get back to you. meanwhile, what is current progress of the the NYS ATTORNEY GENERAL VS MANHATTAN CLUB lawsuit?

irenes93 wrote:

On sellmytimesharenow.com alone there are 20,040 TMC owners looking to sell. TMC says they have 14,000+ owners for their 286 rooms.

We are going to need paid clerical help to contact the owners. Our committee is too small to handle 20,040 owners. Alternately, if we can find a computer programmer to write us a program to pull TMC owner details from the web or a company that specializes in developing lists that could work as well. Any with ideas or suggestions please contact me.

Time is important. TMC is trying to settle the AG's case as soon as possible.

The next TMC court event is a status conference Dec. 18, which is just a check-in update with the referee so he can decide whether MC cooperating fully, or not, with AG. Double check the day and time of the hearing to make sure the conference is going forward. This is the main number to call 1-800-771-7755. Ask for the New York City Attorney General's Public Affairs Office person to confirm the details. We need one person to take the responsibility of letting the group know when the TMC court dates are coming up by calling the NYC AG Public Affairs office regularly. I will send out notices to the group. The AG's office said they will not notify TMC owners of the hearing dates. It is good to have a presence of TMC Owners at the TMC hearings if possible.

Irene...thanks for keeping us owners in the loop.

Irene, I have a friend who is a programmer. He said the first thing to do is contact sellmytimeshare.com and politely explain the situation and ask them to send an email blast to the 20,040 sellers to contact you (or whoever is willing to tackle this.) If sellmytimeshare.com won't do it, my friend said he might be able to "scrape" the site and create a list but then we would have to either email or call everyone on our own.

I will send another letter to the AG asking him to look at the number of people selling on that site....he should definitely be made aware of this!