I worked at the Director level for Express Scripts. The Senior Leadership of the company has fallen under the influence of Jack Welch and all of his management principles. Most notably, you need to constantly fire or lay off your "bottom 10%" every year. I worked for rogue Vice President out of St. Louis who basically fired me for not firing an employee that he thought was in his bottom 10%. This particular employee improved their performance after I mentored and coached them and put them into a more suitable position.
In addition, I helped save Express Scripts almost 1 million a year in saved expense. My reward was to get laid off right before Christmas. The same Vice President that I worked for was a swaggering ego maniac. He openly admitted to others the he himself lied about his salary when he joined the company years back. After I left Express Scripts, I logged an ethics issue against him on their "Ethics Hotline". Well, that was a joke. He still has a job and I know for a fact that other employees in "lesser positions" who did the same thing met with instant dimissal.
I agree with the other review from the former employee out of the Tempe, Arizona mega pharmacy. This company is a joke. I promise you, if you join Express Scripts (at any level), you will have "The Sword of Damacles" hanging over year head from the first day you start until the day you leave. AVOID WORKING AT THIS COMPANY!
I just got my notice this weekend. I have e-mailed my salesperson, Cesar Valedez (who no longer works for Raintree/Westin Regina in Cancun, but who is a personal friend after he allowed my family to stay with him in his personal home during Hurricane Wilma in Cancun in September of 2005). I am also going to go thru my contract. I am going to ask Raintree to make their accounting visible and that I am not going to pay one dime of this assessment unless they have a contractual stipulation for me to do so AND they can show that all of the back due maintenance fees from all other members has been paid in full. Otherwise, no $$$ for this fiasco.
Pleaase count "me in" for any class action lawsuit that is in thw works for this. You can reach me at alanjswanson@hotmail.com. Thanks!
I just submitted this news tip to MSNBC> I hope that Keith Olberman puts Doug Bech up as his "worst person" on an upcoming show! What a jerk!
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Raintree Vacation timeshare members have been hit up for an illegal special assessment of anywhere from $820.00 on up per unit, and there is a huger furor going on inside a blog called Complaintsboard.com. As an owner, I can tell you that this is going to go to a class action lawsuit against Raintree Vacation and Raintree's CEO, Doug Bech. I thought you might want to socialize this story to others:
Raintree — Trying to charge a &Special Assessment&
I am amazed that Raintree would be so mismanaged as to try to extort money for some sort of mysterious "bail out", even though they have no contractual basis to do so. They have provided their members with no accounting on how our annual maintenance fees have been spent to date. Interestingly, my special assessment (I have an every other year Gold week) is $820.00 and is EXACTLY the same amount that I have already paide for my 2009 maintenance fees this year. Please help us owners spread the word of this injustice by providing coverage of the story on MSNBC. It would also be great of Keith Olberman could put Doug Bech up on his "worst person" recognition tomorrow during his show.
My Letter to Doug Bech, CEO of Raintree Vacation:
Doug,
So you think that your OWNERS who blog are not representing facts? Interesting. Let me set you straight on a few things here.
You provided SOME of the OWNERS in Raintree Vacation Club with a survey. SOME, not ALL.
A "Survey" is NOT a VOTE of the owner's wishes.
Your "Survey" was not structured to ask "Would you be willing to PAY a SPECIAL ASSESSMENT to recieve {benefit} sooner than our normal maintenance schedule would provide".
I have not ONCE seen ANY accounting of how my annual maintenace fees have been spent.
YOU can be REMOVED. If I was asked to provide a vote of "No Confidence" about your leadership, I myself would vote with a resounding YES, and I would add that you and your team should be replaced by a team who make their accounting and financials TRANSPARENT to the OWNERS.
The main issue I believe you are facing is NOT the extra expenditure of money. It's the COMPLETE, 100% LACK of ACCOUNTABILITY of how our money is being spent. By accountability, I DO NOT mean a form letter filled with high level bullet points and vague platitudes. I mean you are OBLIGATED to provides spreadsheets with financial information about how our money is being ALLOCATED and SPENT, and also PROFIT/LOSS and finally CAPITLIZATION for new properties (how much of our MAINTENANCE fees are you using to CAPITALIZE your new facilties)?
I suggest that you wake up and pull your head out of your keister and understand that you have lost ALL CREDIBILITY with your OWNERS. If I were you, I would cut bait and resign before the Attorney General of the State of Texas opens a criminal investigation regarding your practices here.
Alan Swanson
RVC Member Since 2002
After reading my letter to Doug Bech, I decided to send out an additional clarification. Here's that follow-up that I sent him:
Doug,
As a point of clarification, on point #5 below, I was referring to your employment as CEO of Raintree Vacation and my contention that the OWNERS have the right to provide a vote a no confidence to have you removed from that position. I would like to see you come clean with the accounting behind this Special Assesment and also provide a reference back to each owner's contract which establishes the authority for Raintree to charge this Special Assessment. If I were you, I would recant the Special Assessment, make the financials 100% visible, and provide a binding vote for all owners to decide whether an additional Maintenance Fees for 2010 would be required. Capiche'?
In the interest of getting more exposure to this fiasco, I just tipped off CNN (similar to my tip to MSNBC). I also posted the details about this train wreck to to the Starwood Preferred Guest board on Flyteralk.com. Here's the post:
URL: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/starwood-preferred-guest/965605-raintree-vacation-club-special-assessment.html
Post:
I am posting this because Raintree Vacation club is the propeiter of the Club Regina resorts in Mexico, which reside along Westin hotels as the Westin Regina chain of hotels and timeshare resorts.
Doug Bech, CEO of Raintree Vacation Club, decided it would be a good idea in this economy to hit up the lion's share of the owners in Raintree Vacation Club resorts in Mexico with a random, Special Assessment that amounts to $820.00 on up per unit. And, his justification for levying this assessment is his "Fiduciary Responsibility" to respond to the wishes of the owners for Wifi in the rooms, granite kitchen counter tops and new beach chairs as indicated in an e-mail survey that some (not all) of the owners received. There is been NO ACCOUNTABILITY for how owner's maintenance fees have been spent to date and NO ACCOUNTABILITY for the specific, detailed plans for how the money garnished in this special assessment will be spent. As an owner, I just received a form letter which had some very (emphasis on very) high level bullet point lists of items that may (or may not be) taken care of in the resorts in Mexico as a result of this levy. To make matters more interesting, at least with the unit that I own, Raintree has NO CONTRACTUAL authority to leverage a Special Assessment - just an annual maintenance fee which I have already paid.
In short, if you are thinking of buying into one of the Club Regina resorts owned by Raintree Vacation club in Mexico - THINK TWICE. You may be buying into something that is going to go down in scandal and/or bankruptcy. Currently, Raintree Owners who are angry and upset about having received this special assessment are gathering together to solicit a class action lawsuit and also to ask the Attorney General of the State of Texas to open an investigation into the business practices of the Raintree Vacation Club and Doug Bech.
For more information, please see this thread on the Complaintsboard.com website:
http://www.complaintsboard.com/compl...t=dated&page=1
-A
Your comment Jim S.:
"By billing $820 to every-other year owners, they are double-dipping and receiving $1, 640 per unit. Can someone with an "even-year only membership" confirm thay have been billed $820?"
Your comment Carlo O:
"I am an even-year gold member and also billed $820 for my unit. I called the booking person in Indiana and she said she heard something like they were going to give us a full week compensation to use on our off year that we had to use the next 2-3 cycles."
I am an odd-year gold member, and I received an $820 special assessment for my unit. Feeling a bit taken advantage of right now, and also like I want to ask the Attorney General of the State of Texas to launch a criminal investigation on this. Feels like a Ponzi Scheme, ala-Bernie Madhoff (NY) and Tom Petters (MN).
We are starting to think critically and have a good dialog on this board (blog)! Regarding our contracts and the structure and makeup of Raintree Vacation as an organization, has anyone been able to tell what it would take to oust Doug Bech (which also mean his minions / management team) from Raintree so we can install our own team that will make the accounting on our maintenance fees and the financials on OUR properties 500% visible?
I think Doug Bech has missed the boat here. I don't think the issue is totally the expenditure of money. It's the accountability for how the money is spent. I think one thing that we all have in common is that we are reasonable people. From a contractual point of view, I think Bech should be sending out SPREADSHEETS of data regarding where Raintree Vacation is at with collecting, budgeting and spending the maintenance fees we have spent thus far, alongside a detailed list (complete with competitive bids and estimates) for all expenditures planned for the next 18 months. Finally, we need to be allowed to vote on these things... NOT take a stupid, non-binding, generic, vague Zoomerang survey!
Ciao!
Alan
This is an inherent problem for Lifetime Fitness and their "predecessor" clubs. I had my check book stolen almost 17 years ago at the Bally's in New Hope which is now part of Lifetime Fitness. The theif was a Russian woman who stole the checkbook out of my wife's locker and then proceeded to use the checks in it at multiple restaurants around the Northwest suburbs of Minneapolis. I had to file multiple affadavit's of forgery as a result. A few years later, her now ex-hushand reached out to me and told me that she was the theif and that he found my checkbook carbons at her house while babysitting his sons. He wanted me to write a letter about being a crime victim so he could get out of paying her more child support (you can't make this stuff up). I went to the New Hope police department to file a police report and spoke to an Office Attikinson who told me that it has been too long since the crime originally occurrred and that despite having multiple theft reports in the women's locker room at the New Hope club, he would not be able to do anything. This past fall, I was going thru my files and came across this informationa gain and on a larch - did a facebook search for the thief by her hane. Not only was I able to find her (she now has a new last name but has her maiden name on her URL)... I realized that I now see her working out every Saturday morning at the Maple Grove Lifetime Fitness! I feel robbed and violated everytime I see her at the club. She works out by herself and looks like she is in the process of trying to pick up a "young buck" for herself by the weight area. I'm not sure what to do. I told the management at Maple Grove about her past in the event that theyhave had things go "missing" at the Maple Grove women's locker room. I feel like given I have hard evidence in hand from her ex-husband about her crimes (all be it circa 1996), they should revoker her membership and give her the boot out of all of their clubs.
