Wyndham Vacation Ownership
reviews and complaints

When we purchased our timeshare they lied about how much income we made. We did not realize this until we had an owners meeting and they sold us more points. When we went home and read all the documents as we felt bullied and wanted to see if we had a way out, we found the household income was incorrect. They never even asked us how much we made. We fought for 6 months we wanted completely out. It took us a year just to get a vacation from this company and they wanted us to pay more so we would not have this issue anymore. We did not feel good about this company and now we know what a horrible company they are.

Wyndham has consistently denied us the use of this timeshare at every turn. We have never been allowed to use it. Not even once.
Not only has Wyndham lied at every turn and manipulated every single misrepresented sentence, but they also attempted to force a mentally incompetent handicapped senior into signing for a timeshare! We had my wife's mother with us who is handicapped, and as she was in the waiting room waiting for us, they tried to sell her a timeshare. We had to explain that she was on medication for mental issues and not in the right frame of mind to purchase anything. We had to literally stand over the Wyndham sales agent and force them to get away from her. This entire situation is just not right.
They told us this would just be for 90 minutes and we paid for childcare, which was per hour, and we ended staying for half the day.
We also did not get all the points we were promised, and it was more then they told us it would be.
The reps at Wyndham are not helpful.

Would not recommend this company to agree to ownership in.
-It is really hard to reserve resorts.
-Both times we have been able to get in somewhere we had to sit in update meetings for owners. These are almost as relentless as the initial presentation.
-We upgraded one time to lower our payments. They charged money to a Paypal account and a credit card and my payments still did not lower. Now we have 4 bills, one for the mortgage one for the maintenance, one for Credit card and a 2nd credit card now that the PayPal transferred too. So they screw you with the financial information. We feel this is a huge scam. They really took advantage of us.

My issues are as follows:
• I'm from Chicago and attempts to book a reservation led to the knowledge that there was just one property in the area, and it required more points than I had to book it. I would have to bank my points for 2 years or buy more to reserve a room. Also, it was in high demand and reserving a room was almost impossible. Since I have seldom been able to use the property, I have actually lost points due to expiration.
In hindsight, I have learned a few things:
• The statement that you save money by investing in a timeshare is erroneous in my situation. At the beginning of the contract, my monthly outlay was $$328.22 (mortgage and maintenance fee). The annual total was $3, 938.64. The belief that I would actually spend almost $4, 000 for a hotel and this would save me money is ridiculous. Currently the annual amount is $5, 774.00.
• The weekly point amounts needed to reserve a room continue to rise, forcing you to buy more points (increased debt), which in turn raise your maintenance fees (increased debt), A never-ending cycle of indebtedness.
• The amount properties available seem to be huge, however, their location, available amenities, availability according to seasons make it a hit or miss opportunity to use. When I was approached to attend another presentation, (for additional incentives which I found I was unable to use), it focused on how to secure advance reservations. Through a process of multiple requests with varied requirements, book a year in advance, we were assured of a "much better chance" of securing a reservation. That is simply too much work.
• Also touted were RCI and another portal with which we could pay a transfer fee and other properties within an area would be available. Needless to say ALL of my efforts to locate a property in Chicago, IL were fruitless.
The location of the properties should be evident. If they have properties in areas that are for skiing, horseback riding, hiking, etc., it should be made clear that these properties are not for older individuals looking to visit large cities or housing visiting relatives

This company never said this was a timeshare! They called it an ownership. What type of ownership will not allow you to use it ever. It's is impossible to reserve any where we have tried. We even upgraded twice following their recommendations to fix our booking issues and still 3 years later, NOT ONE VACATION.

We filed a BBB complaint and they were no help.

Scammers for sure!

No Clear cost. Hidden fees for the perks you also bought not mentioned. So essentially you pay twice for the same thing!
One perk was to book ten months out for better booking power; however, we have not been able to book vacations. I found a lawsuit that explains why this happens. The class-action suit claims that Wyndham controls the reservation systems. And now we know why us "owners" have issues booking. When someone online can book it without waiting for 30 minutes on a call to reach someone, to then have to settle on a location farther away from our family. Or we just can not go when we need to unless we pay out of pocket ?!
https://www.insidethegate.com/2018/01/timeshare-developer-wyndham-sued-for-alleged-elder-abuse-against-senior-citizens/
On the owner meetings, we explained to our agent that we had issues booking and his fix was to upgrade. We would get three months more to book and other benefits. That was a whopping $9k just to get started and was not clear in our discussions. This amount was hidden on their Credit cards and Paypal they set up, and so I am paying four bills at the same time. This is insane, and They sneak this all in over a 3-hour time frame, so it's not clear what is going on until the bills start to come in. WOWZER.
They continually tell you its an investment, but this timeshare is not capable of producing other goods or services, and it's not an equity. The usage is so restricted, and you do not even get what you paid for.

We purchased in June of 2017 and it took us almost a year just to be able to vacation! They were always full when we took vacations to see family in other states. This was not what we paid for at all.

When we finally did set up a vacation, while there, we were told that we had to attend a 30-minute update about our package and that is was not negotiable. We HAD to attend in order to stay there, as members. So we made arrangements to go to a "30 minute" informative talk. This talk turned out to be 3 hours. Then we had to go because it was a family trip and many people were waiting for us to go to Disney. During this "talk", we were told that we did not own anything. That all we owned was a piece of paper saying we owned something but without purchasing more there was no way we would ever get to stay at any of their resorts though we would still have to continue paying for whatever it was that we purchased. So they tell us that we had to purchase more to fix the issue. We spoke with four or five different people, sat in two or three different offices, then moved to another building a few miles down the road - "to Corporate headquarters" and spoke with a few more people. Each one a manager of the other manager of the other manager. Everyone a step above the person before them. They said this was a major mistake issue and that they would be "giving" us so many more options than anyone else would get but we had to spend several thousand more dollars. My husband and I became upset with what was being said and asked to think about all everything that was going on and they said we had to fix it right then or the offer would expire when we left. Before we knew it a man came in sat down said he was in charge of everyone in the building and said that we were either going to buy in or we weren't and we said we weren't until we talked about it more so he made us sign a piece of paper for refusal of services or something like that. But he slammed the paper down telling us we were wasting their time and he was over it and he would no longer help us.

So we got up to leave and another guy who was there followed us out of the building saying he was over that guy but in another office but since he was working there that day to help fill empty desks he had to do as that guy said. So he asked us to meet him again the next day but down at the resort we were staying at (Cypress Palms) and he would take care of us so well, we wouldn't regret it. So we met him the next morning early. We only had our granddaughter for a few hours that day so we told him we had no time to spend there but that we would give him 45 minutes. Three hours later he is telling us he is so sorry, but if we leave he can't help us and we finally got up and left.

At this time, we missed our visitation with our granddaughter, we couldn't get it back or reschedule. Which really ticked me off beyond all measure. By then he is telling us we can do it all over the internet, we discovered that day that the people at the other office had taken $1000 out of our account without consent. The guy ( I think his name was Stephen pronounced Steven) was who was "helping" us. He apologized. Sent me text message after text message telling me they stole that money and that he was getting it fixed immediately, and gave us another tablet for our troubles and told us we deserved something for everything. While we were away from the salesman, we decided something wasn't right and told them we would not be going forward. At some point I had to tell him to quit messaging me because I was over it, it was affecting our family and had drained us emotionally and that they had told us without buying more options we would be throwing money away each month since we would never get to vacation and stay at a Wyndham resort again, but we would keep paying.
I then got a message to return the tablet to the company but to mail it to this guy's house, not the office where we got it from.
We had thought this guy was actually on our side, he seemed so sincere and seemed honest. We discussed our families, I gave him contact info for someone that had made me a laser printed picture that will last as long we have family living. Will never go bad.
We learned that people are not honest with this company and that they are bullies and will convince the Eskimos that they need an ice chest while fishing on the ice. It's so sad.

You go in for a 90-minute presentation, you come out 3.5 hours later feeling beat down. This presentation is very high powered. You get home and find out the interest rate on the cards and that you own a Paypal account they were rather sneaky about. All these bills and money charged everywhere so the final number they tell you, Double that. That is what you are left with. By the time the bills come in its too late. You can not take it back.
Wyndham should be ashamed of their abuse to the consumer.

All the bad stuff I have been reading and listening to about this company is true and actual! I know as a lot of it has happened to us. It seems that Wyndham has too much power in that they can not be adequately policed. The fact they can ruin peoples lives, especially Vets and the Elderly, and get away with it is incomprehensible.

We have an open Case with Andrew Knowles who refuses to communicate via writing so that we have a paper trail to prove what they are telling us so they can not go back on their word. They refuse to work my case without a call and will not let me record the call either. CEO Michael Brown is refusing to respond to my questions about the companies practices.
-This company does not understand the word no.
-This company does not understand the word ethical
-This company does not understand the word transparency
-This company does not understand the word honesty
-This company will take people off the street before they book an invested owner into one of their units. So what is the upside of ownership? What are we paying for?
-This companies sale's department slogan is TAFT: " Tell Them Any F*@%ing Thing" this is in court proceedings from the whistleblower who won 20 Million dollars from Wyndham.
-This company does not even pay its employees, check the class action out in Tennessee.
-This "Once in a Lifetime Deal" is a sinkhole, sucking the joy out of vacations and everyday life.

Letter to Wyndham that was ignored:

June 1ST, 2019
To the appropriate people at Wyndham,
Thank you for taking the time to listen to us about our story and we hope in doing so it helps you remedy something that we feel is valuable if you want to sustain your business with happy clients and continue to grow. As it is now, we just cannot fathom that you can maintain growth without choosing to take a sharp curve in a more transparent direction. Some of these issues that we have and for many, far worse, we know are rampant in your company.
We have been customers of yours since 1997. We have seen some, not so savory, changes in your company during our 22 marriage with it. We want a divorce presently and with valid reasons for it. You may have some happy clients for now, but once they really understand what is either downplayed or simply hidden at your presentations, owner meetings, then they will start to feel like they have been taken advantage of and lied to. This is the worse relationship to be in bed with. They never last. Relationships built on honesty and trust fare the weather. We have not had honesty. We have been bullied. We have been treated as if you cared about our problems and were working on a solution, but we got the same fix for every problem over the years and that was to spend more money. Overtime when you sit back and think about what you get for all the money going into this. Sprinkle it with interest. You get a small ball at the top of the mountain that compounds and gains momentum and before you know if you are at the bottom and you have a huge mess. All this for the same thing that you were sold at the top of the mountain. No changes, but with more problems, and still, you are not getting what you were originally sold on. We are flabbergasted and it's clear now the path we have to take to end this companionship as you guys are going in a direction, we never would have been ok with.
The presentations you have are fabulous. The environment plays with chemistry and emotions. The hardcore pressure that you put on people to make fast decisions does not leave room for good judgement. And you obviously have made a huge business of locking people into a relationship based off of poor judgements. This is in no way a good business model, no matter how lucrative. Sooner or later these methods will be noticed, and people will start to fight back. Will you be the bigger "person" here and realize that this model can't coexist in harmony for much longer and, now this is the kicker, it is unethical and inherently diabolical. I am not seeing your company move towards a more open line of communication with the facts laid out and fewer hardball sales methods quite the opposite as time goes on.
Spoiler; Quid Pro Quo! The perpetuity of this contract, Wyndham pitches it as a blessing and inheritance, in the beginning, it feels like it could be. We believe your drummed-up story of their future. But in hindsight: this will not be a blessing but a very heavy burden. Let's pull some numbers up to paint the reality that was not spoken about in any of your sales fiestas. The sheer amount of time that Wyndham has been at this game, you would know by now the reality and should stop essentially lying about "perks" and "blessings" or do something about the lies. Or, better yet, make the timesharing experience as you speak of it, so you are not misrepresenting your product.
1st timeshare 1997 $12, 500: This was supposed to be paid and then we can vacation for 2 weeks every year forever with our measly $30 maintenance fee that was not supposed to increase by much if not at all. OK, this was a good idea and should have been enough. Everything was great and we loved it. What we were promised was delivered.
2ND, we were sold on more locations for more diversity $23, 929. We are still thinking of future vacations at this point and still believing that we pay now and enjoy later. Maintenance $37.48 plus $3 service fee.
3rd sold as giving us some other advantages having Fairfield Wyndham as our home resort adding 77, 000 more points. We have never been able to book our home resort. Now we are starting to get some red lightbulbs going off, but we suppressed these thoughts still believing in this investment. $9, 403.35
4th Club Wyndham Plus program supposed to give us the highest possible advantage of any resort we wanted. This was not the case, even following the guidelines. No matter what we did it was impossible "to go anywhere in the world at any time" as promised for this purchase. We always had to settle. We did not pay to settle we paid for what we were told and that was "to go anywhere in the world at any time." $57, 530.
Now our maintenance fee is a whopping $392.47, almost as much as our mortgage. We think back at all the "this is a special deal", and the fact we were never allowed to think about it, the decision had to be made right then. And on top of that, the multiple people pressuring you to sign including a manager, an additional one came in with each no we said. The fact that "NO" was completely ignored and the times they held us until we finally said yes.
Here is another biggie, our last contract said that our interest would never go over 12.99% and that our monthly payment was $262.48 and would never go over 267.80 per month, HOWEVER now we pay $429.57 per month. That is a big error that broke the agreement in our contract which should make it null and void if you ask us.
Now to my knowledge we have paid you year to date $198, 588. With another $4, 708 a year in maintenance fees which will continue to grow indefinitely. And we still owe $30, 448 for the mortgage for our last useless program. Now you can see how far away from the first purchase we have come, and we are getting the same services. Do you see the problem with this? We could have bought a secondary house for that and had some rental income coming in. This is a real investment. We could spend the money on the rental each year for a nicer and easier, more relaxing vacation. Your idea of an investment: we must keep paying more and more for the same results, and what we were told we would get is not happening. So, the future vacations are not already paid for we will pay forever with each year increasing fees and we can not travel the world.
Now how would you move forward from here? What would you do if you were treated in this manner? Would you suck it up or would you fight? We are choosing to fight for what is right, our future and sanity.
Now for the Pro Quo. We want a full and complete annulment, divorce, revocation, nullification or voidance of our contracts/programs/relationship with Wyndham. We also would like some of our investment returned to us especially the last contract from 2010 as it was a bogus deal.

Their sales people will give you a load of crap to get you to buy. It will be painted so beautifully that you will believe this load of crap is a dream vacation ownership.

However, the reality is: They are not listening to your needs and what you can afford.

They will offer you solutions to be able to afford what they are selling you only later to find out they do not work. And they were hiding real numbers all along. Do not be manipulated into a contract with this self-serving, Money hungry business that cannot even deliver on the dream they make you think you can get. They have so many restrictions that after 30 minutes of waiting, you can not even get a room when you need it. What they scammed me to pay for was to fill vacancies at slow, run down places, No thank you.
Another problem is they harass you with upgrade calls to buy more points and then when you go on vacation they harass you by forcing you to go to update meetings that they will charge you for if you do not go.

The Final Financial Obligation page was never shown to me which disclosed the total cost of financing! Shameful
Units are never available to book closer than 6 months out so this makes it super difficult to plan a vacation.
We bought our timeshare in 2011 and have only been able to book 2 VACATIONS. Yes you saw that right. ONLY 2 VACATIONS in 8 years of ownership.
Both vacations we were coerced into owners update meetings; which in 2014 (our first vacation in 3 years) They talked us into upgrading as it would allow us to rent out the timeshare for investment purposes. WHAT A JOKE
We have paid $60, 000 for 8 days of vacation.
We were told that we could sell it back if we paid 80% of that however when we tried to take them off on that offer, they told us there was no such thing.
There should be more laws to protect consumers from companies like this. This types of issues should not be happening in this day and age. But I guess money talks and peoples safety and livelihoods are worth nothing!

My wife and I agreed to attend a Wyndham presentation while staying in Pompano for three days before a cruise in 2016. We were told that the presentation would last no longer than 3 hours, and would receive both a discount on our hotel rate and a $100 American Express gift card. We were given the choice of when we could attend a presentation, so we decided to go to one the following day at 1 PM.

When we arrived at the presentation site, we waited half an hour before we were directed to a large room and paired with a sales representative. The representative asked us about our finances, family life, and vacation goals. We expressed that we like to take at least 3 week long trips per year, and guaranteed us that the timeshare program would make that doable. He said that there was no doubt that we would be able to vacation three to four weeks per year with the program that he was offering us.

The sales representative confidently expressed that we would be able to book resorts, even if with short notice, after my wife told him about her experience booking in a former timeshare with Sheridan. We were told that we would have access to 5-star resorts 3-4 times a year, and that we could easily book even a last minute stay.

What was supposed to be a three hour presentation turned into a 5 and ½ hour ordeal. They guaranteed a plethora of major selling points, many of which turned out to be blatant lies. These include promises about booking ability, potential length and frequency of vacations, location options, and the ability to pass our timeshare down to our children once it was paid off.

We did not have time to use our timeshare until July of 2017, when we decided to visit Orlando, FL. We were hoping to take our kids to Disney World and Universal Studios, and expected that we would be able to book a quality, week long vacation, as this is what we were told would be possible at our initial sales pitch. As we quickly learned, none of the convenience or availability that we were promised at our sales pitch in Pompano turned out to be true.

When we called Wyndham to book our stay, we were told that we would only be able to book at the Bonnett Creek Resort for three days. The gentlemen on the phone proceeded to tell us that we would have to move to the Star Island Resort after the first three days of our trip. When we asked why this was, we were told that the seven day reservation was only available for people paying for the room, and not for owners with the resort. This came as a total shock, because, as we made clear to our sales representative, the sole reason that we decided to purchase a Wyndham timeshare was so that we could book week long vacations for our family.

As this phone call went on, bombs continued to be dropped on us that made us immediately regret our decision and question Wyndham's integrity. The booking agent on the phone informed us that we would have to pay a cancellation fee for our initial Bonnett Creek reservation, even though we were only cancelling because they made make a new reservation at Star Lake. Additionally, we were told that both of these reservations would count towards our alloted maximum of three reservations per year. This was totally ridiculous to us, because we were told that we would be able to book 3-4 week long vacations every year.

When we arrived to Bonnett Creek, they offered us a dinner in exchange for our attendance at another presentation. We figured that this would be a good opportunity to air our grievances, so we accepted. To our surprise, we learned that this presentation would take much longer than we expected. We were required to attend a dinner on the Universal boardwalk in order to go to the presentation, which did not happen until the next morning. At this point we had already thrown away a full day of our family vacation time.

The day of the presentation, we were told that we would be help up for an absolute maximum of three hours. We were assigned a sales representative, and the pitch began. Every time we tried to express our concern, they went into a long winded spiel about how the only way that we could the best use out of our timeshare without making an upgrade. Only then would we be able to book vacations as we wanted to. This was about the worst thing that they could have said to us, because it was never mentioned the day of our initial purchase. We would have never invested into the timeshare if we knew that we would have to pay more than what we initially agreed to just so that we could use our purchase the way that we were told we would be able to.

The sales representative told us that our maintenance fees would disappear if we upgraded, that we would receive to RCI days at the location of our location of our choice, and that we would have priority booking abilities. We told him that we had no interest in upgrading until we got the deal that we were sold when we purchased our timeshare in Pompano. We are completely fed up with Wyndham's lies and lack of customer service

It has been a year and a half since this purchase and it still causes me great anxiety. We know that the points from the credit card do not help with the maintenance as previously told. And the interest is so high that this is a double wammy. 90 minutes was 6 hours, so our plans were almost ruined for the day. We have not been able to even use it. I make the payments each month and cry because we could use that money for more of our basic needs. I feel like this timeshare Is affecting my health, and we are ashamed we are even in this mess! We never would have purchased a timeshare in the first place, this is just like throwing our money away, and we don't want to keep doing this anymore. We cannot and will not use this timeshare, we just can not support this model of behavior.
We sent in a request to cancel and they did not even respond to us. This company has cost us sleep at night.

Was represented to go anywhere/anytime but not true. Need to reserve 10-12 months in advance. And our use was limited to certain places...turns out we didn't have full ownership. We will be cancelling and ready for a fight... complete misrepresentation. Would not have bought otherwise. Even the Wyndham rep at the update meeting told us we bought nothing and needed to upgrade!

WYNDHAM EMAILS: after months of trying to remedy our issue, we finally got a response and they refuse to communicate via email so we could have a written trail. Over the last 2 years we have tried several offices and none of Wyndhams' departments will work with the written word. If that is not a telltale sign of the methods they use, being less the upstanding!
BBB COMPLAINT DONE. But they said that fraud is outside of their purview.
CONSUMER AFFAIRS COMPLAINT DONE. No response yet.
We have also posted on a few forums and we are communicating with others who have also been through similar predicaments forced onto them from this companies' unethical behaviors.

I want to cancel my membership [protected] and all the debt associated with it; as I will never trust Wyndham at any capacity to do business with again. I also request for a refund for the reprehensible down payment of $7200 that Ritch Morris took from me in the most appalling trickery. And ANY AND ALL monies paid to them as of "lateral upgrade" from 2017! Ritch was supposed to lower my interest rate and my payments as we are retired. I can still hear him saying - "I bet you didn't expect to leave here today with more points and a lower payment, did you?" He was so deceitful! Empathizing, saying he "understood" and that Wyndham didn't want us to be uncomfortable with our ownership or payments - so deceitful! HE MOST HORRENDOUSLY took points and added those SAME points back on and took $7200 and the kicker here is: my payments and debt are way more! Resulting in the fact we can no longer afford to use our timeshare. How can anyone think it's acceptable to promise one thing and do the exact opposite?!? It is not only deceitful; it is an absolute lie!

I up and left my job at days inn in new stanton. I worked 105 hours in two weeks and was only paid for 80 hours. I also lived at the hotel and paid full price to live there. So i assumed they were taking my overtime to pay for my room. I just found out they have pressed criminal charges on me saying i stole 100 dollars out the drawer and my file out of the locked up office that supposedly had my paper with a signature saying they could have my over time to pay for me room. ALL LIES. I WOULD HAVE SIGNED THE PAPER IF I WAS EVER GIVEN ONE. Now im facing serious theft charges for nothing. Worse place in the world i was not allowed in the pool. My kids were not allowed outside the hotel room. Now this? For 6 months they worked the mess out of me saying i had to pay for my room and i needed the extra hours to do so. I seen maybe half my checks the whole time i stayed there. They took out what they said "i owed " and all i got was whatever was left. These place has ruined my clean record. And i want stop until someone hears me and the TRUTH.
ASHLEE JEANETTE COBB

On May 25th we arrived at the New Orleans LA location to enjoy our 19th wedding anniversary. Of course the concierge has to discuss all the local places and give you a map before you can go up to your room. While there we were asked to attend an owners meeting, get a free lunch and a $75 gift card only take 1 hour. We said ok why not but then 4 hours later we were still sitting there being pressured into signing up for a loan for $20K worth of points at Wyndham. We kept saying no, no, no but eventually ended up saying yes so they would shut up. We were finally able to enjoy our anniversary. We were also promised breakfast on the day we checked out that it would be sent to our room, we had an early checkout, the morning of checkout comes and no breakfast, no call nothing. So we check out at the front desk and we tell them we didnt get the breakfast they promised and they said oh sorry our phones were down. So we left, a couple hours later we get a phone call on our cell phone apologizing for the missed breakfast and telling us we could come back by for a gift card, we were already 2 hours close to home at this point. I feel the sales people are SUPER pushy and we never should have signed that contract, we have since cancelled the contract prior to ever paying a cent and are now gettting harassing phone calls.

Case number [protected]

Wyndham provided inaccurate information that's classified as an unfair practice. Wyndham did not provide a Discovery Membership book.
Therefore, we took Wyndham 's word for it when we were informed on the 22nd of april 2019 that the Discovery package meets our documented needs.
Therefore it comes across the we misguided on purpose, we hope we are wrong. Not sure why Wyndham would want unhappy discovery customers if the whole idea is to build a lifetime relationship in the future.