Festiva Resorts is using counsel to rat on complaint filers
I'm part of a yahoo group. equivest owners who were taken over by Festiva. We were stripped of properties and asked to convert our points to festiva points that are worth less. We also were asked to pay 3000 dollars to do this. We were also promised services that could not be delivered.
Our group is focusing on what we can do. Many of us have filed complaints with the Missouri and North Carolina Attoney Generals.
Festiva has infiltrated our group. Instead of trying to resolve our issues, their counsel has gotten our e-mails and is sending notices to companies of group members using company email addresses..
Slimey!!!
Location: Waxhaw, North Carolina
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Im hiring a lawyer on their sinkhole properties. Paid in full and paid in full up to date with maintenance fees and they never sent me my deed/
Explorer,
I am sorry to see you are not happy with your ownership, if there are any questions we can answer to help clarify the budget please email us your contact information to comments@festiva.travel and I will have a customer service representative contact you. Just to clarify, if you own with the Peppertree Vacation & Travel Club your fees do not go to resorts that you cannot travel to, only to the resorts you can book at. We look forward to hearing from you.
I also have been an Peppertree/Equivest Owner since 2000. Festiva is absolute slime, all I seem to get is bills for payment, but hit a wall when it comes to trading. I was hit with the assessment fees also. Couple things I have noticed. Festiva will take the Peppertree Resorts and fold them into the Festiva resorts, but will not allow Peppertree owners to use them. Also the Assessment fees are paying the following resorts:
Atrium Resort & Spa in St. Maarten
Blue Ridge Village in Banner Elk, NC
Church Street Inn in Charleston, SC
Ellington at Wachesaw Plantation East in Murrells Inlet, SC
Paradise Harbour Club & Marina in Paradise Island, Bahamas
Sands Resort in N. Myrtle Beach, SC.
The only resorts that are Peppertree are Blue Ridge and Sands. Why are Peppertree owners being charged for Festiva resorts. I was sent 1 bill for maintence and 1 bill for assessment. I refused to pay any late fees, or penalities. Rep told me, if I dont pay these fines, I cant use my resorts. I said, fine, I will contact the NC Attorney's office...how quickly they were removed. This will be my last year with Festiva. Also they push me to convert to Festiva Adventure Group for an "additonal fee". I own approx 7000 points! which converts to 4 weeks. If I change to Festiva, it reduces to 2 weeks, with maintence fees still the same. Festiva has highly unethical tactics. Isnt that called extortion?
I too am having terrible problems with Festiva. We purchased a timeshare 14 years ago from Peppertree. Since then, our maintenance fees have gone through the roof! They are now up to $1069.60. Plus, we were charged an additional special assessment this year of $321. Everyone here has the same complaints in regards to the fees but ours goes a step further. We moved 7 years ago into a new home. We have changed our address with Festiva EVERY SINGLE YEAR and still they do not send us our bills. Every year we have to remember to call them to find out how much we owe. Well, this year we called as usual and changed our address yet again. We were promised that they would send a bill to our home so we could pay. Well, no bill ever arrived. So, my husband called them back today so he could pay over the phone before we get hit with late fees. That's when he found out about the special assessment which he also paid. They sent confirmation emails to me where I see that they have tacked on an additional $148.78 in late fees, interest, and collection fees!!! When I tried to call to straighten this mess out I received a message to leave my name and number because everyone is busy right now. Could it be that they have thousands of other pissed off customers in line ahead of me? Every year I do what it takes to make sure that my bill is paid on time even though I never actually receive the bill from Festiva. There was no possible way for me to know about this Special Assessment in order to pay it on time.
This made me mad enough to get directly on the internet to start researching my options. That is how I found this website. I will be contacting the Attorney General's Office and Better Business Bureau by the end of the day. There is no way that Festiva can justify charging late fees, interest, and collection fees for a bill that they never sent to us even after we have changed our address with them year after year after year. It is time that we all join together in a class action lawsuit. I will be joining the Yahoo Group today to discuss this possibility with you all. For those who think the group no longer exists, I was able to locate a current Yahoo Group by searching Equivest. I believe my case will be very valuable in proving Festiva's negligence and bogus fees. I believe what they are doing is intentional as a means of increasing revenue. How can they justify charging a collection fee when no actions have been taken to actually collect my debt? They have my correct email address and phone number yet I have not received any communication from them. If they have mailed anything to my old address of 7 years ago, I hate to tell them that the post office doesn't forward mail that long!
See you all soon on Yahoo Groups,
Elizabeth Leaird
You can get out of your contracts due to sales practices email notimeshare@***.com or visit us at www.timesharetricks.blogspot.com
My husband and I were approached by a Festiva rep during our visit to New Orleans. We were promised a $100 gift card for listening to a presentation.
Every one that worked for Festiva was so nice...at first. Once we decided we were not interested their attitudes changed. We did however get our $100 Visa gift card and thoroghly enjoyed it.
But I am of the belief that anytime a company wants you to do something "right now" or "today" without giving you time to research is a scam at best. But for the $100 gift card - my husband and I would like to say THANKS FESTIVA lol
recent june 2010 mailing, makes it clear that i can not sell my points back to festiva, i would have to give them back and lose what i have paid for!!! i'm tired of putting money into something that i might not be able to reserve in the 45 day time frame-the whole deal smells worse than the gulf oil slick!!!
Yeah, sounds like the yahoo group has disappeared. Anyone know of a site for Equivest/Peppertree owners to discuss this.
Other than Festiva's. Have you contacted the North Carolina Attorney General's Office? 919-716-**** You may also want to try the NC Real Estate Commission 919-875-**** They used scare tactics on me also, calling my home and at their resots. One even stated that they had already converted 90% of Equivest inventory to Festiva and that the rest of us would be stuck paying all the expenses of the club if we did not convert and there would be little inventory available to use.
Maybe if enough people complain about Festiva's scare tactics to the NC Attorney General's office and NC real Estate Commission, Festiva can be forced to refund the money and return owners and inventory to Equivest/ Peppertree Vacation Club. I am sure most who have converted have found the Festiva Club not near as good as Peppertree and only did so out of fear or deception. Why else would you pay thousands of dollars for a less flexible vacation club?
Nc Attorney General's Office is investigating. The more complaints they get the better the chance of their filing a lawsuit and maybe forcing Festiva to refund Equivest/Peppertree owners and returning our inventory and justifying their fee.
They violated my no call list and lied on phone by saying it was not a time share.
I purchased a timeshare in November 2008, under the promise that they would purchase my timeshare with another company in Cape cod. I gave them the Deed and they gave me a deal based on the subtracting what they stated my old timeshare was worth.
Well, I continue to recieve my yearly maintenance bill from my old time share at cape cod and they have no record of anyone purchasing it from Festiva. I am now paying for 2 timeshares and no one at the office in answering my calls or retuning them.
We are more than happy to address any questions or concerns directly, as we do take complaints from our members and guests very seriously and we can work together towards a resolution. Please feel free to contact us directly at comments@festiva.travel.
oh boy look at the company "BS". i can not beleive you are trying to pass off as happy campers.
and we should suck it up. well i have news for you there are a lot of us. we pay your salary. we will win!
until then kiss my ***! :p jim03851@***.com
I dealt with a slime-ball at Festiva who tried his best to reel me in. Told me how great everything was.
When I told him I wanted to do some research first he tried even harder. Glad I read the reviews first!! Has anyone else dealt with a sales person named Wayne Darnell?
Would love to hear of any other negative experiences. Don't walk away from this place RUN!!
This company does not live up to regulations or standards of any kind,they are stealing from people and the states that they they are affillated with do nothing about it.We have discountinued our
pmts. to them and are in the process of having our bank reverse some pmts back.I plan on - on site visits to the establishments that support these *** artists.I will voice my discuss,on how they even go to sleep at night after they have stolen hard earned money and taken dreams of great vacations from my family and myself.You all should burn in ***.
I bought a timeshare at Wachesaw Plantation acouple of years ago. I was told about all of the things I could do with it.
It was all a sack of lies. It is just a waste.
When I call to get reservations, they say they are booked up, but then I go on expedia or something there is my room up for anyone but me to get. Thanks for nothing.
Buying at Festiva Resorts is the best thing that ever happened to me. We love the points!!
I bought my first timeshare in 1993 with Peppertree at the Ocean Club and later converted to Equivest points in 99. Likewise Ive been an owner with Festiva since 2000, and was thrilled when they took over the Peppertree properties. You guys can whine if you want but Im thrilled that a company is allowing me to convert my WORTHLESS Equivest points into a system that offers me the chance to stay at nicer resorts than I ever had the option of going to before. For all those who still have those weeks in these old falling down resorts you should be glad that the threat of the place falling down around you is no longer there. Now you can stay in places like the Caribbean and Charleston instead of those dumps in North Myrtle Beach.
You guys need to step back and listen to yourselves. Now I know as well as anyone that sales people can be slimeballs (we still buy cars though dont we?), and will say a lot of things to get a sell- but no company sets out to run bad business. If you look at the history of the company- its only 8 years old and its growing really quickly- naturally owners are experiencing problems with phones and customer service but look at the numbers! They quadrupled in size in one year!
You whiny timeshare owners need to grow up and feel blessed that the company that represents you is as ambitiously growing as they obviously are (growing pains albeit). Be happy that there is an abundance of inventory, that the resorts are nice, and that the entire team (salespeople sometimes precluded) is dedicated to improving these very significant problems.
Also-youre not paying for the same thing you already own- your paying for the right to get out of worthless old weeks, and worthless equivest points and into a product that will GROW to be great.
Every timeshare company on the planet has gone through the same kind of growing pains. Be happy that youre getting out of that old week you couldnt GIVE AWAY, and getting this for $3000 instead of the $28,000 that I paid 8 years ago. Give these guys a break.
How many of you folks have built a multibillion dollar company from scratch in the last decade? Do you think that you could do it better?
I am a Festiva Owner at Wachesaw in Myrtle Beach (Murrels Inlet). People have been trying to set up an appointment with me.
I'm sure it's about converting property to points.
It will not be done. Thanks for the insight.
I can totally sympathize with your positions regarding this company. I was employed briefly with them and found there tactic's both on an employee and professional level as being deplorable.
I can only echo the same sentiments as those of you who expressed them above! I terminated my employment with them immediately after reviewing not only this site but others as well.
:( please share your concerns on www.thecabinsatgreenmountainownersblog.com I have had sooooo many problems with this company and i don't know what else to do!