Raintree Vacation Club [RVC] review: special assesment fee 29

I also got a special assessment fee for a unit in Cabo I have owned for 10 years at least. I also will not pay this ridiculous fee. Does anyone know of a recourse for us consumers?
I have always found this company difficult to deal with, stay out of Mexico is my advice.

I agree with Bill. This special assessment is ridiculous! Can we get a class action against these idiots?

We also received a special assessment fee for our timeshare, purchased through Raintree Vacation Club in Cabo. My husband and I have been owners of our timeshare for 6 years and were promised during the time- share presentation that the maintenance fee would take care of improvements and upgrades to the properties. Our contract states absolutely nowhere about this special assessment fee and we will not pay a penny. The maintenance fee increased drastically for 2009. The provisions in our contract state absolutely nowhere about this so called special assessment fee and anyone who pays it should really think long and hard where their money is really going. The so called improvements through the maintenance fee as part of our contract has not been put into improvements of the properties as promised. We would like to see where it is really going! This is unfortunate in this recession that the vacation we look forward to, we can't with the cost to utilize and is basically a ripoff! We could stay at a luxurious hotel and be much happier and not feel we are being robbed by something we felt was great when we purchased. We feel we were mislead and betrayed and the trust in this company is unfortunately lost! We feel a class action is what needs to take place immediately! Jay & Joan H.

See this other thread

Raintree — Trying to charge a &Special Assessment&

Good info there and I am consulting with a Texas attonrey to review this. I will post here and on the other thread on my findings.

We also got our assessment yesterday and we will not pay it! We have been members for 5 yrs. and with sky rockiting maintenance fees and this on top of it all we are becoming Time Share poor! We all need to stick together and do something about this! Count us in for a class action! Rob & Teri

like everyone else here, i am disappointed with this fee: in fact, i had sent a not to john berger at raintree PRIOR to this notice even...i detailed how my fees have gone up 40% in 6 years yet at Cabo, the "model" unit they have been showing has never come to fruition...you should see the form letter response i received.
i too would like to see about a class action suit if anyone has any information here. this is ridiculous...

Ditto guys. I paid for my timeshare outright 8 years ago IN- FULL. I was told the maintanence fee would support future upgrades and purchases and - get this - would NOT go up over the 15 year membership more than 20%! Ha! It's almost double now! I was sent a paper later that stated on the back I was obligated to this timeshare until 2046! It is unsigned by me but they considered it part of the contract . I asked for a copy of a signed contract and have had no response to me request. Big suprise! Who buys a timeshare for 40 years? The treatment from Raintree is unacceptable! I was misled, when I bought, to say the least and I'm tired of speaking to Mexicans where everything is lost in translation. The CEO (Douglas Bech) is located in Houston Texas and the maintenance fees are generated in Las Vegas. Where are these Americans when you need to talk to someone? It seems to me WE are expected to pay willy-nilly when presented a bill for a "fee". Why should we be victimized like that? Their salespeople MISLEAD and flat out LIE to us and what is our recourse? The club has done away with the Sun Points program and replaced it with something that does nothing for me. I get NO rewards now...I was told I had to upgrade to get any rewards now! In essence they have changed the contract. I am also tired of being harassed by salesmen every time I go to Mexico. I work hard for 1 week vacation a year and all you get there is bombarded with sales reps and unscrupulous opportunists! Money is tight and this assessment fee is simply unaffordable for me. I have an appointment with an attorney concerning this assessment fee and the club's unethical practices in general. I've figured out the costs over the past 8 years and I'm averaging double what I could get a vacation of equal value for; and for what? We need to unite to acquire some power against this Raintree Rip-off! If we don't act now, with this economy, this will just get worse. What is to stop them from doing this again and more often to generate revenue?
Debbe in Texas

debbe,
please keep us informed on the attorney situation. i am sure some enterprising attorney would be able to sign up every one on this post. the trick would be to get to all the members somehow...

I also just received my notice. I have 4 rooms reserved for a family vacation in August (via points exhange to RCI). I just spoke to a rep at raintree. She said that since the reservations are paid and were made before the notices were sent out, they will honor them even if I don't pay my assessment. Of course, they wouldn't put that in writing. She gave me the email address for any complaints: specialassessment@raintreeclub.com. She also stated that there is language in the contracts that allow for assessments, although she said she did not feel that it could be interpreted that way. I am more than willing to join a CA suit against raintree - I think we should file and sue not only to remove the assessment, but to be allowed to terminate any remaining contracts with the company without recourse.
Gary, Florida

I also would join a class action suit against Raintree/Club Regina.Reading the letters they sent did not address the reason for the "special assessment" to my satisfaction.Yes, they did suffer much hurricane damage in the last few years--BUT, what is insurance for? bought in 1992 and the fees have gone steadily up-when they said they would not.when we purchased we were told we would be a member of Hilton Honors and receive many benefits.NEVER HAPPENED!I really wany out of this company and hope we have enough angry members to make it happen.

Two days ago I received a $1, 350 assessment fee for 2009. Needless to say I was outraged. Obviously, Mr. Bech must live in his own little world as he seems to be oblivious to the economic disaster that this nation is in and most of us are experiencing.

I have been a RVC(Club Regina) member since 1995. I too was promised the vacation experience of a lifetime with very little increase in Maintenance Fees.
Boy was a taken in. I used to exchange resorts thru RCI. Now, you have to go thru RVC and is difficult to make exchanges to my liking.

I have all my paperwork from the start and nowhere does it say anything about any assessment. They said all maintenance work was taken care of from our yearly MF.

I am now very suspicious as to the amount of money from MF that actually went to repairing the resorts. I would like to know how we as members can get
accounting records and make Mr. Bech and his company accountable for every penny of our money. It seems to me this is turning into a big scam and I would also like to get involved in a class -action suit.

I do not have any intention to pay this fraudulent assessment fee.

Please keep me posted and hope we can all work together to make RVC accountable for their actions.

Hi, I also received that special assesstment notification, I would like you to review your contract because I think I found a way to refuse that payment, Im Mexican and I know mexicans and americans have not a good relationship but by this time we have to work together to reject this ridiculous fee, so as I said, the chapter five of the contract, known as "meetings" gives the club the right to do meetings to discuse this kind of assestments but it says clearly that we have to be notified by traditional certified post with fifteen days of anticipation, so as it didnt happen I think we could take this resolution as illegal because it breaks our rights as members. I would like to have your support to join our efforts in this, so if you could send me your names and tell it to other members it could be so good. My e mail is beltrog_68@yahoo.com, and please forgive my limited skills in english.

I called RVC yesterday to complain about the Special Assessment. I stated that I cannot afford to pay it and was warned that I would be subject finance charges, penalties, etc. I currently own 2 timeshares in Los Cabos and considering surrendering them both. I am so done with dealing with these scams and am ready to write off a $35, 000 lesson learned.
RYoshino

I have been a Timeshare owner since 2001 at Los Cabos and have attempted to sell my timeshare for several years with no success. I also received my "Special Assessment" notice yesterday for$957.00. I am willing join a class action suit to fight this ridiculous assessment. I will not pay this. Let them take my unit. I to will have a loss of $25, 000. D.benzaquen

I sent an email to Doug Bech and he read it and responded. It said, "thank you for your comments we will be in touch soon". Whatever that means. I posted complaints with the BBB in Houston and Las Vegas as well. I placed a complaint with the special assessment fee Raintree Resorts complaints. I can not and will not pay this S/A fee. I don't care what they threaten me with. Who wants to continue with a "membership" to an organization that ignores your calls, lies to you, misrepresents itself they threatens you with "collections" if you don't allow them to STEAL from you? This company is guilty of:
1.) Fraud
2.) Breach of Contract
3.) Extortion
Come on gang! We've got to fight back here. This is past the point of acceptable. We are citizens of the United States and I read one of us is a Mexican citizen who wants to join our cause! We bought our properties which included perks and points in Good Faith. We aren't the bad guys here. I for one, have paid my M/F fees, on time in the past. They have doubled since I bought. What are these "baloon" payments? This has to stop. I own the timeshare, but now especially in this economy, I can't afford the fees anymore. This S/A fee needs to be recinded and these M/F need to stop climbing at this rate. Mine = $465.00 to $820.00.

I too would like to join in the suit. Please keep me updated @ sbrownguitar@yahoo.com

If the suit does go through and all goes well and the Special Assessment charged is dropped, I think its safe to say Raintree will just raise everyone's MF significantly to make up for it, and unfortunately our contracts do not have a cap on that...

My comments are for Rogelio Enciso.
Please know that I do not dislike Mexican people. The frustration that United States citizens are feeling is that of being victimized by this company & its representatives. The economy is very bad. We have lost income and property and jobs. I'm sure Raintree misses our money as much as we do. We are now faced with threats, penalites and fees, from Raintree Resorts that we simply cannot afford. Where does it end? Please help us Rogelio and know that we need and welcome any help or advice you can give. You are one of us. I will reference your chapter 5 as suggested. No club member should be subjected to ever rising maintenance fees and assessment fees for years and years and years; and no company, especially one who boasts of growth and profits, should be able to subject club members to arbitrary fees. We are not "owners" of the company we are "club members". Claiming the club members requested any changes at their expense is untrue. At some point the agreements made between the club members and the company must benefit both parties! When the company makes decisions that can affect their club members financially, they morally have an obligation to those members. That is good business!

I have spoken to an attorney based in Ft. Worth, Texas and he is in the process of reviewing our RVC/Club Regina contract as well as the RVC Special Assessment letter. He is also reviewing this thread on the Complaints Board.

In the meantime, he recommends members file complaints. There is power in numbers and if the FTC or Attorney General’s offices receive enough complaints, they will most likely take action. As for complaining with the BBB, they really have no authority, but at least it will show up on their website that a number of complaints have been filed.

I urge everyone to file multiple complaints with the following agencies:

Federal Trade Commission
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/

Texas Attorney General
Office of the Attorney General
PO Box 12548
Austin, TX [protected]
http://www.oag.state.tx.us/consumer/complain.shtml

California Attorney General*
Attorney General’s Office California Department of Justice
Attn: Comlaints Unit
P.O. Box 944255 Sacramento, CA [protected]
http://ag.ca.gov/consumers/general.php

Online complaint form
http://ag.ca.gov/contact/complaint_form.php?cmplt=CL

*This option is good if you have signed the Club Regina Cimarron “Statement of the terms and conditions for the verification of the sale/purchase of a membershipfrom Raintree North America Resorts, Inc.” Agreement

Better Business Bureau
https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/cibrbusiness.aspx?e=3155944&id=46a6a9cd-5402-454e-9476-e4df22e6f371&site=113

Company Information
Raintree Vacation Club aka Raintree Resorts International
10000 Memorial, Suite 480
Houston, TX 77024

All, I also receive an email from Doug Bach. I got the same "we will be getting information to you soon" story. We all need to continue to email and phone the company and continue to file complaints to let them know we will not stand for this!

We just sent out a small message to everybody via all your email addresses .
If you did not get our message, your email is not with our master list yet .
This is how we are communicating to each other regarding further actions among ourselves.
If you want to hear from us, please send email address to
Rshuerta@aol.com
or
violang@comcast.net

I was glancing at the TUG BBS ( Timeshare User Group ) web site ..apparently the ones writing in do not know we are forming a master list of email addresses .
I am not a member of TUG .
If any one of you is a member of TUG...please help us to post on their web about our desire for us to form a larger group and have them send in their email addresses to us.
Rshuerta@aol.com
or
violang@comcast.net

Time is running short.
We are compiling a master list of unhappy Raintree members . So, gather up everybody you know . Please send in your email addresses to us if you want to join into our large group of consumers.
Send email address to
Rshuerta@aol.com
or
violang@comcast.net

We will be informing you from now on through emails.

Don't get mad...
We are forming a group of unhappy Raintree members and the numbers are really growing. We will do the complaining all together as a large group. To get info on our further actions...you can join us by sending your email addresses to

Rshuerta@aol.com
or
violang@comcast.net

We are communicating among the group by email addresses now.

You need to join our membership group for unhappy RVC members. It is growing each day !
send email addresses to

Rshuerta@aol.com
or
violang@comcast.net

We are only going to communicate among each other with emails now.

We also agree with all the comments on these rediculous assesment fee charges. we save all year to be able to pay our maintenance fee's, which have increased so much since our purchase of our property. What was to be an affordable restful vacation has turned into a burdon on our finances, especially during these financial hard times. We have only been able to go to our sites twice since our purchase in 1994. It has been an unaffordable vacation. We can only vacation when we trade it for something local. Not to mention the fee's we pay for the exchange. This comes as a total surprise these added fee's and during a time which we are experiencing such financial hardship. Don't they know we are paying more now than ever for our utilities, gas, Mortgage, groceries etc...We also would like to be icluded in any of the class action suites. please keep us advised on what we could do. This is very unaffordable to us, Thank you and God Bless all of us.

We have compiled a list in excess of 100 members that are communicating and strategizing with a goal of contacting the attorney general in multiple states, especially Texas and AG Andrew Cuomo in New York. If you want to be a part of the combined effort, please send your email address to Ogden1995@aol.com.

The longest and most thorough thread of complaints and comments is at Raintree — Trying to charge a &Special Assessment&. The title of this complaint is “Trying to charge a ‘Special Assessment.’"

For the convenience of the authorities who might want to read members postings and for future reference, it seems it would be best to accumulate all comments under the above thread. There are already 13 pages on the thread.

Thank you.

Yes, I agree. This special assessment is a fraud. It is sad that members have to pay for the corruption and greeded people. Please let me know if we as a members can do a class action sue.

thanks everyone, , , lets all band together and stop this nonsense..over priced assements and poor reservations thru out the north ameican propertys...

I had been deliquent from last years assement due to my sister haveing a liver transplant...so I was sent ot a collections agent, , who charged another $300.oo on top of the over valued $666. yearly fee, for my cabo prop..which I have payed off over 10 years ago...Each year another increase of over $100..WTF is going on? I wish I could give it back or sell it, , dam it is just too pricey to go to cabo anymore...what happened ? I am outraged at this co. now I get 2010 assement and NOW they are willing to work a payment plan with owners, , , where was this last years ? what a ### co.
Not sure what or where to go with this other than write letters and hate them...

charles phillips

We have been members for 25 years This is the third assessment. This group continues to under insure themselves then looks to it's members to bail them out. We will not pay, . We will file a complaint.