Shell Vacations Club
Reviews and Complaints

I transferred my ownership to Wyndham and was charged twice for dues. I have called literally 15 times to try to get this resolved and I have never received my money back. Every time I call I get transferred to someone that has no idea and can't help me. This is the worst service and I regret my update to Wyndham as I was unable to use any of my points during this conversion for 3 months. no one told me that when I forked over $25,000!

Since December 26th I have attempted to make an annual maintenance payment online but keep run into a wall. Either the portals aren't working or I have incorrect invalid account numbers. I never had this problem until SVC was purchased by Wyndham. I have tried calling their 888 line which is automated and I still can't get this matter resolved. In addition, there is no customer service help to transfer to for assistance.

I have been locked out of the online portal because the computer system believes I owe Shell / Wyndam $$$$. I don't. I am paid up for the year. I have called 3-4 times. Having to sit on hold a minimum of 45 minutes to be told the same thing, "We are working on it". Well after 3 months it's a bit old and I don't believe Shell / Wyndam anymore. Crappy service - leaving your customers locked out with no reason and not being able to immediately resolve..

We make our monthly maintenance fee payment through out credit union bill pay checking account. (Altura Credit Union) Shell routinely takes 20 or more days to process these payments which causes a $10.00 late fee to be added. These payments should take no longer than 2-3 business days to process. None of our other bill pay accounts have experienced this type of delay.

To check their system one month we paid by regular check and it was processed 4 days from the date we mail it.

There is no reason for this delay other than to charge us an extra $10 every month!

Thanks for checking.

Stephen D. Pounds

When we signed the contract, we were not notified that we could not terminate our contract even though the annual maintenance fees are almost as much as the cost of a rental. We were also told that we could pass it onto our heir — not that the heir would be required to be responsible in perpetuity. How is that not a violation of the "rule against perpetuities" in contract law?

We ask that you accept this complaint as a request to cancel our timeshare. We have tried to get in contact with you all with no success. We purchased this contract on 2/17/2008 and were pressured into an upgrade once on 8/29/2008 and again on 5/9/2017. We are also requesting a refund for the purchase of unused points. Being a military family, we can no longer utilize this timeshare due to our constant moving of duty stations. And frankly, we have not been happy with the constant pressure to upgrade and the condition of properties in our previous stays. Please provide cancelation instructions so that we may move forward with this process.

In the maintenance fee budget there is a line entitled uncollectables, or defaulted accounts, or bad debt. Should all the members be responsible to pick up the slack for other's maintenance fees? I assume the time share company resells the property after a time and uses the proceeds to cover the maintenance fee debt, so why is it passed on to the owners?

Shell Vacations West Wyndham, They sold us on a 1-week vacation every year, however after our first vacation, we found out that with the points we had we could not take a week unless we banked our points from the year before and borrow from next year.
It's so frustrating to call to make reservations. You are on the phone for 1 to 2 hours at least to find out you are not able to go where you want or when you need to. We always had to rearrange our dates.
They told us when we purchased that it was only owners however we found out by talking to other guests that were certainly not true.
We were also led to believe that all the svc properties were the same quality as our Napa Valley property, however, we went to one that was a complete dump.
And the cherry on top is the constant calls from salespeople to get us to upgrade yet again.

I believe we have been ripped off by Shell Vacations, I have been looking at customer complaints today and after my disappointment of losing all this money and not being able to take a vacation. I see many complaints from people dealing with the same issues I have with your company. We bought many years ago, weeks, Even year, Red Week which we were led to believe we could go anywhere! It was the best your company said!
We used different vacation areas and resorts for years with the exchange program, then Your company bought in the Points Program and if we didn't go along with the new change and pay a large added fee we couldn't enjoy vacations as before, and then all of a sudden we can't get into most resorts, so we decide to stay at our home resort and we are still getting a problem from your vacation Club..We pay almost $1300.00 per year in maintenance fees this is more than our property taxes and for WHAT? If this is your scare tactic of getting people on board with the newer and more costly fees for added and better vacations, then Shame on You and your company. and how about all the people that signed on for weeks? and great vacations? and Not Points! I am so upset, we plan a vacation with our grandchildren for Christmas try booking for New Year week, I called a Year ago and they said we couldn't book because it was to late, this is our time 2018 and we paid our fees, I tried again today November 7th. hoping for a last min cancellation
and no luck unless we flew from Newfoundland this week to use, that is just not good enough and If we can't use our home resort then what are we paying for? We want to request our maintenance fees back, Our home resort is Carriage Hills Resort, Barrie Ontario, Canada... my Contact information is Elizabeth Snow # [protected] Phone [protected]

We have owned at our two-bedroom resort in Hawaii for years and have enjoyed spending a week there every winter. The staff always has been nice, helpful, and we have always trusted them. This last Feb. the sales staff persuaded us to give up our deed and $3, 000 for membership in the Shell Vacation Club. It is now August, and the escrow has not been completed. We have nothing. No one seems to care, and we can not get a response as to when the escrow will go through. They have been using our $3, 00 for 6 months, and we seem to have nothing. They will not give back the deed to the timeshare that we owned. We have appealed, but we are not getting any answers.

Shell Vacations Club is a rip off. They charge more for their maintenance fees in a year than what I pay for property taxes on my house! Most of the time the dates I want tobook arenot available. Their website needs to be updated. They were bought out by Wyndham and they still have not updated their website and still want to charge additional fees to stay at a place that is technically considered part of "Shell". For the amount of fees they charge you, you are only allotted two free calls a year, which is absolutely ridiculous! They have taken on too many clients and do not have enough properties available!

Vacationing folks be warned of Cheyenne Redfern from Shell Vacations. During out 90 minute presentation she behaved rude and accusatory. Once she realized that we were not interested in purchasing a timeshare she accused us of threatening her and abandoned us. The Resort GM Troy Spaulding attempted to smooth things over with us once he realized her terrible behavior, but the whole experience really dampened our vacation. I usually don't file complaints like this, but her actions were so egregious that I couldn't allow folks to be treated like this without warning them.

In 2007 we retired from many, many years teaching years in the Public Schools and went on our dream vacation to Hawaii. Something we had been dreaming about since we were married, but we just never could afford to take a honeymoon. We had saved some and already owned a place at another RCI (Resorts Condominium International) time share vacation. That's how we managed to get to Hawaii. We are not greedy folks, not really interested in obtaining more, just to get a little of the good life in a fancy hotel on the beach".

We said as much to that young Hawaiian sales girl?. However, when she told her managing salesperson about our RCI Weeks his ears picked up like a hound dog". He come up with a plan where we could "change our RCI Weeks into Shell Points" and one telephone call would have "Shells' excellent service representatives" manage them for us?. Well enough about that said now, while there we purchased a week time share at the Beachboy Resort in Kauai, Hawaii". That Shell boy was really spinning RCI straw into proverbial Shell gold for our golden years of retirement!.

As dedicated teachers would, we did our math homework;. Me and my wife were sure that it would be just perfect to deposit our RCI Weeks into Shell Resorts Clubs, who would change all them into their just great Shell Points for promised extra vacations, prepaid airline fees, free rental cars, luxury hotels, Caribbean cruises, and a host of other valuable benefits/. We could now finally enjoy in our retirement ahead of us.

We paid a rightly sum $12, 001.50 for this membership in full on our credit card at the time of signing the contracts and that man, his girls, and a lot of papers assured it would be just a simple phone call to get a service rep and all these Shell privileges would become golden. All that glitters is not gold, that is, once it's sold!

Trying to convert any of our RCI Weeks to Shell Points met with just big bad trouble. Just weeks after we joined we received a letter from Shell saying they're reducing the weeks that Shell would allow for conversion. Not that I'm paranoid, but what a cat *** coincidence! The ink was just about barely dry on those papers we signed! Do ya think?

This greatly tore down the reason for our membership. When contacting them by telephone we were told that we had too few points and could only qualify for a vacation once every 4 years! Thus severely limiting the "golden" sales pitch of their fast talking manager in Hawaii, and despite over $600 additional cost a year for maintenance in a place we have never even been to again! In total dollars sum, we've paid Shell Vacations Club over $14, 000 and have not been back to Hawaii once since signing the agreement! Some "golden" years with Shell. We cried. No flights, cars, cruises. Nothing but bills, bills, and more bill bringing our small life savings to tatters.

After 4 years of paying maintenance on a place I've never been, this week we received yet another letter, a deadly blow to our Shell membership. Couldn't you have guessed ---Shell Vacations Club will no longer be affiliated with RCI! They now have switched to a RCI competitor IE (Interval International). Needless to say we are not IE members, don't want no more bills to join them too. So finally we cannot covert any RCI weeks to Shell Points at all, not now, not never! As grandaddy said " ya can't polish a turd", nor a golden Shell membership I might add,
My friends, this is what I'm calling Shells' Bait and Switch "Shell Game"! Bait the hard working retirees who struggled all their lives paying into society and saving for their retirement with a little free food, then into an fast talking agreement where they pay to trade hard earned money for weeks of "golden" promises for their golden years, vacation condos, flights, cars etc., then after you got them paying into your system for years, switch the terms of the agreement, then deliver them only straw.

And yes, this straw costs you $600+ a year for nothing. And if ya don't pay it they'll go after you for it, wreck your credit rating. And God forbid Ma gets sick, who knows? RCI Membership trading for Shell Points was the only reason that I bought into this Shell Game in the first place. In exchange for our money and promises of a "golden" retirement, we got broken promises and billsThe fast talking sales people, the rich folks who own the resorts and their slick lawyers have done real well for themselves, at our expense. If you want to find them you'll probably find them lounging at the resort we're paying for in Hawaii. This is because we can no longer afford to get back.

We played by the rules as they told us to, paid up in full. Then they changed the rules and the game. Our time share is worthless to us and they've got all that hard earned money.

Purchased a 159$ "opportunity" to visit up to 4 locations to hear their time share presentation.
After deciding where we would like to travel were told we must submit 4 nights x3 at least 2 weeks apart - a fact that was not seen in literature or heard in phone presentation. There of course is an "upgrade" available for 30$/night, in addition to the 12 to 14$ tax and resort fee of 15$ per night Talk about a money waste!
Has anyone looked into the fraud of this company - we would worry about any contact at all and/or getting hung out to dry if we did make arrangements - My thinking is they are making their money on the 159$ that we and many others are donating after the frustration of trying to schedule a resort visit.

You want to come out smelling like the rose when your stuff stinks! Please do not make this our fault it will only add to my hopes that the AG will spend lots of time in your books. It is hard to use the correct account number when your statement has the incorrect number on it for three different statements. Am I suppose to close my eyes and randomly pick a number and hope that is the right account. I have been using the same account number since 1998! All of a sudden that is not the right account! Your manager in Hawaii even admitted to us that she put the wrong account number on the statement and we double checked with her to make sure where we were to send the payments and to what account. Please do not act like you are the innocent party in this and that we can't figure out how to pay our bills. The only intelligence you are insulting is your own. We even went on the online payment area and put in all the account numbers that were given to us by Shell Vacation and guess what...all but one came back invalid (which we took screen shots of and will be sharing in our AG complaint) and that account number is the one that we have been using since 1998! So please spare me the drama of how you properly instructed us on how to manage the account because you know that never happened. Every time we attempt to talk to Shell Vacation we can hardly get past a customer rep and then they get defensive when you try to discuss anything with them. They act like you are asking them to take the money out of their own pocket. And BTW, just to keep the story straight the problem did not come from checks that we personally wrote because on this account we paid our bill online and have for several years. You might want to check your facts before making inaccurate statements. We are now done giving you any information we must move forward to those who are interested in helping resolve issues.

If you are here, you probably already knew all the bad things about Shell Vacations Club. They lied to you, and now it's too late to cancel. Now you find yourself a victim. But it's not too late to do something to recover your losss and prevent the company from preying on other people in the future.

If you are victims of Shell Vacations Club's misrepresentation, unethical and illegal business practices, please contact [protected]@aol.com immediately to join a class-action law suit against SVC. There will be no fee to join. Together we can help fight these abusive corporations. If you find yourself a victim of Shell Vacations Club, the first thing you should do is write to the Attorney General consumer complaint division for your state. They usually have a specific section for complaints against companies. For California, the website is:
http://ag.ca.gov/contact/complaint_form.php?cmplt=CL

Fill it out, asking that they not share information that would identify you to SVC, and send it in immediately. The reason for doing this is that, even in the event that you have to sign a complaint disclosure agreement in order to settle, the Attorney General can continue its investigation to stop these criminals.

If you wish to shut down their business . . all of your complaints should be forwarded on to events at which Shell or one of its contracted marketing groups does their marketing (invites people down for "free" gifts) so that maybe they won't allow their booths to be set up their anymore. These venues include LA county fair, Orange county fair, *** Prides (Long Beach, LA), Bridal Shows (Bride world, Bridal Showplace, Here come The Brides), Hermoa Beach Labor Day and Memorial Day street festival, movie theaters (AMC, Edwards) and many others. I can list others if any of you are interested. Also, the complaints should be forwarded on to the CA Attorney Generals office. Attorney Generals in other states have filed suit against other timeshare companies like this who market in this manner . . by offering things like "free trips", "free airfare" etc. to attend one of their presentations when the "travel vouchers" are basically unredeemable. They have based the suits on fraudulent marketing and if enough people complain to the CA Attorney Generals office they may follow suit and essentially cut off all venues this company has to get people to attend their previews in the first place. Basically, if you want to do more than just post a blog, this is what you can do to essentially shut down their business totally.

We bought an Explorer membership with Shell after being hassled and pressured by numerous sales people while in Hawaii on our honeymoon. Although this isn’t the reason for my complaint, I will point out that the sales people were extremely rude when we didn’t want to buy the timeshare property, criticizing us and telling us that our relationship would suffer without vacations, which consisted of buying a Shell timeshare. Extremely rude. Well, I got over that, and finally booked my first vacation with the points I purchased through the Explorer program. We went to San Diego and booked the Days Hotel through Shell, which was an affiliated property through Resortime. The hotel looked decent on the web pages, and the Shell associate I spoke to while booking the hotel indicated it was a nice property. Well, we arrived at this hotel and it was a total dump. Our so called “deluxe room with kitchenette” was a tiny motel room (that’s right, not a hotel, but a motel) with half of a bathroom because the other half was a half size ghetto kitchen. It was the equivalent, or probably worse, than a Super 8 Motel. We arrived at this motel and it was an instant damper on our entire trip knowing that we would have to come back to this crap hole every night. We tried to find ways to avoid going back to the hotel at all costs, but had to at some point. And, why am I upset with Shell? Because Shell had me pay $283 per night on this room. That’s right, a whopping $283 for a Super 8 (essentially). I could have stayed in a 5 star hotel in downtown San Diego near everything instead of this nasty motel on Hotel Circle. And we looked up the real value of the motel, which is $70 a night. It’s really disturbing to me that they could rip people off so badly and ruin a family’s vacation in doing so. It’s just unbelievable. I am beyond upset about this situation and so mad that my vacation had to suffer on their account. They were so insistent on us buying their crap and ensuring us it was worth the money….they are just flat out liars and out to ruin people’s lives and take their money. Not only would I never buy anything from Shell again, but I will certainly discourage anyone and everyone from even considering to do so as well.

Back in 2004, at the Legacy in AZ, I bought a trial membership for $4500, to be used within 2 years. After reading the fine print, I did see that I could cancel the contract within 7 days. I decided to keep it and I booked 1 week in Hawaii and had only used half the points that I bought. I was offered free gifts to attend another presentation in Hawaii( free rental car for 1 week and free weekend in Hawaii). I used both without any problems. At the presentation, I ended up purchasing enough points for 1 week per year at the Napa Valley location, which cost me half as much than buying in Hawaii, but I trade it for Hawaii every year. I have used it numerous times for numerous locations, and have also shared with family members wishing to "rent points" for a fraction of the full price. There have been minor problems, but that would happen at any place, including Marriott, Starwoods resorts, Hilton, etc. Overall I would say that I am extremely pleased with my purchase. The properties are clean and well maintained. I work for the airlines so I get free air travel and have stayed at many different hotel brands. The maintenance fees have gone up $200 since I purchased 6 years ago. But that was explained to me in the beginning. so no surprise. I paid my account full and in cash, so no outrageous interest charges. My advice is not to buy a timeshare on credit or loan. Make sure you can afford it with disposable income, and book as soon as possible, you can always cancel without penalties 60 days out. Overall I'm a very satisfied and happy customer, Shell Vacations is one of the better timeshares, along with Mariott and Hilton.