MORPS has been receiving information from timeshare owners/prospective points purchasers of some less-than-honest sales techniques employed by sales staff in order to sell the RCI Points system.
It would seem that the less-scrupulous sales teams located mainly, according to reports received, in Spain, both mainland and the islands - are using the following lies to encourage/pressure people to convert weeks/buy into RCI Points:
It would seem that the less-scrupulous sales teams located mainly, according to reports received, in Spain, both mainland and the islands - are using the following lies to encourage/pressure people to convert weeks/buy into RCI Points:
Purporting to be RCI representatives, when they are in fact nothing to do with RCI but part of an on-site sales team
Pretending to be conducting a survey into RCI Points
Informing timeshare owners that the RCI Weeks system is not working and will soon be defunct with no exchange opportunities for those who stay with the week-for-week exchange system (there are still millions of timeshare owners who are staying in the traditional weeks system and have no intention of converting)
Advising owners that a high percentage of owners are converting per week so they will be left behind if they don't convert (an exaggeration of the reality of the situation)
Stating that RCI requires a certain minimum number of points to be bought from the resort (besides those obtained from ceding weeks) this is true insofar as a minimum of 12,000 Pure Points that need to be bought with any new membership.
Telling people that they have to buy another week of timeshare from their resort in order to become part of the RCI Points system.
Encouraging people to pay a deposit to save VAT (which is not charged anyway)
Charging inflated fees for conversion to RCI Points and/or a high price for the purchase of additional points (well over 8p per point when vendors in the UK are often charging only 3p per point).
A Licensed Vendor can ONLY join a new member without selling them a MINIMUM of 12,000 Pure Points is if a new week is sold to that member which was not previously owned by that member.
However - if no new week is purchased the MINIMUM deal must include 12,000 Pure Points and it is very unlikely that any of these deals can be done for less than around �1000.
If anyone has any information on other unscrupulous techniques used to get timeshare owners to convert to points, and to convert at highly inflated prices, please let us know.
