Complaint Review: Bluegreen Vacations - Boca Raton Florida

 We attended a sales presentation at Bluegreen’s St. Augustine Resort in 2010 after signing up for a “weekend getaway” at Outdoor World.  At that time, the Bluegreen representative said that we would sit through a short, no-pressure sales presentation.

At that time in 2010, my husband had just recovered from this fifth back surgery and was, and is, disabled.  We had no extra money, and had no intention of purchasing a timeshare.  

The salesperson we met with was a nice lady, had a lot in common with us, said she understood our financial situation, and convinced us how owning a Bluegreen timeshare would give our family a great way to take affordable vacations every year.  She showed us her scrapbook, chronicaling all of her Bluegreen travels with her husband.  She told us about many tricks she used to make her points go further and encouraged us to just buy 3.000 points a year and that would work for us.

Every time we told her, no, we couldn’t afford anything extra because of only having one income, paying bills, and raising children, she came up with ways to turn the situation around.  Because of her tactics, including bringing her manager over to talk to us, we ended up buying 3,000 points a year.  We were told that those points would rollover if we didn’t use them, which we later learned to be a complete fabrication, among several other things we were told that day.

Eight years later, we have yet to take a Bluegreen vacation.  3,000 points gets you nothing, not even a last-minute getaway, as we were told.  Just trying to get lodging for a couple of nights in Upstate New York has been impossible.   We were totally defrauded and subject to deceptive sales practices by Bluegreen, and we want out of this situation that has been such a nightmare and left us feeling like gullible fools.

We financed the timeshare through Bluegreen Corporation, and are paying an exorbitant interest rate.  We borrowed $7,107.95, and, eight years, later, still owe $3,159.92.  Plus, every year we’ve paid over $600 in maintenance fees, taxes, and dues.   So far, we have spent $16,000 on a timeshare that we have not been able to use – not once.

After deciding Bluegreen is not getting another dime from us, six months ago, we decided to stop paying.  They have now charged off our account without giving us any satisfaction at all.  I wrpte letters to numerous executives at BG and got telephone calls from low-level representatives who could do nothing for us.  

 Non-payment has now been submitted to the credit agencies on my son's credit and his score has dropped 150 points.  My son had nothing to do with buying this timeshare and he wasn't even at the presentation.    They asked for our children's Social Security number and copy of driver's licenses so they could set up a sort of trust, so my kids would be left this "wonderful" product when my husband and I die.  I called BG to tell them that a mistake had been made.  They refuse to correct my son's credit report and say that he signed the sales contract, which is an outright lie.  I don't know whose signature that is, but it had to have been forged.  It was not notarized.  

Now we're left having to hire an attorney and using every means possible to warn the public about this awful company.