Complaint Review: ILX Resorts - Phoenix Arizona

We purchased a timeshare unit from Los Abrigados Resort in Sedona, Arizona on February 9, 1998. Under the terms of the agreement to purchase this timeshare unit, and as a sales enticement to join the timeshare program, we were promised, in writing, ten additional bonus weeks every year at other resortsfor life. We also received a five-year ILX resort membership (ICE Passport) for free.

In the first year of our membership, we tried unsuccessfully to book the regular week that we had purchased at Los Abrigados Resorts. We also tried to obtain a stay at various resorts with the bonus week program, again without any success. After one year of a fruitless search to book a timeshare week, and having lost the privilege of the regular week for that year, we decided to sell the unit, using the ten additional bonus weeks as an added incentive to a prospective buyer. The ILX Corporation promptly informed us that the ten bonus weeks were not transferable to another buyer. At that point, we knew that we had been sold a timeshare unit under fraudulent conditions, and so we defaulted on the deeded trust in 1999, by stopping paymentsa legal maneuver that was allowed under the stipulation of the contract.

Since that time we have been subjected to intense collection efforts, first by the ILX Corporation, then by Concord Servicing Corporation of Scottsdale, Arizona (to whom the ILX Corporation sold the paper contract for the timeshare unit), and finally by the Monterey Collection Agency in Oceanside, California. Even though the ILX Corporation never delivered on any of their stated contract deliverables, the Monterey Collection Agency acting on behalf of the ILX Corporation turned in our debt as a negative entry item to the three national credit agencies (Experian, Equifax and Trans Union) in an attempt to ruin our excellent credit rating.

The ILX Corporation also attached a maintenance fee every year on the deeded property as an additional debt, and kept doing this until the year 2000. And, the ILX Corporation, the Concord Servicing Corporation and the Monterey Collection Agency continued to harass us both at home and at work with an incessant collection effort for both the timeshare week and the maintenance fee debts for a period of six years until October 25, 2004.

In a final desperation move, the ILX Corporation threatened to file a lien on our new house in the state of Washington for the collection of the accumulated maintenance fees in the amount of $1927. This was an 11th-hour attempt by the ILX Corporation to derail our home mortgage closing negotiations.

I responded with a letter which was addressed to both the ILX Corporation and the Monterey Collection Agency. I asked them to validate the maintenance fee debt claim, and the Monterey Collection Agency to validate the entering of a negative report on our credit file under the provisions of both the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

Since the ILX Corporation could not provide the necessary and required evidence of our having used their resort timeshare services, both the ILX Corporation and the Monterey Collection Agency ceased to contest the maintenance fee debt on October 27, 2004.

I have sent in the necessary paperwork to join the class action suit against ILX.

Bob

Bellevue, Washington
U.S.A.