We we’re invited to a timeshare freebie that is now a costly nightmare at Mountain Loft in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We were newlyweds looking for an investment in our future and romantic vacations. We had no clue at that time what a timeshare was at all. After a 90 minutes presentation (10:00 -3:30) and 3 sales reps we were brain washed, overwhelmed, and sold something. Our 1st rep was Helen. She explained so much information so fast that it became overwhelming to keep up and keep notes. Twice we started to get up and leave and were asked to hold on. Helen excused herself & stepped away and came back with an associate named Ed who knew of her husband and about all of their (exotic) vacations they took every year. She bragged about how sweet Ed was and asked if he could sit in our session. We didn’t see any problems with it and said yes. We sat down and began listening again. He too spoke of their (exotic) vacations and how happy she was to get to create beautiful memories with her late husband. Ed asked her if she by chance had her photo album. Poof! She pulled out a photo album of her and her late husband and thank God with tears that she was able to take him to such (exotic) location and create everlasting memories. She then told us he died 3 weeks after their last (exotic) vacation and of course tears fell again. I hate to say it but I cried with her. It broke my heart. I don’t recall where their last (exotic) vacation was but it was a tropical paradise in looking at the photos. She stated that she has traveled the world and if it weren’t for their timeshare program she purchased they would never have had the chance to do what they did due to the “normal cost”. She then stated some big number ($). I can’t read my short hand on that one. We were almost sold and I decided we financially couldn’t pull it off. I was just uncomfortable with all the info, no numbers, and all the uncertainty. My husband was obviously disappointed. He wanted it for both us. He felt we deserved it after all we had been though. It was at this time that Ed was beeped, apologized for the interruption, and he told us he had to step away. He returned with Tom. Ed introduced Tom and Tom started out with “I understand you have questions about budgeting this great opportunity”. We would hate to see you two newlyweds lose out on an opportunity to create such beautiful memories like Helen’s so let me see what I can do. You guessed it, we sat down. While Tom & Ed were gone we asked, “What if we can’t use our timeshare that year and how do the points work. We were told that each year we earn 5000 points to be used however and whenever we wanted. Never were we told that each year we start all over with points. Helen told us that Bluegreen has a rental company that will assist us in renting it and we would receive the monies which could be used toward maintenance fees if we so chose to. She told us that properties rented all the time. She told us of a year that her husband was very ill, they weren’t able to use their points, and she had it rented for around $1500 for that particular week. She told us all we have to do is call them. We felt like we were in a win:win situation. They kept reiterating that this is a great once in a life time investment that they hated to see two loving newly weds miss out on. This then sparked my husband to ask a question about our taxes since it’s an investment in property. We were told that since we pay maintenance fees etc. it can be written off on our taxes and to get with our local tax preparer. They will be able to help us with that. She then asked how we met and what we did for a living. We explained that we were childhood sweethearts, then married other people, had awful prior marriages, and divorced. Mine was a controlling verbal abuser and his was a druggie. We told them we were both retired/disabled veterans who between us served 43 years+ in the military serving our country. We talked about how we love to camp, hike, hunt, and fish. They told us about all the beautiful resorts that we can use to do those activities as well. Helen opened our book and showed us a place in Michigan and Missouri that we would love. She then asked if we had kids and we told her 5 between our two marriages. She went on to show us Hershey Park in PA and spoke of how our kids would love going there. She told us there are other kid friendly places we could go to as well but everyone loves Hershey Park and also Disney World. I only remember these particular places because I dog eared the pages and made quick notes on those pages. Well, you guessed it; we fell for it hook… line… and sinker. No pun intended! We got the bells and whistles treatment and then shoved in a back room with a massive packet of about 30 pages of small printed paperwork that took no more than 15 minutes to complete. I’m still not sure how that happened! It would take me an hour to properly prep a soldier for deployment. We weren’t given the time to read the contract like I felt we should have. I should know, I took the packet off the desk several times to read it while he was talking and was asked to keep it on the desk so that I didn’t get the pages out of order. He insure us we got a copy of everything before we left. I tried my hardest to read as we were initialing as well because it was going to be our 1st big investment together. I just couldn’t keep up. I started to get cold feet one more time during the rushing of our signatures/initials. I tried to ask questions about cancellation if not satisfied, interest rates, refinancing, renting, investment questions for tax purposes, and we would just get brushed off, interrupted, or pushed with “please sign here, here, and so on. Also, during this time there was this guy who kept interrupting us and telling our guy behind the desk that he has a customer that’s been waiting for 30 minutes. Then our guy kept getting interrupted by phones calls from some one in the back office. We were told that after he was finished with us he would have one of his sales reps sit down with us and answer any other questions we had. He kept apologizing for rushing us and stated that he had 3 more customers waiting to be proud owners like us. Before we knew it we were done and proud owners. I still at this point wasn’t 100% comfortable with the deal and expressed it. It was clear to my husband that I was having 3rd, 4th, & 5th thoughts. Then the guy behind the desk asked us what we did for fun. My husband proudly told him we do a lot of fishing, hunting, camping, and hiking and that we had bought Tenn. License with the plans to fish that day. This guy gave us a yacht program certificate and said we would be able to take other people with us and do some great fishing. He also stated that the yacht comes with a personal chef that preps the fish right there on the boat. That was something I had always wanted to do and thought it would be a romantic things for us. My husband was also getting concerned about my health at this point. I am hypoglycemic and hadn’t had anything to eat from 10:00 - 3:00 but crackers (which he got from a vending machine) since this whole drama filled day had started and I was starting to get light headed. For me that’s not good because then I pass out within 15/20 minutes depending on how fast my sugar drops. This is my warning sign. It was already 3:30 and we’d been there since 10:00.

Now: For the last 2 years we have tried to plan a summer vacation. We work hard but don’t play hard enough. Each time I tried to lock something in with our points (which we understood were suppose to accumulate, not expire year after year) I could never get anything. We either had to pay out of pocket because it doesn’t directly belong to them (which we found in their spectacular book they give you at the 90 minute seminar) or it’s not available for that time.


Why am I writing and telling you all this? Well, I monitored our payments and I knew about when we would be paid in full. I requested a payout sheet. It said we still owed $8, 000+. We started with $9, 900 3 years ago. I called the 1-800 number on their website and asked why we still owed so much. Well, much to my surprise only $10 of our $165 monthly payment is put toward the true debt. The rest goes to interest. They then told me our interest rate was 15%. Irresponsibility on my part I never knew that. That was ignorance on my part but again I wasn’t given the time to read the whole contact and ask questions at that time. I never cried so hard on the phone. I asked about refinancing to get the interest rate down and the lady said they don’t do that and that we would have to go elsewhere. I asked if they had any recommendations and she said no, they don’t recommend anyone. That’s not their job. Then I asked about them just taking it back and just keeping the money we have already paid out. She became annoyed, laughed, very disrespectful, and said we signed a contract and by law we have to abide by it. I was getting very upset at this point and asked what if I quit paying all together. She said you will be reported to the collections agency and it will ruin our credit. She then said with sarcasm, “you wouldn’t want to do that because it’ll follow you until you finally pay the debt”. Then all the fees accumulate and you will never get out of debt. You’ll never be able to buy anything on credit until the debt is paid in full. I then told her I was going to contact a lawyer for assistance. She told me she does legal work on the side for this company and not to waste any more money than what we can afford to lose because we “will not” win, no one ever does against them, and on top of it we will have to pay all of the court cost as well including theirs. I hung up and cried some more. This all happened Mar 09. I had given up and continued paying in order to maintain our good credit. I felt beaten down and cornered and continued paying the bill and the $500 maintenance fee in Dec. Then there was new fee that now appears in Jul (which I can never get a clear answer as to why I’m being charged for it) but like a desperate idiot I pay it. I gave up calling because they were always rude, disrespectful, overbearing, degrading, and I got no where with them but stressed out. Comments such as, “if you are so poor why did you invest in this in the 1st place” “are you going to be like all the other scammers and quite paying for something you volunteered for and blame someone else for your stupidity”. I was appalled. I always tried to be patient until they got rude and then I got rude back and they would hang up. When I would ask for their name or their supervisor’s name they would tell me that aren’t aloud to give their names; it’s company policy. One day my husband overheard a conversation. This was during the time when my husband was also pending a layoff (May 09). I was trying to find ways to get rid of this timeshare and bring $2600 back into our home. I was contact by a company called TimesharesOnly out of desperation from a search that I had done. And……yes…… I got suckered again $600 later because they have a spectacular program and were going to sell my timeshare for me. I called them one day and complained about their lack of service. The lady on the other end told me that if I listened to the radio and what their TV channels they listed I would see my timeshare. They are doing their job and they don’t know why I’m complaining. Stop calling and let them do their job! Through a blog I found I have been communicating with other angry Bluegreen victims. Monday I received an email from a person who directed me to a news broadcast on youtube by the PA AG. Here lies my question. Can anyone help me get rid of this timeshare and get at least what we paid out back? We have been lied to, bullied, disrespected, and I just want to get rid of it. This past month my husband and I have gotten into some arguments about this. He thinks we should pay it off and then sell it for whatever we can get and take the lose. We can’t even count it as a lose on our taxes and I haven’t even told him that yet. I have done the extensive research this past year and know for a fact it will never happen. He doesn’t understand and I don’t fault him for it. Note*My husband recently has been diagnosed with PTSD along with lots of injuries due to being assigned in the airborne infantry with the 82nd, 101st, as well as other undisclosed missions not discussed or recorded. He currently attends therapy/counseling to assist with his quality of life, memory issues, and paranoia. I do all that I can to keep his life pretty normal. He doesn't need this stress added

Note:*We got scammed by the (my husband died and I'm glad we had our program) story. We purchased this mess in 7/07. We pay $165 a month of which only $10 goes toward the loan & the rest interest. At this rate it will be paid off by 2017. You do the math please.

Note:*Every time we turn around we can't use it because it's either not theirs or not available. When we purchased it Helen told us that when it wasn’t in use they would assist us in renting it (News Flash-this service is no longer offer and we weren’t told). Then we were told that we would be able to re-finance at a better interest rate (news flash-they don’t offer that service nor do they recommend any one). Hmmm that’s because no one will refinance it because (we don’t own it yet!). When I call Bluegreen to talk about dumping it or just not paying it anymore, they get extremely rude. I told the customer service rep that I was going to hire a lawyer and she told me not to waste my time or money because they have more money and contacts than us and we couldn’t afford to lose and then have to pay out all the legal fees. I was also directed to the actual finance company that manages this timeshare. It’s not the one on our contract from that wonderful 90 minute seminar. Furthermore, it wasn’t a seminar as we were told; it was a one on one. I thought a seminar is a group of people collectively spoken too.

Note:* I contacted Timeshares Only and I believe their wonderful story out of desperation that they have such a great selling reputation that for only $600 they will sell it for us. Right! I have filed a complaint with the Florida State Attorney Generals Office and nothing.

Note:* We want to just be done with this. We work hard, pay our taxes, and do the right things. We have paid since 07 on 9, 900 and only have 8, 282.73 to go! We have been very gullible and ignorant. Now I’m educated somewhat, desperate, and just want to stop paying for something we never get to use. This will be paid off in 2017 actually and we would have paid about $21+ by time it’s all said and done: NOT COUNTING ALL THE EARLY FEES ALONG THE WAY. This has been an expensive college course. This is just a quick summary of all the nightmares. Everyone says don’t pay it, well we have great credit, just bought our first house 2 years ago and we want to refinance it and get a better rate. With bad credit the interest rate will be sky high. I don’t want to ruin our great credit but paying out $2200+ plus doesn’t make much since either. They also tell us we can gift this to our kids. New flash: That would be a nightmare too as I have learned. None of our kids could afford this. We ourselves had to do without to make sure we made good on this debt with them to maintain our credit rating. We want to pay it off to save interest and everyone on the blog tells us not to.

Please help! Can ANYONE us or direct us to someone who can. I wrote our Attorney General’s office in Ohio as well as Florida’s AG office and nothing.

Desperately wanting my blissful marriage back!