I am a former employee of Banff Gate Mountain Lodge and Spa. I had never heard of it until I replied to a post on a job bank. I heard back immediately which I found a little odd because I had no previous front desk experience. I was called in immediately for an interview and was told that I could start as soon as I was available. Again should have been a signal that something may be up but I was caught up in the fact that I had the opportunity to be employed at a resort which is what I would like to be doing in the future. As soon as I began, things started changing. I was put on the schedule full time and Kim was willing to do whatever it took to please my schedule as I work an additional job. Within a few weeks of starting there, we were notified that we had a new hire who again was offered full time. At this point, we had 4 "full time" employees and one who was supposed to be working nights, in order to work with her schedule at an additional job. Within a few days of working with the other employees that had been hired previous to me, I noticed that their hours were being drastically cut in order to accommodate me and the newest hire. I think the plan was to try and get everyone against each other in order to get away with more. I slowly noticed all the issues that we were running into and things began to not add up. We were drastically overbooked for Christmas and New Years, to the point where we had to put people in cabins next door. We received numerous phone calls from members and their lawyers constantly asking us what was going on. We went in there with the idea that this was a normal functioning resort. Throughout Christmas and New Years we went on to have numerous problems, such as not having enough cutlery, linens, cleaning supplies, etc. for every unit as normally the resort was almost empty. We then noticed that the garbage bins were no longer being emptied due to a bill not being paid. We were instructed to place anything outside the bins in one of the unfinished units as the company in charge of waste disposal would not come and pick anything up until the entire bill was paid. We had constant phone issues as the phone systems had been played around with to enable less contact with members. One thing that blew my mind was when the apparent site for Elevations was taken over by the actual owner as payments had been yet again defaulted on again. Even after all the investments that had been made on this apparent resort. This was just the beginning. Hours began to be cut on everyone's behalf and phones starting getting cut off. We were unable to contact Member Services, Kim Schram or Andre Muran and of course they had various excuses as to why this lines weren't working and when they were working, why the messages were not being answered. Throughout the remainder of January and into February it was the same thing with more and more phone calls coming in regarding bookings that were to be made (which they would not allow front desk staff to do, even though we had access to all the information necessary to actually do the bookings). Despite numerous attempts to contact Kim regarding what the situation was, all her response would ever be is "Call Member Services" which is a little hard when they will not answer their phones or messages. I recall one time when I had a bill collecter call for Kim. She was standing right beside me at the front desk. I asked the girl if she could wait a moment while I got Kim on the phone. I put the phone on hold and told Kim that there was a lady on the phone who needed to speak to her regarding an overdue account balance. Kim told me that she would deal with it later and actually had the nerve to get on the phone and pretend to be someone else! She told the girl on the other end that Kim would be out of office for the week but we would pass the message along to her. I originally started getting calls from this company in December 2009 and when I was "laid off" by new management at the end of February 2010, the bill had still not been paid. This brings me to where I have run into my HUGE issue with Kim Schram and this company, as if there weren't enough already. For the few weeks leading up to the takeover by a new company due to defaulting and foreclosure, there had been a lot of talk by members and previous employees that something was happening. At this point I was only working Monday through Wednesday but this set me over the edge. I received a text message from one of the other front desk girls, not Kim or Andre or even the Front Desk Manager, that there was a meeting on Friday at 1 that I should attend. I showed up to this meeting expecting a meeting with the new bosses regarding scheduling and such. We were all put upstairs and the new manager introduced herself and gave us an idea of what the new plans for the resort were. We were asked to answer a few questions on a sheet of paper. She collected the paper and brought each person in one by one to discuss their answers. She looked at my sheet, saw that I was only 20 (which apparently means I'm irresponsible and incapable of holding such a job, even though Resort and Event Management is what I studied in college). She then looked at the schedule and noticed that I only had worked 3 shifts that week and continued to tell me that due to my apparently low maturity level and lack of experience, she was letting me go, effective immediately. It left me 10 days to find a place to live with a dog in Canmore which isn't an easy place to find an apartment to begin with and left me to find another job immediately due to the 0 days notice that I was given. Luckily I have an awesome summer employer who let me move back into my house a month and a half early and gave me as many hours as there were available to make up for this "lay off". What kills me is that they kept someone who was closely connected to Kim and Andre and still is. This person is paid more bi-weekly then I was making a month and I was working 7 days a week while this person was "on-call" and even then rarely showed up when called. Now to my major problem with Kim. The meeting was February 28, 2010. Pay was set to be deposited into our accounts on the 1st of March. At this point we are still yet to see that pay cheque or vacation pay which is to be paid at the end of employment unless otherwise agreed upon. I, among others, have emailed Kim and called her cell phone directly with no response at all. Complaints have been filed with the labour board but as we all know that takes time and lots of it. My message out of this is to anyone that is a current member. Go to your Lawyer immediately. DO NOT deal with member services at all as their plan is to try and get you to invest more money in order to "Buy the resort back" when in reality it will just start this all over again with a new business name and a new person to screw you over. This company needs to be boycotted by all means. Do not make any further investments and please file any complaints through a valid agency because otherwise you're just going to get the run around which isn't fair because people have already lost their $10000-$50000 investments and for what? So some assholes can live the high life and do whatever they want. Not worth it.