We went and had the presentation for the Chula Vista Club on October 25, 2012. We own a 2 bedroom condo on Lake Delton and have an RCI timeshare membership. We listened to the presenation (my husband and I and my brother and his wife) and we told BOB (our sale guy) that we have a condo in Lake delton and an RCI membership. Well Bob insisted that this was a good deal for us for the following reasons:

1.) The Hertz car rental free membership, we would save lots of money on that when we go places. The Hertz rate has been higher on 15 different car rentals than I found on lastminutedeals.com so this was not true. SCAM #!.

2.) Our condo on Lake Delton is located by a resort called rhapsody and we would have access to that facilities infinity pool, and indoor pool. My brother went to Rhapsody today and they told him they had no idea what he was talking about. My brother went back to Chula Vista and spoke to TROY today about this and he has no idea why we can't go there and he is going to look into this on monday and get back to my brother. (lets just say we are not going to hold our breath. SCAM #2

3.) We were told that we would save on airfare, and hotel stays. I checked approximately 45 different hotels in the tampa area for our upcoming trip in Florida and each one was the same price on the hotel website as it was through the Chula Club. I thought I must be doing something wrong so my sister in law and I called the Chula Club and made an appointment to speak to Troy about getting these promised savings. When we went into find out what we were doing wrong Troy who we had seen in the Chula Club left and BOB our salesman walked out and my brother found him using his computer over by the market fresh area (apparently he didn't want to get caught in any of his lies.) Some other supervisor said he would help us. We brought up hotels on the Chula Club sites in Tampa and every best price he could find I found the same exact price on the same hotels website so not even a 10% discount let alone the big discounts they promise you. SCAM #3

4.) My sister in law had asked BOB about Old Key West at Disney in Florida and BOB had said oh yes Disney is involved and that is how great of a company this is Disney does not have to be involved and they are. NO THEY ARE NOT, NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT. When I called to book a disney cruise it was the exact same price as the Disney cruise site was. The people at leisure time passport said they can't get discounts on Disney because Disney doesn't discount things. SCAM #4

The only thing we found to be accurate is that you can get discounted rooms at Chula Vista, discounted food at Chula Vista, and free waterpark passes (well we actually paid $5500.00 for the waterpark passes so I guess they are very expensive waterpark passes.

This program is such a SCAM.

Chula Vista Resort is a nice place they should distance themselves from this club it is going to give them a bad name. I just wish they didn't tell so many lies!!

That is why we only go there for their "Great Escape" package, 3days 2 nights $199 + fees which equals $264... All you can eat & drink. And you more than get your money's worth... if you like to eat and drink! :)

They should dump this Club... Can they now? Probably not. They are probably better off promoting themselves as "All Inclusive" Year round, lowering the prices a good amount on Spring/Summer times... and running with it.

Look at Jamaica mon...

Can you tell me if you had to hire an attorney? I also feel I was scammed. I went with just my girls and mother-in-law but my husband had to work. I was promised what a great deal it was and then pressured to sign. I looked at the material when I got home only to realize that the great deals were not so great in the "book". I told my husband what I did and he was furious. He called the contact info where they would take it out of my account and told them that he was not there and did not authorize the charge and did not want them to do it. He was told that they had my signatures in 17 places and that we would not be able to cancel the contract. We do not have the money to fight them legally. Any suggestions!

Thanks,

Tracy S.

Did you get out of the contract? Did you have to put any money down originally and then get a refund? I purchased this by myself when I visited the Resort for the first time since my husband had to work. The resort is great and we had a nice time until I made the mistake of signing the "great deal" and then trying to surprise my husband with it. Well he was surprised and instantly furious. He called the CA company to tell them he did not authorize them to take money out of the checking account. They told him that they had my 17 signatures saying otherwise and that we could not cancel. Any suggestions to help save my hard earned money?

Thanks,

Tracy S.

Read previous posts above for possible help, but remember, this is a travel forum where someone just happened to post regarding a problem at with this group.

Read posts 84. and 85. on this thread.

Call the general manager of Chula Vista. The one we dealt with no longer works there. But they did work out a deal with us. Go to their facebook website and demand answers. We bought it in the very beginning and the prices were $39 a night for a condo. They were unable to continue at those rates. Now it is 4129 a night but it includes weekends whereas the $39 was only Sun - Thurs. Good luck to you. I would think somewhere would have an attorney to help you at a reduced fee. So glad we never got to that point. We do enjoy the resort. When we have issues we ask for the general manager. I believe it is a lady now and I would have to ask my Boyfriend what her name is.

see post #84 it shows attorney general info

***Just bumping this so new members see if first and see what "The Club" is all about.****

I even don't know where to start on these guys. First of all don't waste your precious vacation time listening to these scam artists. My wife and I fell for their scam and had to fight hard to get our money back. Here is a breakdown of how everything went.

My wife and I attended The Club presentation. Our salesperson name was Greg . Dennis was the financial person that showed us the prices of the different plans. We were hesitant about joining the club, but were pressured into it. They promised our dream vacation for $400 and showed us the savings that members received over the next 20 years and it seemed like a good deal, but they insisted that we had to sign up today because the deal was only good for today. We were then welcomed to “The Family” after we signed the paperwork for a 20 year vacation club valued at $5300.

After sleeping on it, there were a few questions that I had. I had questions about the bonus weeks and also about the maximum that we would pay for them. During the presentation they kept mentioning that we would never pay more than $199 - $799 for a week vacation. None of this was in the contract. I went back downstairs to see if they could answer my concerns. I first talked to the head manager. I informed him that the 3 bonus weeks were not in the contract and that Greg and Dennis kept telling us that we would never pay more than $799. He then said that it was in the books that we had. He looked through the books and couldn’t find it. He said that he was little rusty on the books and would have somebody else take a look. Another salesman came over to help me. He was a younger gentleman; I told him that I had concerns about the price going up. I said that the way that Greg and Dennis portrayed it, we were locked in at those prices. He said that I was wrong and everything goes up in price due to inflation and also said that “It wasn’t his problem”. That was not the way Greg made it sound. He then said the prices have never been over $799 in the past 4 years. I asked him for proof and he said that he didn’t have any. He was very rude and didn’t treat like a member of “The Family.” He walked away because he could see that I was getting more upset with his answers. Greg our salesman came over next. He tried to calm me down. He kept saying, “Give it a try and don’t be upset.” I told Greg that we were thinking about canceling it. He said, “You can’t because you signed the paperwork.” I told him that if I wanted to, I would contact a lawyer. He backed off and said that we don’t want to go there. I talked to Greg for a little longer. I finally decided that I had enough and just told him that I was ok. I didn’t want to waste my vacation time arguing about this. I wanted to spend time with the family and not being stressed.

When I got home from vacation, I was able to create an account on Trading places and look at the website. This was the website that they said was password protected for "Member only". I was then able to pick two vacations and reserve them without being a member. I looked at the website policies and rule#1 stated that you DO NOT NEED TO BE A MEMBER to book the hot deals. So what the heck did we pay for?

I called The Club 3 days after we signed to cancel my membership and spoke to Dennis. I told him that I wanted out of the contract. I told him that I was able to book a vacation without paying for membership. He said that he couldn’t believe it. I even told him that was listed in their FAQ’s. He said that was like a deer in headlights after hearing this. He had to take a look and call me back.

Dennis called me back. He said that I was WRONG and there was no way a non-member could look at the website. He said that I was not looking at it correctly and it was password protected. I even read to him what it said directly on the web site. He wouldn’t acknowledge it. We kept going back and forth, he insisted to give it a try. I said No and that I wanted to cancel it. He said that you couldn’t do that because of the signed contract. I said that we are not getting anywhere and that I wanted to speak to his boss. He kept ignoring my request. I told Dennis that we could do this two ways, I would dispute the charge or you could credit me. Once again he ignored me and kept going on about giving it a try. He finally said if you want to cancel, write a letter to the general manager. I asked for the address and who to send it to. He just gave me a PO Box number and no name. This got me really upset. I then asked for his boss’s name. Once again he just ignored me, for some reason he wouldn’t give me a name. Finally after going and back and forth, he said address it to Garret. Not sure why it took me raising my voice to get his name.

I sent a certified letter the next day telling them to cancel my membership. I also left a message for the manager on duty at Chula Vista.

Karolyn the manager called me back. Karolyn was very nice and was stuck in a rock and a hard place. She was represented the hotel and not "The Club." She said that since this was a legal contract that there was nothing that she could do. I informed her that I already called the Wisconsin Attorney General (Thanks to my Dad), they informed me that "The Club" had 4 complaints already. I also told her that I disputed the charge with my credit card. She was caught by surprise that I did this. I also told her that I was willing to take this to the newspapers and show how much of a scam this club is. She said that she would call me back. 30 minutes later she said that we would get a refund.

Sorry this is so long, I just don't want anyone else to scammed like we did. If we didn't fight back hard we would never have gotten a full refund back.

Here some of the facts that I learned:

1) 4 Complaints filed against them with the Wisconsin Attorney General Office. You can verify by calling them at:

DATCP (Department of Agriculture, Trade & Consumer Protection) (608) 224-4953. There will be 5 when they receive mine.

2) Look at www.trading places.com to get the same hot deals they promised. There are some deals on here

3) The other website they said was great was equivalent to the Entertainment card that schools sell to save money on restaurants, hotels, etc..

4) The salesmen at The Club use high pressure to get you to sign and can be big bullies. Plus they tell very cheesy jokes.

5) Don't be ashamed if you felt scammed by them. It happens to the best of us. Just make sure you keep very detailed notes, this helped me tremendously. It's what you do afterward that counts.

Hello, I just came from Chula Vista, Any idea if The Wilderness offers a club like this? I wasn't a fan of Chula Vista resort but the program sounded like a good idea.

Thanks