On the 29th April this year, a Judge and Jury will make a decision which could assist consumers who were pressured and miss sold Diamond International timeshare contracts in getting rid of the burden it has put on them.
A class action is currently ongoing against the company as the Plaintiffs in the matter claim that “the company violated the Vacation Ownership and Timeshare Act of 2004 and committed financial elder abuse”.
The lead Plaintiff Mrs Sharon Ferraro claims that she was also told during the sales pitch her quarterly maintenance fees would go down. But despite paying to upgrade her timeshare, Ferraro claims her timeshare has become worthless and the maintenance fees have actually increased monthly to a level she can’t afford to pay.
A local newspaper has reported that Ferraro says she originally purchased a timeshare from Pacific Monarch Resorts and paid $19,000.
Diamond later acquired Monarch and a sales representative contacted Ferraro to come to a meeting to purchase additional points to use toward her vacation rental. Ferraro went to a sales pitch meeting in Palm Springs in 2013, where she was told if she did not upgrade her timeshare eventually there would be few to no resorts for her to choose from.
Along with the lead Plaintiff, those involved in pursuing the case have all submitted similar experiences.
On Wednesday, the Defendant in the matter appealed to the Court for the case to be dismissed.
“Diamond Resorts argued that Ferraro and the other plaintiffs could not possibly participate in one trial because there were 19 different timeshare transactions across 15 years and four states – all sold to the plaintiffs by different salespeople.
Each plaintiff interacted with a salesperson, contract person and manager who oversaw the transaction, with zero overlap in witnesses identified by Ferraro and the other plaintiffs, Diamond argued, and asked Strauss to sever the suit for separate trials.
Keeping track of the different people involved and different state laws could potentially confuse a jury, Diamond said.
“Imagine the jury’s eyes glazing over as they try to understand laws from different states and try to apply it,” Diamond’s attorney Craig Marcus said. “An outright dismissal is the appropriate remedy.”
Diamond said the plaintiffs claim a single scheme across three vacation rental sellers – Sunterra Corporation, Monarch and Diamond – took place. The company denied this, noting the sellers were independent companies. Diamond later acquired the other two vacation rental companies from whom many of the plaintiffs had originally purchased their vacation packages.
Ferraro argued while the purchases may have been facilitated by different salespeople at different companies, the contracts entered into by the plaintiffs were the same and their whistle blowers could attest to the deliberate ways Diamond swindled the timeshare owners out of money.
“There is a scheme that exists within Diamond to defraud people,” Ferraro’s attorney Veronica Aguilar said.
The Judge in the case told the parties if later down the road there’s a reason to settle claims brought by individual plaintiffs, they would discuss it when the time came.
The Defendants in the case include;
Diamond Resorts Financial Services
Diamond Resorts Hawaii Collection Development
Diamond Resorts International Club, Diamond Resorts International Marketing
Diamond Resorts Management
Diamond Resorts U.S. Collection Members Association
Diamond Resorts US Collection Development ILX Acquisition, and Premiere Vacation Collection Owners Association.
For more information regarding this article or assistance in any other timeshare related issues please contact the TCA on 01908 881058 or email: info@TimeshareConsumerAssociation.org.uk