We’ve all heard the horror stories of innocent unsuspecting consumers going to a timeshare presentation and being held there under duress for hours on end. But wait until you hear what happened to a couple from Goodlettsville.
The couple in question never intended to purchase and attended the presentation out of curiosity. Their curiosity cost them $15,000 credit agreement with PayPal.
“We weren’t there for none of this crap,” Doyle Campbell exclaimed.
The Goodlettsville married couple, Doyle & Mindy Campbell, attended the Wyndham Resort off McGavock Pike recently after getting a call telling them they’d won a prize. Campbell recalled the caller telling saying, “You’ve won a very expensive gift.”
They were told by Wyndham Resort that all they had to do was attend a 90-minute timeshare presentation!!
“We told him from the start, ‘No, we weren’t buying nothing,'” Campbell said. However, they claim the Wyndham sales representatives refused to give them their ‘prize’ until they’d been there nearly five hours, with various salespeople taking turns trying to sell them a timeshare. “It was a scam,” Campbell said.
The worst was yet to come, several weeks later a letter arrived, “thanking us for opening an account with PayPal.” “The male sales representative had opened a $15,000 account on our behalf that I didn’t know nothing about,” Campbell charged.
The letter confirmed that the couple had from PayPal Credit account for $15,000 “during their recent visit to the Wyndham Resorts property.”
Campbell’s reaction? “I can’t afford that!”
In addition to this shock, the couple also discovered they’d also unknowingly applied for a Wyndham Rewards Visa card that same day.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates, heard of the claims and contacted the Campbells, asking questions such as “Was there ever any conversation during the five hours that you were there that they were going to open a line of credit for you,”. “No! No,” they replied emphatically. “Or that they were going to open a Visa card for you,” News Channel 5 Investigates continued. Again, “No. No. None of it.”
When NewsChannel 5 Investigates contacted Wyndham’s for their side Wyndham’s corporate spokesperson commented, “the Campbells should have known because they filled out the credit applications “.
When this was reported back to the Campbells, they believed the paperwork they filled out was for their prize. “And you were told you were filling this out only to get the prize,” NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked. “Cause they needed information, that way we could get our gifts. So that’s why we filled it out,” Campbell explained.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates assisted the Campbells in getting copies of their credit applications from Wyndham and the credit authorisation form, the Campbells confirmed, the documents had clearly been doctored.
“They’ve took it and pasted it together is what they did,” Mindy Campbell insisted. And the hand writing on the forms, was not that of the Campbells. “I can’t write that small,” Doyle Campbell stated.
The distressed couple also confirmed they had never signed in the long column of initials, which agreed to open the accounts and to their terms and conditions.
Further questioning by NewsChannel 5 Investigates, asked, on your application, it stated their annual salary is $60,000. “Is that accurate,”? “No, I don’t make $60,000,”. “It’s not even close.” “Somebody worked some magic to get us approved for a $15,000 loan. I mean, c’mon,” Doyle Campbell replied.
Wyndham’s corporate spokesman told NewsChannel 5 that “If they [the Campbells] don’t want the lines of credit, they simply need to contact the issuers of the credit and request a cancellation.”
Campbell claims it’s not that cut and dry. “I mean, it’s a mortgage loan. It’s a $15,000 deal!” he added. This sort of credit can stay on your credit history for two years. It’s a big deal, especially when you’re trying to buy a house. “But we can’t if we’ve got stuff like this on there,” Campbell stated. “We probably aren’t the only ones they done like this,” he added. “And, it really makes me mad.”
With regards to their ‘fantastic prize’, it turns out it wasn’t so fantastic after all. It was four plane tickets, that came with so many hidden extras and restrictions, the Campbells would have had to spend thousands of dollars to use them.
In the end, they ended up just throwing them away. All this emerged from the Campbells innocently entering a prize draw at the Opry Mills Mall. The prize they were entering was in-fact supposed to be for a Range Rover.
When Wyndham where questioned about the prize draw, the spokesperson said they collected names across the country and gave away just one car. The man who won lives in Maryland, the spokesperson added.
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