Shocking service to long standing members

Good day

Service Complaint : Sun City Vacation Club Membership M30857

This is a complaint regarding how my check-in on the 4th of December 2017 was handled. Upon check-in at Vacation club reception, I was told that there was an amount due on my account and thus I must speak to someone on the line. I was then connected to a David Ranaana – after explaining to him that the booking was done on my old vacation club membership which was already paid up, I expected to only pay levies due. I felt bul**** into paying for the new timeshare membership arrears- as I was not given an option for a fair payment arrangement.

I asked David to put me through to a supervisor (Vanitha Raman) and before she even took the line I could hear her voice complaining why she has to talk to me on the line. In my entire existence, I have never felt so belittled and bul**** – her voice was very condescending and at some point it felt like she was yelling at me – to which I immediately said I did not appreciate het tone.

I have had customer service issues before - and as a long standing customer, I expected an element of ‘let's talk and see how we can help’. Vanita had no sense of empathy, as a I tried to negotiate to pay a fraction of the amount, I tried explaining that I had little kids with me and we come all the way from PTA and the conversation was just prolonged unnecessarily. I actually got the sense that she was enjoying the fact that we were in distress and was not willing to hear me out/ offer a solution.

The only reason I didn’t cancel was because I was with my excited kids standing there. You owe it to your customers to explain:

1. that buying a new timeshare impacts on your old timeshare bookings. 2. I did not receive a letter/ notification saying that my 4-8 December booking is considered void due to arrears on new timeshare. 3. Why is the payment amount not negotiable? After this traumatic experience and being told there was no room for negotiations- when my husband eventually called....he was told his attitude is right and the amount moved from R8000 to R6000... I will take this forward as one of the 'Not to do' in a customer service situation. I kept on telling Vanita that paying R8000 on the go was steep and unreasonable as I needed money to spend for the kids- and I was told the system is rigid and no payment arrangements can be made. To my surprise, my husband – who is NOT the owner of the timeshare called and the amount was reduced to R6000?? At what point did the non- flexible rule then vanish? Does that mean only a male voice gets to resolve / get an arrangement?* As if that was not enough , she had the audacity to send us an email wishing us a happy holiday...and ended it with the ' our husband ' note - where she referred to my husband as ‘our husband’ – I don’t know whether to take this as tasteless / genuine mistake 4. After paying the R6000 and having my holiday start on a bad note, we then had to deal with a room that had endless issues- the toilet was not flushing, plugs where not charging.

After this traumatic experience I will probably sell what's left of my timeshare as I have now seen that Sun vacation club does not value my loyalty and long membership. I cannot be treated like a running ******** when this is 2nd if not 3rd 10year membership. I am failing to understand what the strategy is here - if it is for making your customers feel cornered and bul****, you have managed to do that with flying colours. Arrangements can be made for payments - but you can **** your customer loyalty in a second. After purchasing my second Vacation Club membership and getting so many colleagues to join - guess how that conversation will go now...`miss a payment and they will bully you – they will use your second membership to bully you.