My wife is retired. I am near retirement age and I was laid off early this year and have not found regular employment since. We were vacationing in the Cabo San Lucas area and succumbed to the high pressure enticements of a time share sales artist and on 17 Oct 2008 signed the documents purchase a timeshare at a resort called Playa Grande.
At that time, my wife was carrying a new Chase Visa card and we charged the $2,200 down payment/fees, something we really could not afford, on that card. We felt severe regret the following day and called the credit card company to dispute the charge. Since this was a new card, and we were in Mexico, a fraud alert had activated on the two charges totaling $2,200. We explained our desire to dispute the two charges and our impression that there was some sort of credit card protection (grace period) for US citizens purchasing timeshares. We requested that the fraud alert stay in place and that we also wanted to dispute the two charges. The Chase agent on the phone told us that they keep the fraud alert on and also add the dispute and that we should be fine.
Both before we returned and after we returned to the US, we tried calling the timeshare in Mexico but could not make contact with anyone of substance. After several attempts to contact the proper person at the resort (all the while informing the operators there at the resort of our intent), on 27 Oct we sent the resort an email notifying them of our intent not to fulfill the contract. Chase sent us dispute forms and we completed those and returned them with copies of the contract. We have never used any part of the timeshare program at this resort.
Chase disputed the charge and gave us credit. The resort billed us for the monthly payments and we returned each invoice to the resort with a marking that the contract was canceled. Eventually, the resort stopped billing us.
In the meantime, Chase denied the dispute and reinstated the $2,200 charge. We wrote long letters and included all documentation, indicating our feeling that the denial was unfair. Chase reinstated the dispute and gave us credit again. Then, later, they denied the dispute again and charged us again. After more letters and several phone calls, we learned from Chase that the bank paid the vendor the $2,200 back in the beginning but, after several attempts by the bank to get their money back, they gave up, determined to collect their loss from us.
We feel that Chase treated us unfairly and we made this feeling explicit to them in writing on several occasions. Chase should not have paid the vendor while the charge was in dispute. Now that they cannot get their money back from the vendor, they are penalizing us.
This $2,200 is currently partitioned onto a Chase card at 0% interest for a few more months, at which time it will need payment. We have resigned ourselves that we will not pay this bill, regardless of what it does to our credit.
We would be very interested in your thoughts on this and on how, if possible, to resolve this in our favor.
