I Once Worked for a Scam Timeshare Company
And I’ll give you some tips on how to avoid them.
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Allow me to provide some context before you become angry with me.
This occurred approximately 20 years ago. I only accepted the position at Chateau World because I disliked my previous job at Sears Homes.
At Sears Homes, I was originally hired to work as an Administrative Assistant, only helping out those in the Customer Service department when they were on their break. Because Sears did not train their Customer Service Representatives adequately, all of them quit after one week. I ended up having to take phone calls, greet customers, and deal with them instead of being an Admin Assistant.
The fact of the matter is that a large number of those phone calls were from angry customers. There were many complaints, ranging from damaged appliances to broken furniture when those were delivered. The primary issue was that the head of the delivery company, that Sears unwisely outsourced to, always acted like a big baby. I wish that Sears would let me give out that other company’s phone number so that they can hear how poor their service is from the customer. But I couldn’t.
Worst of all, Sears never trained me how to deal with these angry customers. I ended up everyday going home angry and wanting to literally kick the cat. So, while I was off work and couldn’t take it anymore after five months of this, I decided to look for another job. That’s when I got one at Chateau World.
It’s important that I mention that I am happy that Sears is no longer in business. I have sympathy for those who worked their entire lives there. When those CEOs got their bonuses while they were letting all their employees go, I was livid.
I remember reading a quote from Richard Branson that said something like, employees should be treated the way the employer would want to be treated. And he is right. If you treat your employees well, then your customers will be happy. A lot of companies these days, though, forget about this and treat their employees like they are expendable instead of human.
Chateau World
The job that I got was that of Data Entry Operator. The reason why I took this was because I didn’t want to deal with angry customers ever again.
The job that I did was pretty simple. I entered the names of all those who wanted to win a car, trip, or money from the previous weekend’s trade show or festival into the system. How I got them was through the management sales team who were at the trade shows or festivals. Those entered into the system will then be sent to the telemarketers. The telemarketers are the ones who sell the timeshares to these people. If any of these people agree, then the telemarketer will schedule a meeting for them in a conference room in a hotel, to get more details about these timeshares.
By the way, on one of my days off, I did go to one of those festivals in Calgary where I did see my Chateau World coworkers at a booth selling contest tickets.
The timeshares that Chateau World was selling were in Canmore, Alberta.
I forgot to mention that when I first arrived at my job interview there, I noticed that there was a desk at the front, but no secretary. In fact, there were no secretaries when I worked there. The office had four rooms: the entrance, the room for the telemarketers and another where I worked. In between the telemarketer and the data entry rooms, were one where all the managers worked. Even the director, who I am going to call A, was there a few times. I never talked to him. I didn’t want to in the first place. Plus, he wasn’t my boss.
Now, back to the job itself. I can’t remember the first time it happened, but I did get a couple of bounced paychecks. I think the first time I was worried was until one of the managers gave me a check for the amount of money that I was paid. That should have been my first clue that this company was a scam. The other times that my paycheck bounced, I gave them heck until I got one for those two weeks.
There was a high turnover for this job. Again, something that I didn’t notice was a red flag.
But there was one that I did see. When us data entry people finished entering all those contest entries into the system and we still had time, the next thing that we did was to shred lots of papers.
But these were not just any papers. The names of the victims who agreed to spend their hard-earned money on a shotty resort in Canmore were written on pieces of paper of different colors.
I did read some comments. Some people mentioned that the property had some structural problems and had doubts about this timeshare. And from what else I have read from these questionnaires, the victims were asked to go to a conference room in a hotel so that A and the Managers could do a presentation inviting these people to invest in this scam. We didn’t shred anything else but those. I mentioned this because they are important. I will explain why later on in this article.
There was another thing that I noticed. The first time that I saw this was burned into my memory. The eviction notice was hanging on the front door when I went to work one morning. I was worried, so I showed that notice to one of the managers. She said that I shouldn’t worry about it. So I didn’t.
I continued on working. There was a time when I finished both data entry and shredding papers, that the managers asked me to do some other type of data entry work.
The Christmas Party
The Chateau World Christmas party took place at Canmore in a restaurant. I brought my parents with me. It took us an hour and 13 minutes to get from Calgary to Canmore by car. I can’t remember much about the party, except that one of the managers asked me if my parents and I would like to sleep for one night in one of the rooms at the resort. I said no to that request. I was exhausted and just wanted to go home to my own bed.
Eventually, I discovered that Chateau World had another office. How? There was a woman who occasionally came by the office to talk to the managers. The last time that I saw her, she noticed the eviction sign on the door and laid off everyone. I was back once again looking for work. I think that I worked there for a year when this happened.
Cheateauworld.com
I did end up taking a position at a legitimate company. However, I thought about my experience at Chateau World and one day, decided to go online and Google it to see if there are victims who wrote something about their experience there. I ended up finding cheateauworld.com.
Whoever put this website up did it because they were looking for people who worked for Chateau World. They also wanted the paper evidence that they were scammed for a class action lawsuit against the company. I emailed this person.
I get an email back from them asking if I worked at Chateau World as a manager in one of their conferences (Or something like that). I wrote a note saying no I did not. I did mention that I worked as a Data Entry Operator there. Then I got another email in response saying they were only looking for Chateau World employees they saw when they were in the conference room in this lawsuit. That’s too bad. I really did wish that they did accept me. I knew what happened to the evidence they needed: I shred them.
What happened then was that in 2007, the case was finally settled between the victims and Chateau World. By that time, the company changed their name to something else. The resort that they shamelessly scammed everyone on was, by then, gone.
The last that I heard of Chateau World was that they folded in 2010.
What Did I Learn?
Well, there are a couple of things. First, if the company does not have a receptionist at the front, something is wrong with them (I worked for a legit company that didn’t have one as well).
If you go to a festival or a trade show, do not enter any contests where the prizes are expensive, like money, cars, or trips. You will most likely receive a telephone call from a telemarketer a few days later if you do. You can enter to win a gift basket. But if the salesperson asked for you to go join them in their MLM scheme, please politely refuse them.
And third — if your check bounces and/or you find an eviction notice at the front door to your office, there is something terribly wrong with that company.
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References
Chateau World Travel Club update | CTV News. (2010, April 28). CTV News Calgary. Retrieved September 26, 2022, from https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/chateau-world-travel-club-update-1.506800
Fraud charges laid in Alberta time-share collapse. (2011, August 2). CBC. Retrieved September 26, 2022, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/fraud-charges-laid-in-alberta-time-share-collapse-1.1091014
Province launches time-share check | CTV News. (2009, November 19). CTV News Calgary. Retrieved September 26, 2022, from https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/province-launches-time-share-check-1.455993
Timeshare resort faces problems. (2010, April 6). CTV News Calgary. Retrieved September 26, 2022, from https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/chateau-world-s-future-up-in-the-air-1.499251
