My sister signed up for every competition and prize drawing at the Bridal Fair we attended at the Grand America at the beginning of the year.
The funny thing was she actually won a few things, so when she got the phone call from the "Resort Stay" competition telling her she had won 2 round trip tickets and 2 nights 3 days for any place in the continental US she thought it was legit.
She had won other things that were legitimate so why would this be any different ?
The only catch to this was she had to be between 25 and 75, so since she is 21 she asked if I could get her trip.
The guys said yes, and she gave him my number.
So Friday I got a phone call from some guy telling me my sister had given her AMAZING trip to me, free flights and free lodging and I would get that in the mail.
BUT if I agreed to go to a presentation I would get a free weeks lodging in Hawaii and a free week in Vegas.
It sounded good to me, I wasn't really paying much attention to what he was saying because I was getting dinner for my younger siblings and son, so my lie discerning skills weren't up to par at this particular time.
Anyway, I gave the guy my email address, where he said he would send me a confirmation email with all the details of my BIG WIN.
I barely read the email, just kind of skimmed over and briefly told Stephen about it, from the beginning it didn't sound right to him.
He read the confirmation email and he the things I was promised over the phone, weren't even mentioned on the email, so he was VERY skeptical.
They told us Sunday was the only day we could go, so we scheduled it for Noon on Sunday in Park City.
Every month from about the 5th to the 14th is Stephens busy time, he can't plan anything because he HAS to be at work, and since June 6th is my birthday, and I'm pretty big on celebrating myself,we decided to go to Zooms in Park City, a restaurant we love, and do some shopping. I'm pretty sure the only reason Stephen even agreed to go was because he knows how much of a pain I would be if I didn't get something good for my birthday, I'm spoilt and a little pathetic, I know and I don't care, I LOVE PRESENTS !!!
So we checked online and found out Zooms is only open from 10:30am to 2:30pm for there lunch block, so we figured we could go to this presentation, which was supposed to be 90 mins, and then get some lunch before heading to the outlets.
We got to the place they were having the presentation at about 10 mins to 12, they had told us to be a little early so we could fill out the paper work.
The email had also said we need to have 2 forms of id so they could make sure we were who we said we were, freak, we should have asked them for some id.
So we walk to the front desk, where a women and a man are sitting.
They give us some paper work to fill out, nothing too personal, so we sit on this couch and start filling the paperwork out.
This girl, who we will call LIG (little informative girl) who looks about 12 or 13 kind of stands by the couch while Stephen is filling the paper work out, and as he finishes Stephen asks me if we should go over to them and ask about all the things we were promised.
So he goes to stand up and take the clipboard with the papers to the desk, and the LIG is like, I can take that for you, so she takes it into this room and she goes back to the desk to sit by the lady who gave us the paper work in the first place.
Stephen and I get up to go and ask the lady about all the things we were promised.
So we're sitting there telling the lady what I was told over the phone, and she is staring at us blankly, while we're explaining everything, the LIG pipes up in her professional voice, " Unfortunately. this has happened to a number of people, in order to get your flights you have to attend the 90 min presentation. The week in Hawaii is an upgrade, but you will receive your week in Las Vegas in the mail. "
After the LIG explains all this, I'm looking at Stephen like, are you kidding me ? This LIG is explaining this stuff to me and the woman sitting there has no idea what is going on.
What the crap ?
20 mins goes by and we are still sitting there, I'm getting anxious because I want to make sure we get to Zooms to eat and they are running late, Stephen gets up to tell the woman behind the desk that we need to leave by 1:30pm and he inquires what time this thing is getting started, and she has no idea, the LIG tells him that it takes 20 mins for them to set everything up so it wont be starting for a little bit longer. Then she walks in the back, I'm sure to tell them that we are needing to leave in a little while.
They come out and the get us and the 3 other couples who are waiting and they take us into this conference room, where we listen to this salesman do his pitch on Time Shares.
Since I have no idea what Time Shares really cost I'm not thinking much of what they are saying, hell the only reason we are there is to see if we get a free trip !
So this man is explaining how Geo Holiday, the name of the Time Share company, has been around for 20 years and I'm looking at the posters and everything set up thinking, I'm sure you've been around for 20 years, your posters are from the 80's.
They put on a 12 min dvd which confirms they are an 80's company, the presenter has an open shirt with a gold chain and a ton of chest hair, and as we're watching it, I'm cracking up laughing, so rude, I know.
After the 12 min video they send each couple off to a sales rep to go over all of the packages.
I think the little girl told them we had to leave because the guy we get acts like hes super busy, and give us some questionnaire to fill out, and tells us he has other customers to attend to and then walks in the back.
I'm thinking hes acting, that its his sales pitch to act like hes super busy so if we're not interested we can just fill out the questions and then leave.
So we fill out the questions, and he walks back and asks if we have any questions, I shrug my shoulders because all I'm thinking about is eating, and Stephen asks to see what the packages are, he just wants to have a look at some prices.
So he shows us a plan that is $30,000.00 and then tells us hes going to get the basic price list.
When I see the $30,000.00 I'm pretty bewildered, I don't know what I thought Time Shares cost but there is no way we are going to pay for that, we barely take holidays, and when we do, we usually get hook ups on where we stay, whether its hotels, vacation rental properties or if we stay with someone.
The guys walks out with his numbers, I think the cheapest one was $28,000.00 and I just busted up laughing in his face.
I'm thinking our cars aren't even worth that much, we've taken like 2 actual vacations in the 5 years we've been together ( I don't count going somewhere for a wedding or a funeral as a vacation, since its not really relaxing OR for me) so why would we pay $300 a month or whatever it is to get something like this ?
At this time we can tell the sales guy is getting a pretty pissed at us.
Stephens asking questions like hes interested and I'm just thinking to myself forget this place, you want my credit card details for $300 + a month, you have a LIG as a customer service person, and your 80's dvd's are just killing me. So unless I want my identity stolen or credit card fraud or something, forget it.
So Stephen and the sales guy are talking, and Stephen starts letting him down, telling him how we barely go anywhere and when we do we look for deals, and sometimes we are lucky enough to get a hook up.
The sales guy, who is pretty annoyed starts asking Stephen when hes going to man up and take care of things himself, after he says that, I'm so over it I say to Stephen lets go, and Stephen tells the guy we're not interested.
He tells us to go get our free gift at the front desk and he walks off, so we go to the reception desk and the LIG gives us the mail in form, she explains how we redeem the flights and lodging and then we leave.
As we are walking out, at 1:20pm, we see this other young couple and there faces just drop when they see we have left, we can tell they just want to get out of there, but they weren't as rude as we were.
We're laughing as we are leaving, just at how random and ridiculous the whole thing was, and now I'm stoked to go to Zooms.
We get to Zooms just to find out, its booked out for a business function and it will be open for dinner for the public at 5pm.
I was pretty bummed out about this, so we went to the outlets, got some clothes for Mana and our new baby, a couple of things to cover my ever expanding belly/body, and then we went to The Cheesecake Factory, where we ate a ton and loved it !
Such a random day.
Outside the Teppanyaki Place
eating ..
