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Manhattan Club Lawsuit
I understand there was a class action suit started against MC in 2011, mentioned here on pg 1 of forum. Does anyone have any input as to current status and/or who is handling the suit? Is there any legal action currently underway representing MC owners? Thanks. Ron
Ronald B.
has anyone heard of the timeshareexitteam ? They claim that they can legally get you out of your timeshare ownership. They say they are represented by a law firm in Washington State by the name of ReidHein. But, it's hard to get any information on the law firm or the company that works with them. Their fee is based on what our maintenance fees are. So, the cost of having them get us out of our Manhattan Club ownership would be $4300 and change, paid up front, with 100% money back guarantee. We felt all the red flags going up. How does one know when to trust a business like this? Probably never? The guy was nice, just like the timeshare salespeople who were so successful in talking us into the timeshare purchase. Just wanted to put this out there in case any of you have had experience trying to sell your timeshare thru a company like this.
Sherylbaron B.
I believe that effort fell apart. Partially because some of the info presented be the group of owners involved was not technically correct. For example, they used the assumption that the number of init-days was the 286 units multiplied by 365. TMC lawyers showed that some ownerships were not EVERY year so the basic assumption about 'overselling' was not correct. The also showed records that some of the complainants were not current on fees when they attempted to book time....so it was a weak case, with flaws in math , and less than perfect representative owners.
Dennis C.
edmunds2 wrote:Sounds like we owners have very little legal standing in this matter! Realizing that there might very well be some individual credit ramifications, what if the majority of owners chose not to pay the outrageous annual fees, which could no doubt create some internal problems for the organization! Not sure of the legal ramifications however! Any input?
Any owners continuing to give money to TMC are funding the organization and the lawyers who are screwing us. I've stopped paying, and urge all owners to do the same. WE HAVE TO STARVE THE BEAST!
Why should we continue to pay TMC for a timeshare which they deny us the use of?
Robert B.
According to ammendment disclosures, 1/3 of TMC rooms are held for exclusive use by TMC management. So it then follows that there are really only about 188 available rooms in the Timeshare pool. Accordingly, the top limit of timeshare units sold should be based this lower number, not 286. If this is the case, it makes the point-of-sale misrepresentation even more egregious.
Furthermore If criminal charges are proven, it is my understanding that Judiciary has options that include punishment with imprisonment, fines and/or required reimbursement to investors even without them bringing civil action. If in the "discovery phase" there is an abundance of credible evidence establishing guilt, the more frequent outcome is some kind of settlement. Stay tuned.
dennisc283 wrote:I believe that effort fell apart. Partially because some of the info presented be the group of owners involved was not technically correct. For example, they used the assumption that the number of init-days was the 286 units multiplied by 365. TMC lawyers showed that some ownerships were not EVERY year so the basic assumption about 'overselling' was not correct. The also showed records that some of the complainants were not current on fees when they attempted to book time....so it was a weak case, with flaws in math , and less than perfect representative owners.
John L.
I urge all TMC timeshare owners to send an email to Brenda Heredia at the address given by RedWeek staffer a week or so ago (Brenda.Heredia@ny.ag.gov). She responded next day to my email complaints of the TMC, saying her office would get back to me soon (I believe she is the secretary handling all our incoming complaints). Today Brenda emailed a letter to me from Asst AG Farooq. Following is the first couple of paragraphs of his letter. "This Office has received your correspondence about the Manhattan Club and has added your name and contact information to our files.
Thank you for reaching out to us; it was because of information provided by Manhattan Club purchasers like you that we were able to commence the General Business Law Section 354 public investigation in the New York State Supreme Court, New York County, identified as In the Matter of an Inquiry by Eric T. Schneiderman, Index No. 451536/2014. The goal of our investigation is to address allegations that have been made about the practices of the Manhattan Club. If, as a result of the investigation, we are able to prove that the law has been broken, we hope to be able to provide relief for all of the affected Manhattan Club purchasers.
In the meantime, please provide us with all documents in your possession concerning your experiences with the Manhattan Club. Such documents might include the following: "
I'm reading some very unscrupulous things on this RedWeek site, done by TMC to unsuspecting timeshare owners. Please, I urge you, if you haven't already, cut and paste what you have written here and put it in an email to Brenda Heredia at the NY AG's office. If you haven't written anything yet, now is the time to do it. The more ammo the AG has, the better his chance of winning against a highly paid defense team. It's very encouraging that the Asst AG says they hope to be able to provide relief to all affected MC purchasers. As the dupes in this TMC fraud, we need to do all we can to help the AG "prove that the law has been broken." I'm making copies of all my TMC documents and mailing them asap to the AG.
Sally W.
Just and FYI
My wife and I are owners following this blog closely. It seemed from your comments that the AG may be looking for a list of concerned owners. However, I have sent several introductory emails to Ms Heredia with no response. Of concern today I tried again and the emails were rejected "Your message wasn't delivered because the recipient's email provider rejected it". Any thoughts? thanks
sallyw109 wrote:I urge all TMC timeshare owners to send an email to Brenda Heredia at the address given by RedWeek staffer a week or so ago (Brenda.Heredia@ny.ag.gov). She responded next day to my email complaints of the TMC, saying her office would get back to me soon (I believe she is the secretary handling all our incoming complaints). Today Brenda emailed a letter to me from Asst AG Farooq. Following is the first couple of paragraphs of his letter."This Office has received your correspondence about the Manhattan Club and has added your name and contact information to our files.
Thank you for reaching out to us; it was because of information provided by Manhattan Club purchasers like you that we were able to commence the General Business Law Section 354 public investigation in the New York State Supreme Court, New York County, identified as In the Matter of an Inquiry by Eric T. Schneiderman, Index No. 451536/2014. The goal of our investigation is to address allegations that have been made about the practices of the Manhattan Club. If, as a result of the investigation, we are able to prove that the law has been broken, we hope to be able to provide relief for all of the affected Manhattan Club purchasers.
In the meantime, please provide us with all documents in your possession concerning your experiences with the Manhattan Club. Such documents might include the following: "
I'm reading some very unscrupulous things on this RedWeek site, done by TMC to unsuspecting timeshare owners. Please, I urge you, if you haven't already, cut and paste what you have written here and put it in an email to Brenda Heredia at the NY AG's office. If you haven't written anything yet, now is the time to do it. The more ammo the AG has, the better his chance of winning against a highly paid defense team. It's very encouraging that the Asst AG says they hope to be able to provide relief to all affected MC purchasers. As the dupes in this TMC fraud, we need to do all we can to help the AG "prove that the law has been broken." I'm making copies of all my TMC documents and mailing them asap to the AG.
Gerald C.
I wrote Ms. Heridia, who quickly responded that she had received my complaint and that it would be filed for review. I am going to share what I wrote, because I have not seen anything in this forum as to the issue of what happens when you inherit. If you have a will or an estate plan, these timeshares have to be included and TMC can continue to collect fees after your death from your estate or your heirs. Here is what I wrote: and I encourage others to write, there is power in numbers.
Dear Ms. Heridia,
I have been keeping up with the forum on Redweek. Many on the forum have strongly advised that members contact you with our story re: the nightmare of a situation with The Manhattan Club. (going forward in this email I will refer to it as TMC)
My mother and sister invested in a timeshare together in the early 2000’s and my mother owned another. She and my sister were smart women and were convinced they were investing in a good real estate transaction where they would have deeded property in New York.
I remember the day they were in the initial sales pitch, my sister, who had just undergone chemotherapy for breast cancer, called me crying, because they had been in the pitch for 3 hours and the sales people literally would not let them leave. I told them to get out of there, and when they attempted to leave they were handed over to this wonderful woman (I know her name) who convinced them to clinch the deal.
It soon became evident that it was difficult to impossible to reserve time at TMC. Each year my mother’s credit card was charged 6 months before the due date of the invoice, without any notice and it always upset her because she was careful about planning her expenses and alloting for them. She was told the only way she could hope to get time at the club, was to pay the fees a year in advance. Often, due to things that came up in life over the years, (mostly illness) my mother and sister had to forfeit their two weeks or give it away. And as many others have shared the fees keep rising. You know all this.
I would like to share what I now face, as my sister passed away in 2008 and my mother passed away in 2013 and I have inherited the two timeshares. I pay almost $ 6,000 in fees, yearly, which I and my husband can’t and don’t want to afford. We can only afford them at the moment, due some money I inherited and I don’t want to deplete my inheritance on these fees when I would rather save it for retirement, which is imminent.
I was not on the deeds, though I was still responsible for the fees as executor of my mother’s estate. I had to hire a NY attorney to go through ancillary probate, file taxes in NY and pay various outrageous fees to have these timeshares deeded in my name and appraised on the advice of my lawyers and accountant, even though I insisted I knew they were worth nothing. I paid thousands of dollars out of my inheritance to deal with this issue, with every kind of fee imaginable.
One timeshare was appraised at $20,000 and the other at $30,000. Last June I gave one back to the club, I was told within 6 months I would get $100 and be free of it, and thought, according to my accountant, that I could write off some sort of loss. Due to the investigation, that commenced last July, this process has been put on hold indefinitely, with no idea of what the outcome will be. I cannot write it off and I cannot use it and I did pay the fees on it for last year. In order to give a unit back you have to be current with the fees.
My husband and I did estate planning this past year and our lawyer advised us to get rid of these timeshares because they would prove to be a nightmare for our heirs (we have no children, but have planned to leave whatever is left after our deaths to my husbands father and brother and my cousins in Iceland).
The real nightmare of this situation is that I cannot give them back, I cannot sell them (no one wants to buy them), and if I quit paying the fees, TMC could ruin my otherwise excellent credit. I don’t want to be forced to have to go to NYC every year. And if I want to go I can find other equivalent accommodations more cheaply and go when I want to. Heck I can reserve whatever time I want much more easily as a non member of TMC, than I can as a member.
This truly is a nightmare from which I and others cannot escape. On the forum, many refer to the Attorney General’s investigation as a lawsuit, which I believe is erroneous, it is an investigation, correct? And it has been stated that even if the Attorney General does find TMC guilty of fraud and other violations that they/Mr. Eichner will just have to pay fines and go on with business as usual. Although it does say something that Mr. Eichner has hired a big guns criminal attorney. Will he just get him off the hook??
Clearly, there is a lot wrong here and the owners of TMC club have been and are being cheated, swindled, conned and scammed and have been for years.
I would think that it is the duty of the State of New York to do something about this beyond fines and help the owners get some sort of resolution/restitution. I know from what many have said, they would just be happy to get out of the ownership legally, stop paying the fees, even if they don’t get reimbursed some or all of their investment. Ideally I would like both, to get some of my money back and be rid of “investment” forever.
Please help.
Dks
Hi folks and fellow victims of TMC,
I received this email today (first time I've gotten anything in email communication-usually it's a voicemail on my home phone telling me my maintenance fees are past due, which I never pick up, AND AM NOT GOING TO PAY) and wondered if anyone else received this? See below:
I am contacting you today regarding your past due fees. I received approval to offer you a program to help bring your account current. Right now your balance is $2604.35, with a one-time payment, I can bring your account current for $1976.18 saving you $628.17. Please contact me immediately as this is a very limited time offer. Thank you! Thank you, Kendra Christopher Financial Services Representative The Manhattan Club 212-453-8366 Direct 212-453-8320 Fax E: kendrac@tmcny.com
Patti B.