Diamond Resorts Class Action Says Elderly Targeted With Abusive Sales Tactics

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A retired Arizona couple says Diamond Resorts timeshare companies have been targeting older consumers with abusive sales tactics.

Plaintiffs Ilona and Lester Harding are taking on defendant Diamond Resorts International Inc. and a slew of related Diamond Resorts companies.

The Hardings allege Diamond Resorts target elderly consumers with a deceptive scheme to sell them costly points-based timeshare memberships.

The Hardings say Diamond Resorts uses manipulative tactics to establish a false bond of trust with its consumers. The company allegedly does this by employing licensed real estate agents and brokers, who in the course of the sale, state that they are legally bound by duties of disclosure and truthfulness.

Having established that trust, the plaintiffs claim, Diamond Resorts then abuses it by withholding material information from its elderly customers.

The company allegedly uses high-pressure sales tactics to compel them to buy pricey timeshare memberships that don’t make economic sense for a person over 60 years of age.

These tactics reportedly tricked the Hardings into buying a timeshare they didn’t really want, and at significant expense.

The Hardings say that in January 2013, Diamond Resorts invited them and other members of the Monarch vacation club, a competitor club to Diamond Resorts, to a 90-minute dinner. This dinner was supposed to be an update about Monarch, the Hardings say – but it turned out to be a sales presentation for Diamond Resorts.

At that dinner, the plaintiffs say they were told Monarch was in financial trouble and that their Monarch timeshare interests would soon be worthless. Agents from Diamond Resorts then pressured the attendees into purchasing Diamond Resorts timeshare interests, they allege.

The Hardings say this “90-minute” dinner, which began at 6 p.m., continued past midnight. Agents dragged the occasion out into a six-plus hour long marathon of high-pressure sales tricks, according to this Diamond Resorts class action lawsuit.

Finally, the Hardings caved and bought a Diamond Resorts timeshare, at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars. They subsequently found themselves unable to book rooms at any of the Diamond Resorts properties they wanted to use.

Time and again, the company’s online reservation system told them the desired properties were completely booked.

This Diamond Resorts timeshare class action lawsuit is not the only litigation the company has faced recently. In November 2016, a California couple sued Diamond Resorts claiming the company deceptively pressured them into trading their Monarch timeshare for a Life Vacations timeshare – a trade they say resulted in a $20,000 loss.

The Hardings seek to represent a plaintiff Class that would include all persons who were 60 years old or older at the time they purchased a Diamonds Resorts membership interest but who have not yet received a full refund of their payment.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to rescind all membership agreements. They also seek an award of damages, restitution and civil penalties, plus court costs and attorneys’ fees, all with interest.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs and the proposed Class include G. Mark Albright and Chris Albright of Albright Stoddard Warnick & Albright, Kathryn Honecker and Audra E. Petrolle of Rose Law Group PC, and Robert C. Tarics of The Tarics Law Firm PC.

The Diamond Resorts Fraudulent Timeshare Sales Class Action Lawsuit is Ilona Harding, et al. v. Diamond Resorts Holdings LLC, et al., Case No. 2:17-cv-00248, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada.