Davids DVC: Rental reimbursement or rescheduling?

[New Mouse]

I've gotten a lot of responses about why the renter is right or why the owner is right, but still no one pointed to logical solution of how the broker could possibly fix the problem. Just complaints about the one solution they offered.

Do I think the solution is perfect? Definitely not. Are there flaws? Definitely. Will everyone be made whole by the solution he came up with? No, a lot of people will lose a lot of money. Do I think its the best solution that anyone has brought to the table that I've seen? It probably is.

I think there is a better solution than the one they’ve offered. A voucher that doesn‘t require agreeing to the new terms and is equal in value to what was originally paid. If they’d offered me a voucher for an equal number of points to what I purchased and still agreed to try to help if Covid forces another closure, I’d have accepted it right away. Instead, I’ve started a charge back.
[/QUOTE]

And from an owners perspective, proof that the 30% due to all owners is in a holding account, not being user to fund the current situation.

Honesty and integrity go a long way to sustaining a business.

 

[suemom2kay]

There's a huge difference between losing money, and voluntarily losing seven times your typical income level. Keep in mind, the numbers I used were estimates based on two months of closure. Someone later corrected that it was in fact about 2500 per month of sales rather than per year.. so here is an updated calculation.

5175 x 2500 x 3 months = 39 million dollars.

It looks like your basing this on the HUGE assumption that every cancelled reservation requires a full refund. If David's would allow owners to reschedule their renters, a lot of these refunds would not be necessary.

Just curious, what was the DVC stores solution to the same issues? Nobody is discussing them

I would have to assume much better or people would be talking about it here.

Bottom line, David's made it impossible for those affected to find adequate solutions. He made a nice commission for many years and now is inventing a ponzi like scheme to get out of having to provide any of his share to fix this mess. The owners with viable points that have posted on this thread wanted to work with their renters and were precluded by David's. This is not the actions of a business trying to find solutions for their customers.

 

[Bearval]

It looks like your basing this on the HUGE assumption that every cancelled reservation requires a full refund. If David's would allow owners to reschedule their renters, a lot of these refunds would not be necessary.


I would have to assume much better or people would be talking about it here.

Bottom line, David's made it impossible for those affected to find adequate solutions. He made a nice commission for many years and now is inventing a ponzi like scheme to get out of having to provide any of his share to fix this mess. The owners with viable points that have posted on this thread wanted to work with their renters and were precluded by David's. This is not the actions of a business trying to find solutions for their customers.

I believe most of the owners want to do the right thing if they are able to. Any owner who was given points back that they are able to bank should allow them to be used by the renters in the future but the intermediary here has changed the rules and is requiring them to agree to a new contract with different language. They also stopped people from trying to mitigate their losses by telling the owners not to cancel. I see both sides and I am talking about owers and renters here. The only group that should be stuck if everyone did the right thing would be bookings that were done with points that are passed the banking date and will expire. In this case the intermediary should be responsible for using a poor contract and his actions to try and fix the situation does not bode well and gives the appearance his fixes were in his best interests

 

[glamdring269]

I first rented from David's years ago then eventually bought into DVC and used David's as a broker to rent out my points. The only real value he provided from my perspective as a DVC owner is connecting me to many more potential renters than I would get anywhere else since they are renting from his company and not from me. There is a trust there that you're just not going to get from a 1:1 exchange on a message board. It took a catastrophic event to destroy that trust and I'm really concerned about how the rental landscape is going to look when we come out of the other side of this.

 

[suemom2kay]

I believe most of the owners want to do the right thing if they are able to. Any owner who was given points back that they are able to bank should allow them to be used by the renters in the future but the intermediary here has changed the rules and is requiring them to agree to a new contract with different language. They also stopped people from trying to mitigate their losses by telling the owners not to cancel. I see both sides and I am talking about owers and renters here. The only group that should be stuck if everyone did the right thing would be bookings that were done with points that are passed the banking date and will expire. In this case the intermediary should be responsible for using a poor contract and his actions to try and fix the situation does not bode well and gives the appearance his fixes were in his best interests

Exactly!

 

[suemom2kay]

I first rented from David's years ago then eventually bought into DVC and used David's as a broker to rent out my points. The only real value he provided from my perspective as a DVC owner is connecting me to many more potential renters than I would get anywhere else since they are renting from his company and not from me. There is a trust there that you're just not going to get from a 1:1 exchange on a message board. It took a catastrophic event to destroy that trust and I'm really concerned about how the rental landscape is going to look when we come out of the other side of this.

I rented over 150 points over 5 rentals here on the DIS. It took a couple of days to rent my points. My affected renters were re-scheduled in a few minutes. An intermediary was supposed to make it safer for all, and in a normal climate, perhaps that was true. I just see us going back to basics before the David's of the world. A handy dandy contract and you're better protected than using a Canada based company here in the US.

 

[crisi]

I rented over 150 points over 5 rentals here on the DIS. It took a couple of days to rent my points. My affected renters were re-scheduled in a few minutes. An intermediary was supposed to make it safer for all, and in a normal climate, perhaps that was true. I just see us going back to basics before the David's of the world. A handy dandy contract and you're better protected than using a Canada based company here in the US.

Your ability to do so however, depended on your use year, your renters willingness to reschedule before your points expire (I'm not going to Disney for the next year and if my points expire, they expire - that's a petri dish I'm not getting close to until we get herd immunity or my family and I have established immunity). Owners whose renters were travelling at the end of their use year didn't have the luxury to reschedule - their points were expiring. And Disney extended them, but not for long enough periods of time to keep everyone happy.

Its really nice when owners were willing and able to do this for renters. Not all owners could. And David, who deals with many renters and many owners couldn't discriminate that "this pairing received X as compensation but this one received Y, and this one got nothing at all."

I see us continuing to use brokers, but with a new awareness that you are getting a spectacular deal because there is risk. That was ALWAYS the case. Brokers lowered that risk, but the risk renters take is still there if they go private. I would have been looking at renters and saying "see, non-refundable for any reason, right there in the contract."

However, most of the current brokers will have to declare bankruptcy. Some may reopen under new names.

 

[Bearval]

This is a major jump in logic. Without knowing all of the details it's impossible to know for sure, but there are plenty of other reasons (some of which I already laid out in this thread) for why he didn't allow owners to refund the cash to renters.

I don't think that would be a major jump in logic since the contract clearly states if the owner cancels the reservation they must refund payment.

 

[moab44]

Has anyone who has accepted the voucher been able to book something yet? I was told I need to wait till May for my request to be looked at.

 

[suemom2kay]

Your ability to do so however, depended on your use year, your renters willingness to reschedule before your points expire (I'm not going to Disney for the next year and if my points expire, they expire - that's a petri dish I'm not getting close to until we get herd immunity or my family and I have established immunity). Owners whose renters were travelling at the end of their use year didn't have the luxury to reschedule - their points were expiring. And Disney extended them, but not for long enough periods of time to keep everyone happy.

Its really nice when owners were willing and able to do this for renters. Not all owners could. And David, who deals with many renters and many owners couldn't discriminate that "this pairing received X as compensation but this one received Y, and this one got nothing at all."

I see us continuing to use brokers, but with a new awareness that you are getting a spectacular deal because there is risk. That was ALWAYS the case. Brokers lowered that risk, but the risk renters take is still there if they go private. I would have been looking at renters and saying "see, non-refundable for any reason, right there in the contract."

However, most of the current brokers will have to declare bankruptcy. Some may reopen under new names.

Correct, it would not work for all. But why should renter A who rented x number of points from owner A have to worry about renter B’s transaction. If David’s would allow owners to work with their renters, he would only have to deal with those without resolution. He now has every customer without resolution. Unless you consider his “voucher” program a resolution.

 

[Bearval]

Your ability to do so however, depended on your use year, your renters willingness to reschedule before your points expire (I'm not going to Disney for the next year and if my points expire, they expire - that's a petri dish I'm not getting close to until we get herd immunity or my family and I have established immunity). Owners whose renters were travelling at the end of their use year didn't have the luxury to reschedule - their points were expiring. And Disney extended them, but not for long enough periods of time to keep everyone happy.

Its really nice when owners were willing and able to do this for renters. Not all owners could. And David, who deals with many renters and many owners couldn't discriminate that "this pairing received X as compensation but this one received Y, and this one got nothing at all."

I see us continuing to use brokers, but with a new awareness that you are getting a spectacular deal because there is risk. That was ALWAYS the case. Brokers lowered that risk, but the risk renters take is still there if they go private. I would have been looking at renters and saying "see, non-refundable for any reason, right there in the contract."

However, most of the current brokers will have to declare bankruptcy. Some may reopen under new names.

I think when all of the dust settles here you are going to see the contracts go thru several rewrites until the terms get to that happy medium where both the renters and the owners find acceptable. If I were to start up a business such as this I would use a contract that was very similar to the one that was being used but I would require CFAR insurance and a check off box for the renter if they didn't want to purchase it and a full explanation of the risks. Yes this would increase the cost of the contract ( from what I have seen it would be about 10% more) and they do reduce the reimbursement the closer the arrival date is when you cancel.

 

[glamdring269]

I rented over 150 points over 5 rentals here on the DIS. It took a couple of days to rent my points. My affected renters were re-scheduled in a few minutes. An intermediary was supposed to make it safer for all, and in a normal climate, perhaps that was true. I just see us going back to basics before the David's of the world. A handy dandy contract and you're better protected than using a Canada based company here in the US.

Did you have previous experience/references? Honestly have never tried to use the board as I assumed with 0 references/rental history it would be difficult to get anyone to move forward. Gotta start somewhere though.

 

[suemom2kay]

Did you have previous experience/references? Honestly have never tried to use the board as I assumed with 0 references/rental history it would be difficult to get anyone to move forward. Gotta start somewhere though.

Nope! Just bought my contract and it came with loaded points I couldn’t use.

 

[crisi]

Correct, it would not work for all. But why should renter A who rented x number of points from owner A have to worry about renter B’s transaction. If David’s would allow owners to work with their renters, he would only have to deal with those without resolution. He now has every customer without resolution. Unless you consider his “voucher” program a resolution.

Because they have a contract not with the owner, but with David. And David needs to apply policy consistently because he is running a business, not a free for all.

 

[VeroGuy]

Your ability to do so however, depended on your use year, your renters willingness to reschedule before your points expire (I'm not going to Disney for the next year and if my points expire, they expire - that's a petri dish I'm not getting close to until we get herd immunity or my family and I have established immunity). Owners whose renters were travelling at the end of their use year didn't have the luxury to reschedule - their points were expiring. And Disney extended them, but not for long enough periods of time to keep everyone happy.

Its really nice when owners were willing and able to do this for renters. Not all owners could. And David, who deals with many renters and many owners couldn't discriminate that "this pairing received X as compensation but this one received Y, and this one got nothing at all."

I see us continuing to use brokers, but with a new awareness that you are getting a spectacular deal because there is risk. That was ALWAYS the case. Brokers lowered that risk, but the risk renters take is still there if they go private. I would have been looking at renters and saying "see, non-refundable for any reason, right there in the contract."

However, most of the current brokers will have to declare bankruptcy. Some may reopen under new names.

I don’t believe that to be true, David’s rental contract with me specifically states that if the reservation CANNOT be fulfilled due to any action outside of the renters control like the owner canceling the resi or *DVCM, acting on behalf of the owner canceling the resi I am due a refund in full paid by the intermediary.

“Should accommodations not be available on date of arrival due to an action or omission by the Member, including but not limited to negligence on the part of the Member and after communication with the Intermediary, suitable comparable accommodations for the same dates cannot be secured by the Member, the Renter will be due a refund limited to the amount paid which is $x,xxx.xx US Dollars.”

David has pitted owners against renters when we really all should be flat out saying no to this one sided voucher that releases him from his obligations of the original contract.

*Edited for clarification

 

[crisi]

I think when all of the dust settles here you are going to see the contracts go thru several rewrites until the terms get to that happy medium where both the renters and the owners find acceptable. If I were to start up a business such as this I would use a contract that was very similar to the one that was being used but I would require CFAR insurance and a check off box for the renter if they didn't want to purchase it and a full explanation of the risks. Yes this would increase the cost of the contract ( from what I have seen it would be about 10% more) and they do reduce the reimbursement the closer the arrival date is when you cancel.

Frankly, if renters don't like the terms, many owners do not need to rent.

 

[McCrae]

I don’t believe that to be true, David’s rental contract with me specifically states that if the reservation CANNOT be fulfilled due to any action outside of the renters control like the owner canceling the resi or DVCM canceling the resi I am due a refund in full.

“Should accommodations not be available on date of arrival due to an action or omission by the Member, including but not limited to negligence on the part of the Member and after communication with the Intermediary, suitable comparable accommodations for the same dates cannot be secured by the Member, the Renter will be due a refund limited to the amount paid which is $x,xxx.xx US Dollars.”

David has pitted owners against renters when we really all should be flat out saying no to this one sided voucher that releases him from his obligations of the original contract.

Where does it refer to DVCM cancelling?

 

[crisi]

I don’t believe that to be true, David’s rental contract with me specifically states that if the reservation CANNOT be fulfilled due to any action outside of the renters control like the owner canceling the resi or DVCM canceling the resi I am due a refund in full.

“Should accommodations not be available on date of arrival due to an action or omission by the Member, including but not limited to negligence on the part of the Member and after communication with the Intermediary, suitable comparable accommodations for the same dates cannot be secured by the Member, the Renter will be due a refund limited to the amount paid which is $x,xxx.xx US Dollars.”

David has pitted owners against renters when we really all should be flat out saying no to this one sided voucher that releases him from his obligations of the original contract.

This isn't an act or omission by the member.

 

[Amymouse13]

Where does it refer to DVCM cancelling?

This doesn't say the owner will refund, it actually doesn't say from whom the refund comes... No suitable reservation available we are due refund from someone- presumably the person we have contract with (David).

 

[Marionnette]

I don’t believe that to be true, David’s rental contract with me specifically states that if the reservation CANNOT be fulfilled due to any action outside of the renters control like the owner canceling the resi or DVCM canceling the resi I am due a refund in full.

“Should accommodations not be available on date of arrival due to an action or omission by the Member, including but not limited to negligence on the part of the Member and after communication with the Intermediary, suitable comparable accommodations for the same dates cannot be secured by the Member, the Renter will be due a refund limited to the amount paid which is $x,xxx.xx US Dollars.”

David has pitted owners against renters when we really all should be flat out saying no to this one sided voucher that releases him from his obligations of the original contract.

I don’t see where it specifically states that “if the reservation CANNOT be fullfilled due to any action outside of the renters (sic) control” that the renter is due a refund or other accommodation. It only refers to actions or omissions by the owner. DVCM is not mentioned at all.