Does anyone email their Guide?

[tripletvan]

Does anyone email their guide? I had a couple of questions and left a voice mail message for him. He returned my call with a call on my voice mail which I then returned to his voice mail asking if it was possible to email my questions to him to avoid the phone tag he said that they were not allowed to email due to privacy reasons. Has anyone ever heard of this?

 

[trishy]

No

 

[iloveokw]

My guide, Judy Kaufmann, said they aren't allowed to have email because of them being in real estate.

 

[WDWguru]

My 2 cents... I think it's more a CYA directive from the Disney legal eagles. We're in the process of purchasing our second resale (from Jaki at atimeshare.com - we also purchased one from Disney direct) and have conducted much of the correspondence both times via e-mail. Obviously the legal paperwork, contracts, etc are handled via fax and mail, and we do converse on the phone, but when asking simple questions or just for convenience we do a lot of our communicating online.

 

[tripletvan]

So are you saying it may also be up to the guide. I am just trying to give him my questions so we can make a date to discuss what they are. Save time I thought.

 

[WDWguru]

No, I don't think its up to the guide. I think Disney tells the guides not to use e-mail so that they have more control over the written correspondence. All the documentation they send in writing is stuff like official forms. Everything shown in person is that way as well. If they were able to e-mail there would be greater potential for misinformation to get out and it would then be documented. I think the legal folks at Disney are just covering their butts (my CYA comment above) and don't let them "just in case."

I'm saying the guide who said they weren't allowed because they do real estate is using that as an excuse, but it's not the real/entire reason. Not saying they are being sneaky or anything. They just don't want to bring up the L word (lawyer). Many resale agents, who also therefore deal in real estate, do use e-mail on a regular basis, so there's no state law or anything prohibiting them from using it.

 

[RobDoc]

Resale brokers are not bound by state restrictions on timeshare disclosure laws either.

Just as there are very strict state regulations which must be followed before sales are allowed, DVC guides are subject to those same laws with any contact.

As mentioned already, email offers a written statement which could be contrary to the laws of individual states and federal timeshare statutes and thus is not acceptable as a means of contact. Resale brokers are NOT subject to the same restrictions and offer contact in a variety of ways.