July 8, 2003 - 90 Entertaining Minutes with Trendwest

As a result of writing our contact details on a raffle ticket, Lang was sent a letter by Trendwest, advising us that:

You are guaranteed to receive

One of the following, your choices are:
1. Holiday accommodation with a retail value of up to $1200 [...]
2. CD Player [...]
3. Digital Camera [...]
To receive this offer you are required to attend a 90-minute obligation free sales presentation showcasing our affordable holidays.

Too good to be true? No way! To us, a $1200 gift seemed (and still seems) like a fair trade for agreeing to sit through a 90-minute sales pitch.

So, Lang rang the phone number on the letter, and was asked to choose his preferred appointment location. Being a native of Victoria, he deferred to the Trendwest representative's knowledge of Sydney, and asked which was the the closest venue to Castle Hill. He was told Hurstville. Lang accepted this information without suspicion, and a date and time was arranged. Later, he consulted the street directory, and discovered that very few suburbs in greater Sydney are further apart than Castle Hill (north-western fringe) and Hurstville (south-eastern fringe). With a rapidly evolving opinion as to the level of competency, and, dare I say, veracity, shown by Trendwest staff, another phone call was made, and our appointment location was changed to Parramatta.

A second letter duly arrived, this one confirming the date, time, and location of our appointment. Included on the back of this letter was a map and written directions. These looked fine - good, even - at a glance, but turned out to be critically short on detail (i.e. minor streets weren't included in the map, and the directions were written in a colloquial style that I didn't find helpful ... "Follow along and after two sets of traffic lights, turn left".)

Nevertheless, we arrived on time, and were received into a small foyer decorated with large photographic images of sparkling blue swimming pools, immaculate golf courses, and picturesque fields of snow. The depicted landscapes were flawless, but, to me, strangely repellent and sterile looking:

The waiting area was verdant, with regimental rows of plants lining every wall, and large green leaves poking out of every otherwise redundant nook and cranny. The effect may have been ... I don't know ... tropical and refreshing, perhaps ... if only the plants weren't so obviously imitations. For me, a synthetic plant creates precisely the opposite effect of a real one: the words fake, plastic, and cloying spring to mind.

No sooner had I helped myself to a plastic-wrapped biscuit and an awful cup of coffee (in a polystyrene cup), than a bunch of hyped-up salesmen (all men, I do believe) appeared, and started calling names. When Samantha and Langdon were called, we were urged to follow our designated sales rep through to the next room.

Our salesman was a very pale creature, with what my mother would call a weak chin (that is, the front part of his lower jaw seemed to be missing), and pale, protuberant eyes (rather like Gollum). In a word, he was unattractive, and I know I shouldn't hold it against him, but, frankly, his appearance was a negative distraction.

He asked us how we were, twice, within the first minute or two of our meeting, and quite obviously didn't care. He called Lang "mate" on more than one occasion, which was nearly enough to make me laugh out loud. (Lang is not your typical blokey bloke, and "mate" is not a term that suits him.)

We were ushered to one table in a room full of tables, and offered seats opposite our sales "mate". The room was full of chattering voices, and the effect was similar to a communal change room. I have no idea what psychological impact they were trying to make, but the room certainly didn't convey a feeling of privacy, relaxation, or cosiness. I guess it's a bit like McDonalds - do whatever it takes to prevent people from thinking.

Our sales-mate asked us if we'd found the place alright, probably assuming (as we were sitting right in front of him) that this question was an easy ice-breaker. Lang refused to play the game, though, and told him that the map and directions on their letter were inadequate, to which he spluttered a response along the lines of "Oh ... OK". My opinion of him would have sky-rocketed if he'd asked what was wrong with the directions, or made even the simplest effort to pretend that he cared. But it wasn't to be.

Instead, he quickly changed tack and asked us what we do for a living, in a tone of voice that made it abundantly clear he was following a script - but what can you say? How about "We know you're not really interested, so let's just get on with it"? Manners are surprisingly hard to abandon, so we gave him a polite answer.

Finally, the pitch was underway. We were asked a series of patronising, almost-rhetorical questions; things like "Do you like to go on holidays?", and "Have you heard of time-share accommodation?", and "Do you have any questions at this stage?". The word "affordable" was uttered more than once, but no mention was made of an actual price.

Our sales-mate did mention that he himself owned Holiday Credits. He said that he hadn't yet had the opportunity to travel overseas on his Credits, and that he had taken most of his Trendwest holidays in Australia. Funny, that. I would have thought that if he hadn't travelled o/s, he must have taken all of his holidays in Australia.

Throughout his pitch, our man wrote keywords down on a piece of paper. The gimmick being that the paper was facing us, and he was writing upside down. This device struck me as an almost unbearable affectation. Apart from anything else, writing upside down gave the letters he formed (ALL CAPITALS) a childish look, similar to when someone writes with their non-dominant hand. But in any case, why write down effectively meaningless keywords like "standard" and "premier" at all?

After about 20 minutes of listening to this one-on-two sales pitch that managed to convey remarkably little information, we were ushered into another room for a group video presentation. Each sales rep trooped through the room, entering through the front door, depositing their couple into padded seats, and exiting through the backdoor. The whole process had an air of coreographed mystery about it. Then the video started projecting onto the front wall. The image was out of focus, to the extent that it was almost painful to look at, but all the sales reps had disappeared through the back door, so there was no one to notice the fuzzy image on the screen (except, of course, the poor captive audience being pitched to).

First up, a vaguely familiar figure appeared on the screen, but with her face being so blurred it was only when she spoke that Noni Hazelhurst's identity became absolutely apparent. Noni! I have to hand it to Trendwest - employing a deeply respected figure from your target-demograhic's childhood is a clever ploy. (For anyone who didn't grow up in NSW in the 1970's, Noni Hazelhurst was one of the legendary presenters on ABC TV's Play School). If any celebrity could convey trustworthiness to me, Noni is that person.

But then they ruined all of Noni's good work by showing more creepy-looking emerald-green holiday resorts with no fat people, where everything is apparently perfect all the time. I was being shown the Twilight Zone version of heaven - precisely the sort of thing that gives me nightmares.

After the video, the lights came back on and a smiling, round, middle-aged woman walked into the room, stood up the front, and started asking us to raise our hands if we had come along today just for the free gift. Then she asked us to raise our hands if we liked going on holidays, or if we thought we needed to go on holidays more often. She asked one gentleman with his hand in the air where his dream destination was. He nominated Broome. Funnily enough, that turned out to be her dream destination, too! (It's a pity that she'll never be able to go, though, because Trendwest doesn't have any resorts in Broome ... or anywhere in WA, for that matter ... nor anywhere in the Northern Territory ... nor South Australia, Tassie, or the ACT now that I come to read their prospectus).

After the woman had finished putting us through our paces (Hands up. Hands up! HANDS UP!!), she laid her soul bare and told us a moving story about taking her daughter to Disney Land. Then it was time for us to be collected by individual sales-mates once again. We trooped back out to a different table, with a different sales-mate who proceeded to laboriously write the same old keywords down for us ....... I asked our new sales-mate if he had been specially trained to write upside down. He gave me what I can only describe as a grimace, and nodded. Poor bastard.

He asked us more than once if we had any questions, so we duly asked more than once for a price to be named. It is breathtaking to me that a sales person can consistently answer a simple, direct question with what amounts to a pile of irrelevant bullshit. It turned out that our sales-mate wasn't authorised to utter a price, and only when he was totally convinced that we were seconds away from walking out the door did he call over his supervisor, a 20-something male who proceeded to scribble words and numbers down on a piece of paper. He was clearly trying to give the impression that he was working out a complicated mathematical formula. Finally, with a small flourish, he presented us with the answer: "How does 20,000 sound?"

Here was a man who must have no appreciation of the inherent absurdity of a question like "How long is a piece of string?"

Um ... 20,000 what? Dollars? Holiday Credits? And if we're talking dollars, what exactly does 20,000 buy?

We took the easy way out and said that $20,000 was well beyond our means. Our sales-mate made one last, desperate pitch as we were collecting our stuff to leave:

"You know" he said "the Premier package is only available if you accept our offer today. We've had lawyers and judges who've walked out of the presentation, and come back the next day with cash, but we're bound by law to refuse their money. ASIC states that we can only extend this offer for the day of the presentation".

This last comment was a classic case of obfuscation by telling the truth, but not the whole truth.

The Trendwest Prospectus is indeed lodged with ASIC (the Australian Securities and Investments Commission). ASIC is the government body that enforces company and financial services laws to protect consumers. In relation to Trendwest's Premier package, ASIC's job is to ensure that Trendwest does what it says it will do in its prospectus. Trendwest chooses to stipulate (on page 13 of its prospectus) that "Premier Owner Holiday Credits are only available for subscription by invitation on the day of attending a presentation". Nobody (including ASIC) twisted Trendwest's arm into creating this rule, but once the rule is made, it is ASIC's job to ensure that Trendwest sticks to it.

Incidentally, Trendwest got into trouble with ASIC last November (2002) for engaging in "misleading and deceptive conduct, and unconscionable conduct".

POST SCRIPT - We attempted to redeem our gift of holiday accommodation in Hobart by posting off a list of our preferred dates and waiting patiently for a response, as per the instructions we had been given. The instructions also carefully explained that no telephone number would be provided, in order to keep administrative costs down.

In due course, we received a written response informing us that none of the dates we had specified were available, but that we were welcome to write back with a second list of preferred dates, or we could nominate to accept a digital camera instead! Given that the offer of holiday accommodation had come with a long list of conditions (including a strict time limit as to when the accommodation had to be used by), we decided to take the path of least resistance, and accepted the camera.

Just when enough weeks had gone by to convince us that no camera would be forthcoming, it arrived in the letter box. You can imagine our delight at now owning a camera which, as the box promises, will "bring you into digital life, record your wonderful image in your life." Unfortunately, the batteries listed under the "Product Package Content" were missing, so we haven't been able to use "The Best Recorder for your life!" yet, but this is what it looks like:

COMMENTS:

I've received a fair amount of feedback about my Trendwest piece - some of it positive, some of it distinctly unamused:

Paul: "My partner and I have been to several Trendwest meetings. We found them courteous and helpful.Our prize was fantastic, we stayed in fantastic accomadation beachfront at Coffs. Im so glad you didnt buy as we intend to and you sound like a pain in the **** to meet on a holiday. Do us all a favour and keep the chip on your shoulder to yourself and please just stay and home ."

Note from Sam, regarding the "fantastic accommodation" referred to by Paul:

While we were at the Trendwest seminar, we asked whether the free Holiday accommodation that we thought we were going to receive for attending the seminar would be at a Trendwest facility (our idea being that, by accepting complimentary accommodation at a Trendwest facility, we could try before we buy). We were told that no, the free accommodation was certainly NOT at a Trendwest facility, because the Trendwest facilities are for the exclusive use of Trendwest Holiday Credit owners.

Tony: "Stop bagging Trendwest, I went to a seminar, yes its hard sell but after going on two hollidays I am after some more points, everyone is different."

Mike: "I attended one of Trendwests presentations in Parramatta also. I received my holiday from them to Fiji and had a great time. I will definately look at attending again in future to purchase the product they had on offer."

Karen: "Hi, I read your article on trendwest posted on your website, nice warning, thanks.
I wanted to know how the digital camera was, what brand and megapixel if you dont mind answering...
cheers"

In response to Karen's enquiry I replied:

"I've just had a look at the camera (which is still in its box). I can't see ANY reference to a manufacturer or brand anywhere on the camera or its packaging, but the product is identified in the Owner's Manual by the name "CD30P". I just tried this name in Google, and have discovered that the camera retails for US$22 (mind you, I could only find one website that offers it for sale). If you're still interested, a Google search will bring up a number of websites that detail the camera's specs."

Tony: "Thanks for your trendwest blog. I was heading off to Trendwest this saturday and have been wondering what quality the camera giveaway was, thanks for the spiel and the photo of the camera.
Kind regards"

Pat and Kath: "My wife and I have just the other day been contacted by Trendwest and told that we have won a holiday and all that is needed is to sit thru a 90 minute presentation on time share.
Having just read your Blog I would like to say, Thank you thank you thank you very much."

Parag: "Was looking up on Trendwest on google ; couldn't stop myself on reading your blog on it thrice....amusing...thanks..."

If you'd like to share your feelings about this article, please go ahead and email me.

I'd be especially interested to hear from anybody who managed to redeem a free holiday from Trendwest, without either purchasing Holiday Credits, or agreeing to attend another presentation.