Opinion ID: 4531772
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: VOG’s Fraudulent Activity

Text: A timeshare is a form of shared property ownership in which multiple people own the rights to use a specific vacation or resort property. These properties are often units in a resort condominium, in which each timeshare owner has an allotted period of time to use the property. When one buys a timeshare, he typically makes a down payment on the property and finances the balance of the purchase price. These loans are commonly referred to as “mortgages” in the timeshare industry. In addition to these upfront costs, timeshare owners are also required to pay annual maintenance fees. It is not unusual for timeshare owners to fall prey to high-pressure sales tactics and commit to spending more money than they can comfortably afford. Later, they may seek to settle these debts or cancel their timeshares. In 2009, while working for Wyndham Vacation Resorts, Inc. (a timeshare sales company), Adam Lacerda and his wife, Ashley Lacerda, founded VOG. VOG marketed itself as a timeshare consulting company and claimed that it could help customers cancel, purchase, or upgrade their timeshares. 3 Lacerda was the president and chief executive officer of VOG, and his wife was the chief operating officer. Together, they exclusively controlled VOG’s bank accounts and post office box. Lacerda created phone scripts for VOG’s sales representatives to use when speaking with timeshare owners. One of these scripts was VOG’s “bank settlement” pitch. This sales pitch was riddled with misrepresentations. Following this script, the VOG representatives used personal information compiled by VOG in “customer lead sheets” to make unsolicited calls to unsuspecting timeshare owners. The representatives said they were calling on behalf of a property owners’ association to follow up on the owner’s recent complaints. This was not true. The representatives also claimed they were working with the bank that held the loan for the owner’s timeshare mortgage. This was also not true. They then promised to review the owner’s account—which they could not do because they had no access to that account—and then to call the owner back. During a follow-up call, VOG representatives offered to settle the timeshare owner’s debt at a fraction of the remaining balance, for a negotiated fee. Later, during a closing call, the representatives had the timeshare owner electronically sign VOG’s contract and pay its fee. The representatives then promised that the “mortgage would be paid off in full” and the timeshare owner would receive a “deed free and clear.” But none of that happened. Instead, VOG just pocketed the money. Lacerda also trained his VOG employees to use a fraudulent phone script for a timeshare “cancellation” sales pitch. Again, VOG representatives made unsolicited calls to timeshare owners and falsely told them that VOG had received their complaints, that VOG would do all the necessary work to cancel the owners’ timeshares, and that cancellation would not damage the customers’ credit ratings. But VOG did not work to cancel the owners’ timeshares. Instead, after receiving the timeshare owners’ money, VOG sent them an eight-step process for cancelling the timeshares themselves and told them to stop making their loan payments. Eventually the timeshare owners received default 4 notices from the timeshare developers. When the owners complained to VOG, VOG instructed them to allow the developers to foreclose. Typically, this would lead to a nonjudicial foreclosure proceeding, which is common in the industry. This proceeding, Lacerda knew, would result in the cancellation of the owners’ timeshare debt, but at the cost of the timeshare deed, any equity the owners had, and, of course, the owners’ credit ratings. VOG employed additional misrepresentations: Lacerda impersonated bank officials on calls, altering his voice and using a spoofing device to alter his phone number. And VOG’s website falsely displayed the Better Business Bureau seal, advertising itself as an A+ rated business, and claimed to be a member of the American Resort Development Association. Not even the names used at VOG were true. Under Lacerda’s direction, VOG representatives used false names while interacting with potential customers. These false names allowed Lacerda and other former Wyndham employees to violate their non-compete agreements and hide their identity from former clients at Wyndham. This was important because VOG’s customer lead sheets were comprised almost exclusively of Wyndham timeshare owners. While employed by Wyndham, Ian Resnick sent customer lead sheets to VOG and received a kickback for every resulting sale. In August 2010, Resnick left Wyndham to join VOG full time. Using the bank settlement and timeshare cancellation scripts, Resnick defrauded several customers. Recognizing Resnick’s talents, Lacerda promoted him to Senior Contract Analyst. Genevieve Manzoni, another Wyndham-alumna, joined VOG in October 2010. As a VOG representative, Manzoni showed great initiative, inventing her own “settlement” numbers on the fly. She, too, assumed a management role, overseeing other VOG sales representatives. In November 2010, the FBI raided VOG’s offices and the Lacerdas’ home. Several VOG representatives left the company following the raid, including Resnick. So Lacerda convened an office-wide meeting where his lawyers, including 5 Marc Neff, assured VOG staff that everything was okay. They told the employees that only Lacerda was under investigation, and that Neff had reviewed the sales scripts and verified that everything was legal. VOG abandoned the bank settlement pitch and revised the timeshare cancellation pitch to remove any references to working with the banks, while leaving many other misrepresentations in place. With these assurances and changes, many of VOG’s representatives, including Resnick, returned and VOG resumed and expanded its operations. Resnick continued receiving promotions, working as VOG’s Director of Training, then Director of Training and Compliance, and then Vice President of Sales and Compliance. While receiving compensation at VOG, Resnick and Manzoni also obtained unemployment benefits from New Jersey.