argentum et aurum

What a dismal, dreary scene, right?

This photo might as well have been taken in black & white, for all the lack of color in it.

Hardly looks like Daytona Beach, does it?

But, it is.

This was taken from the top floor of the Daytona Beach Regency, where a Diamond Resorts salesman was lying to me, just as his buddy Bill England had years ago.

Yeah, there's that name again: the lying sack of crud that told me I had to buy another 3,000 points if I wanted to maintain my Silver Elite status.

I had left that meeting in tears, but with the 3,000 points and deeper in debt.

Lying sack of crud.

So, when Lloyd Demsey had asked me how I felt about being an owner with Diamond, I told him about that lying sack of crud who had sold me points I didn't need and had not cared that I was crying.

To his credit, Lloyd looked shocked.

He told me he knew the man and had thought he was a good guy.

Yeah... that's not been my experience with him.

Lloyd then asked me what it would take to make me feel better about being a DRI owner.

I told him I wanted them to take back those 3,000 points and pay me back the money that had been wrongfully taken from me.

I might as well have asked him for a slice of the moon on a platter.

Although he told me he would try to make that happen, he knew he was lying.

Moreover, he knew that I knew he was lying.

But, fine, I played the game.

When he said he thought he could get the money back for me if I would submit a letter requesting that be done, I wrote it.

He even dictated the words that he said would be most likely to recoup my funds.
He didn't even raise a fuss when I took this photo.

In fact, that's his hand at the top of the page.

(He even shared a video clip of him playing piano, so feel free to jog on over to youTube to watch him.)

So, did he get that money back for me?

Oh, please.

Diamond Resorts doesn't do give-backs!

Okay, what did he do?

Well, he talked to me about growing up in Miami and claimed to be familiar with the Crescent Resort on South Beach, which I had so enjoyed.

He talked about his grandfather, who resembled Lorne Greene of "Bonanza" and was absolutely in awe that I had been to the Ponderosa Ranch; that was back in 2000, and we'd had a steak dinner on a tin plate and drunk from tin cups.

(That place closed in 2004.)

He talked about the Hilton Vacations to be available starting in April of this year and applied for their American Express card to help make the transition easier for me; again, he was shocked that I already had such a card and have had it more than a decade.

(But he put through the application anyway, to boost my available credit.)

But more than any of those topics, he spoke to me of Yukon Cornelius' song.

Now, I'm not saying he referred to the miner by name...

but he certainly kept singing about "Silver And Gold".

Over and over and over.

That's because he was trying to convince me to BUY MORE POINTS.

Seriously.

I had come into the meeting to have 3,000 points removed from my annual allotment, and his response was to SELL ME 15,000 MORE POINTS.

I even pointed out his math error, but that didn't matter.

What math error?

Gold Elite status kicks in at 30,000 points; I have 18,000 points.

To change my Silver to Gold, I would need 12,000 points.

No, he told me, I would have to buy 15,000 points to be Gold.

But that would give me a surplus of 3,000 points...

same as I've had for years now...

3,000 points that never get used, that get rolled over each year...

3,000 points that he was going to have removed, with the money back to me.

I guess he and that lying sack of crud probably are friends.

That's too bad.

I had hoped Lloyd Demsey was one of the good guys.

I wonder what Lorne Greene would make of that.