Recently my wife and I were strolling around St. Maartin when we were approached by a charming young man obviously selling something. He seemed like an honest person who genuinely liked talking to people, and provided us inside information on what shops offered good deals, when tour ships visited, and other helpful information. He said he worked for the Westin Dawn Beach Resort & Spa which wanted to introduce people like us to their facility so we'd stay there next time we visited. He gave us scratch tickets which typically offer free drinks at the hotel but occasionally pay off big. Sure enough I won a free drink, but my wife got a rare winning ticket for an iPad, a free week at the hotel, or a $1,000 coupon redeemable that day at any shop in the town. To collect our prize all we had to do was visit the hotel, enjoy our free drinks, and sit down for 15 minutes with a hotel representative. He also mentioned that time shares were available, and if we wanted we could stay for a 1 1/2 hour presentation but it was not required. The salesman was really excited because if we visited the hotel he'd be paid $200 (for that rare big-payoff ticket) and could take the day off. Since the generous free gift seemed worth the half hour we'd spend at a beautiful resort hotel enjoying free drinks we decided to try it.

When we arrived at the hotel we were told that we could only receive the prize if we stayed for the 1 1/2 hour time share pitch. They were sorry for the misunderstanding, said the street salesman must have stretched the truth, and he'd be disciplined for misrepresenting the terms. That seemed reasonable because occasionally a sales person stretches the truth a bit to get a sale, so we decided to stay for the time share pitch. The salesman asked us a few questions about our interest in time shares and gave us each the promised free drink. When we sat down to talk he started by asking about our objections to time shares. Within 5 minutes he became surly and rude, and said my wife was ignorant and I was a liar. We decided to forgo the abuse and leave, and so returned to the office. The representative at the desk asked how it went, and we explained what happened. She was shocked at the behavior of the salesman, and said they are a reputable company that treats its clients with respect and doesn't tolerate misbehavior by its employees. She wrote down what the salesman had said to us, and called the manager and told him what had happened while we were listening. She said the manager would discipline both salesmen, and was coming down to speak with us to apologize. However we decided we'd had enough and left immediately, which was the first smart thing we did that day.

After thinking this over a bit it became clear what had happened. First, the street sales man did his job as he was trained to: he got us to the hotel no matter what it took. He gave everyone a supposedly-rare big-payoff ticket, and lied to everyone about the need to stay for the time share pitch. The friendly and sympathetic receptionist played her role well too: she apologized for the bad behavior of their purportedly rogue employee and convinced us to not walk out. The second salesman first determined if we were a good candidate for a sale. I'm sure that if we were receptive he would have respectfully tried to make the sale. But since we weren't likely to buy his job changed: he now needed to offend us enough to get us to walk out so they could avoid giving us a gift. When we returned to the office the receptionist again calmed us down and convinced us that yet another allegedly rogue salesman was misbehaving, and suggested that we should complain to the manger that was coming down to see us. Finally a third salesman (playing the manager) would sympathetically listen to us vent, and then try one more time to talk us into buying a time share before we left.

I'm embarrassed that I fell for this scam. The bad guy/good guy routine coupled with Westin's excellent corporate reputation was very effective. My excuse is that the first salesman was so slick that I missed the fleeting reference to a time share that should have tipped me off. I guess the lesson is that when everyone you're speaking to is lying and playing a role it takes a while to figure out you're being hustled. After this I'll be more careful.

My only surprise is that Westin lets its name be used in a way that is sure to damage it. My opinion of Westin is forever tarnished and I expect anyone else who is manipulated and insulted in such a dishonest manner will react the same way.

I took the time to write this in the hope my experience will be helpful to others who might encounter such a manipulative con job in the future. Best of luck to all.