by Doug Ashbury
Northern News Services

NNSL (Dec 10/97) - Yellowknifer Renuka Verma has a complaint about time-share company Chateau Canmore Resort Inc.

Fortunately, Chateau Canmore -- rated satisfactory with Calgary's Better Business Bureau -- is up to the challenge. Chateau Canmore owns a property in Canmore, Alta., near Banff.

Verma said she did not like the way the company treated her.

"Once I started asking questions, they were rude," she said.

Verma didn't buy.

She is one of several Yellowknifers the company has courted.

Telemarketers make cold calls to potential buyers telling them they have won a free vacation -- all they have to do is watch a video presentation.

"They phoned me and told me I had won a trip to Las Vegas, three days and two nights," Verma said.

It turns out the accommodation is free but the airfare is not, she said.

Verma, who said a company representative asked her about her salary, her children and her travel history, wants a proper letter of apology from the company. The one she got was not on company letterhead and was hand-written, she said.

Chateau Canmore vice-president Robert Watt said Monday the company is willing to give Verma her free gift.

Watt, based in Edmonton, said he spoke to a staff member in Yellowknife and was told a woman had caused a disturbance Saturday and that she had been escorted by police from the company's temporary offices in the Panda Mall.

He said this is the first complaint he has received from Yellowknife.

He estimated about 200 families have taken in the presentation.

Privately-held, the company is a member of the Toronto-based Canadian Residential and Development Organization.

The development organization's code of ethics are stricter than any provincial rules, Watt said.

The Calgary Better Business Bureau said one of the best features a time-share company can have is a cooling-off period.

A cooling-off period allows the buyer to void the deal within a certain number of days. Chateau Canmore has a five-day cooling-off period.

The bureau also said that prospective customers should get everything in writing and not allow themselves to be pressured into a quick decision.

Chateau Canmore, a member of the Calgary Better Business Bureau since 1994, was issued a non-resident business licence in Yellowknife two months ago and will be at the Panda Mall likely until the end of December.

As well as the time-share condos, the company operates a hotel on its Canmore property.

The hotel is a franchise of Quality Comfort Clarion chain. It is Quality Comfort's first affiliation with a company that deals in time-shares, Watt said.

Watt also said the company is not in the business of selling condominiums.

Only a few weeks ago it surfaced that as many as 50 Northerners had invested in Dix Group condominiums in Hawaii and California. Banks wrote to individual investors informing that mortgages were going unpaid.

Investors, exposed to potential losses, formed an investor protection association in the North. Two BC investment houses are working on a recovery plan.

"We sell vacations, not condominiums," Watt said.

Under the Chateau Canmore deal, buyers pay about $350 for a week's stay at the company's BC property.

Buyers can trade their time with other properties through exchange company Resort Condominiums International.

Chateau Canmore offers up to 58 weeks of time-share over 58 years.

Yellowknifer Alicia Doering, who paid $1,500 for four weeks of time-share, said: "They seemed fair about everything."

She doesn't recall if the company told her she could get her money back.