Type Subsidiary Founder Christel DeHaan | Key people Gordon Gurnik (CEO) Customer service 1800 419 2131 Founded 1974 | |
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Parent organizations Wyndham Worldwide, RCI General Holdco 2, Inc Subsidiaries RCI Europe, RCI Holiday Network, Rci Canada Inc Profiles | ||
RCI (formerly Group RCI and, before that, Resort Condominiums International) is a division of the firm Wyndham Worldwide.
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Founded in 1974 by Jon and Christel DeHaan, RCI is one of the two main brokers, along with Interval International (II), of timeshare exchanges.
RCI has over 6,300 affiliated resorts in over 100 countries around the world. Its membership base is approximately 3.8 million members worldwide.
Corporate structure
RCI's CEO and president is Gordon Gurnik. RCI's corporate headquarters is in Parsippany, New Jersey. Its North American membership office is in Carmel, Indiana, and its European membership office is in Kettering, England, with several satellite servicing offices in places such as Mexico City; Cork, Ireland; Manila, Philippines; Bangalore, India; Singapore; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Montevideo, Uruguay.
In July 2007, RCI was merged with Holiday Cottages Group, another of Wyndham Worldwide's subsidiaries. The two would still retain their individual names but operate under the parent name GroupRCI until 2010, when the two companies changed the name to Wyndham Exchange and Rentals.
Business model
RCI is a timeshare exchange broker, it does not develop or sell timeshares (this falls within the province of RCI's sister Wyndham Worldwide subsidiary Wyndham Vacation Club). A customer who buys a timeshare with an RCI-affiliated developer (whether Wyndham or another entity) has the option to become a paid member of RCI. Such membership entitles the individual to exchange their timeshare with other members; RCI facilitates and fulfills the exchange. Alternatively, a timeshare owner with an RCI-affiliated developer under a points-based system can book reservations through RCI with another RCI affiliate and pay RCI a fee for the booking.
Litigation
A class action lawsuit against RCI was pursued by Green Welling LLP on behalf of RCI Weeks Program members in New Jersey of 2006. The Plaintiff alleged that RCI actually rents out the most desirable and highly demanded vacation weeks from the spacebank, thus depleting the most desirable options available to Weeks Program members who seek exchanges. The lawsuit was settled in favor of the plaintiff. Benefits for RCI members would have begun on January 11, 2010 but one or more appeals of the entry of the final judgment were filed. Thus the Effective Date began July 28, 2010 when all appeals were resolved.
In 2012, RCI, whilst not admitting any wrong-doing, settled the class action concerning its time-share renting tactics in favour of claimants in the US and agreed to compensate those who had suffered. It might be noted that each person was only paid 12.00 for the lawsuit.
Philanthropy
RCI co-founder Christel DeHaan has opened seven boarding schools — known as Christel House — in Bangalore, India; Mexico City, Mexico; Cape Town, South Africa; Caracas, Venezuela; Indianapolis, Indiana, USA; Kragujevac, Serbia; and Lavasa, India. The schools are designed to provide an education to poor children around the world.