Ex-Wyndham executive sues, claiming he was fired after he told timeshare company about improper practices
A former executive with Wyndham Vacation Ownership claims in a lawsuit that he was making “good-faith efforts” when he told his superiors about improper business practices and forwarded complaints about sexual harassment by another executive.
In the suit filed this month in Orange Circuit Court, Fabrizzio Sapien, who had nearly 17 years with the company, says he was fired last year for speaking up.
“I just want to be an agent of change for their culture,” said Sapien, 48, in a phone interview with his attorney Ryan Morgan of Morgan & Morgan on the line.
In an unsigned email statement from the company’s press office, Wyndham responded to the allegations. “It is the company’s position that this lawsuit is comprised of wholly baseless claims which we deny and intend to defend vigorously,” the statement said. “The company is also confident it will prevail at trial.”
In 2019, Sapien was the senior vice president of sales and marketing for Club Wyndham Bonnet Creek. According to his lawsuit, it was around September that year when he discovered more than $700,000 in timeshare mortgage contracts had been canceled by his company on the same day, all with the same code: “Per Mgmt Request due to project.”
Contracts are sometimes canceled because the buyer backs out within a certain period or because the sales representative didn’t disclose information when making the sale. However, the lawsuit claims the revenue and commissions for canceled contracts were charged back to the company, taking money out of the pockets of sales representatives and their managers, including Sapien.
According to the lawsuit, Chief Operating Officer Geoffrey Richards told Sapien in a conference call the company had reversed more than $300 million in contracts in order to “insulate” the stock price by making the company’s default rate — the rate at which customers default on their mortgages — look more in line with competitors.
Soon after this, Sapien said he was told by a colleague not to talk about what happened, saying it could “derail his career,” the lawsuit says.
Around the same time, the lawsuit says, Sapien was receiving complaints about harassing behavior from another executive, who reportedly was flirting with female employees and scheduling what were meant to be business meetings in bars.
The lawsuit says the executive was investigated based on complaints from several other coworkers, but ultimately nothing happened to him. According to the lawsuit, when Sapien was told of another complaint last summer, he decided to take it higher to the VP of human resources and other senior leadership.
On Sept. 13, 2020, the lawsuit alleges, Sapien got a phone call from his superior telling him he was fired. Just a month earlier, he had been promoted to senior vice president of sales for the Orlando region, with more than 500 employees underneath him and a pay raise.
According to the lawsuit, it was explained during the phone call that Sapien was being let go because of his request to “bubble up” complaints to senior leadership.
In the suit, Sapien said he was offered a severance package, but that it would require him to sign a non-disparagement agreement. The lawsuit also says the severance package included his reason for being terminated as COVID-19.
The lawsuit points out both his recent promotion and that his position did not appear on any notice of layoffs the company sent to the state.
“I didn’t even get a chance to be demoted,” he said in his interview.
Sapien’s lawsuit claims his messages about the practices of the company and the harassment were protected by Florida whistleblower statutes. He is asking for back pay with interest and “such other relief as the Court deems equitable.”
Asked how much that might be, Morgan, Sapien’s attorney, responded, “The number is growing daily.”
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