Saturday, July 20, 2013

What Does Timeshare have In Common With Kryptonite?

Several years ago, the Kryptonite company had a problem.  It seems that someone discovered that one of their decidedly high quality locks could be very easily "picked" by using nothing more complicated than a pen.

The company refused to comment on this, even after hundreds, even thousands of comments and videos were posted online.

They stuck to their guns and repeated..."Our bike locks are the best" whenever anyone posted or commented about the pen incident.

According to the book "The Brand Bubble", the public conversation went something like this:

Day One

Kryptonite:     "Our bike locks are the best."
The Market:    "Yes, your bike locks are the best."

Day Two

Kryptonite:     "Our bike locks are the best."
The Market:   "Yes, your bike locks are still the best."

Day Three

Kryptonite:     "Our bike locks are the best."
The Market:   "Ummmm, yeah, I'm sure they are, but what's all this about some recent video on the net that's supposed to show you how you can crack your locks in 10 seconds using a Bic pen?"

Day Four

Kryptonite:     "Our bike locks are the best."
The Market:   "Hey, I just saw that video on a friend's Web site and I'm kinda ticked off because I just paid $60 for one of your new locks three weeks ago, and I'm wondering if a Bic pen can crack my lock or not...does the pen crack all Kryptonite locks or just one or two models?"

Day Five

Kryptonite:     "Our bike locks are the best."
The Market:   "Hey, I just visited your website and saw no mention of the Bic pen problem.  What are you doing about it?  Are you going to fix the locks?  Are you going to give me a refund?"

Day Six

Kryptonite:     "Our bike locks are the best."
The Market:   "No, they're not.  My bike just got stolen!  A whole bunch of my friends are going to hear about this."

Isn't this exactly what most in the timeshare community do?  The old adage of "Timeshare is a great value.  There are no surprises and it takes the stress out of planning a vacation.  And everyone has a place to relax and unwind', gets repeated over and over again no matter what questions or concerns are raised.

To wit:

"What do you mean no surprises?  My maintenance fees go up 20% each year."

"I paid $19,000 for my timeshare and now I see identical units for sale for $3,000.  How is this a great value?"

"I was told that because this was deeded real estate, I would be able to sell it at any time, to whomever I wanted.  Now, the resort prevents me from doing this."

"It's hard to relax and unwind when the resort rents out larger units than mine to anyone off the street who doesn't own for only $299 and that's much less than my annual fees of $750."

In my opinion, we're way past Day Six.  Time to rethink and address some serious issues.

 

 

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Amen and then some.

Unknown said...

Lies can't hide for too long!
Great post!

Anonymous said...

"It's hard to relax and unwind when the resort rents out larger units than mine to anyone off the street who doesn't own for only $299 and that's much less than my annual fees of $750."

Har har. No kidding. That goes on every day, you can rent the same or better unit for less than maintenance, and you don't have to buy or pay for anything!

Most timeshares are sold to buyers through lies, emotion and subterfuge.

If the laws were changed to match other real property, you didn't have to pay and they couldn't do anything except take your timeshare away (you could still rent for less!) then owners would have value. As it is, they have none.

They can raise your assessments as much as they want and if you don't pay they credit bureau you. That all needs to be stopped, if it were owners would be valuable and they would have to keep you happy and paying. Or you's just rent. You wouldn't be the cash cow for them that you are as an owner.