Every day it seems I read multiple emails and social media posts from frustrated timeshare owners who, in an attempt to “rid” themselves of an unwanted timeshare, have paid some company 3, 4 thousand or sometimes more only to be left with the timeshare and no answer from the company.
It also seems that every day I see warnings from those who know what’s what, including myself, to not engage with these companies that seem to emerge from the murky depths with frightening regularity.
The simple reason of course as I’ve written about extensively is that a timeshare contract is just that; a legal contract. A legal contract shouldn’t be entered into lightly and getting out of one takes someone with both a clear understanding of legal matters and a license to perform such legal matters, an attorney springs to mind.
Nevertheless, these self proclaimed exit companies are raking in money at a rate that rivals Bitcoin’s valuation. I got to thinking how is this possible? The exit companies I mean. Bitcoin is something I’ll never grasp.
Here’s my explanation.
Most, if not all of the owners who want out, bought their timeshare as the result of a 3 hour high pressure sales pitch while on vacation. I’d bet you a share of Bitcoin that those consumers who were savvy enough to purchase on the legitimate secondary market and saved thousands of dollars aren’t flocking to an exit company. Those high pressure sales pitches came with a bribe of some sort. Here in Orlando, pre COVID, it was usually a free or highly discounted theme park ticket.
Now think for a minute. If you were offered a free theme park ticket to the theme park with a five foot tall mouse as it’s ambassador in exchange for sitting through a sales pitch on the virtues of opening a brokerage account so that you could buy a quarter share of Bitcoin, you’d be more than a little suspicious, right? After all, what does the mouse have to do with Bitcoin?
This is where the trouble starts my friends. The hapless consumer doesn’t question why Billy Bob’s Super Duper Eastgate Resort-located just minutes from the mouse’s house (OK, technically 39 minutes at 4:00 am) is offering tickets to visit the mouse instead of say, four yummy steak dinners at the Tiki House on their own property.
That’s the first step in unwarranted trust. No one questions it. This leads to more and more unwarranted trust, which I’ve discussed in previous blog posts, most recently where I warned consumers that the timeshare salesperson is just that and not The Oracle At Delphi.
So now we have a consumer with an unwanted timeshare. Perhaps they feel that their developer and HOA are not to be trusted. Maybe they’ve been swayed by social media groups that do nothing but cry foul against the developer all day long because they failed to get anything in writing. Whatever the situation, they’ve been conditioned to place trust and thousands of dollars with those that don’t deserve it.
Couple that with the fact that people who have been scammed or think they’ve been scammed will go to extraordinary lengths to defend their actions and do almost anything to make it seem as if they haven’t been scammed or more to the point, made a mistake.
Think about this the next time you see something that, after thinking about it for more than a few minutes, makes no sense. Like a timeshare resort offering you anything other than cash or something on their property. The seeds of unwarranted trust are being planted.
