Spin...Everyone Spins

You can’t make this stuff up. There’s this coalition that’s telling everybody they’re for timeshare reform. In reality, it’s headed by the same guy heading one of the largest self-proclaimed exit companies. The coalition sends out a tweet praising Holiday Inn Club Vacations saying it’s “one of the few resorts doing right by their owners and providing them with actual solutions for their timeshares.”

This exit company is legally barred from doing business with any Holiday Inn Club Vacation owner as part of a lawsuit. Something that’s not mentioned in the tweet. 

The industry will no doubt pounce on that fact..and rightfully so. 

In this confusing time, it’s imperative to understand that nearly every message can be, and is usually “spun”.  

Stay tuned. 

How To Remain In Control Of A Timeshare Sales Pitch

While a timeshare can be a good thing, more often than not, the sales pitch can make it seem as if the salesperson is in control.  The good news is that that's not true. You are in control, despite all the training that they've been through, no sales person can make you buy anything. 

I got my start in the timeshare business as a salesperson, way back in 2000. Since then, I've dedicated my work to helping people through the dizzying world of timeshare and to making positive changes within the industry. I'm pleased to report that I've been successful at the former and failed at the latter. The industry has made it crystal clear they have no interest in changing for the better. 

Let's start with a basic fact:  The industry believes that timeshare must be sold, rather than purchased and they play upon consumers' greed and hope of gain/fear of loss in order to sell as much as possible. That's actually good news for you!  No one likes to be sold anything, so right away, you should know that if you're interested in purchasing a timeshare, there are many more, much less costly options open to you than giving up hours of your vacation time to listen to a salesperson rattle on.  

The average price of a timeshare purchased from the developer last year was just above $21,000. More than half of that is eaten up in marketing and sales costs---someone has to pay for all those dinner show or theme park tickets that they bribe you with, right?  In most cases, that very same timeshare can be purchased on the legitimate secondary market, without all the distractions and noise commonly found at the sales center, for thousands less. In some cases, for $100 or less!  Don't you feel better already?

As with most purchases, knowledge is power. The less knowledge you have ahead of time, the more of a disadvantage you'll be at when you're confronted with a salesperson who is trained in telling you what they want you to know and not disclosing what they don't want you to know. 

There are 4 words that don't exist when it comes to timeshare matters. Understand and master them and you'll be in control and more likely to make wise decisions. 

FREE

Those free dinner show tickets or almost free accommodations, of course they're not free,  you give up hours of your vacation day in exchange for them. Additionally, that  free buffet breakfast you might get while at the sales center is a) assuredly built into the price of the timeshare and b) designed to make you feel obligated to buy. Don't fall for it. You're not. 

PERFECT

Any salesperson has been trained to solve a problem. In the case of timeshare, it's a vacation problem. If there's no problem, there's no sale. No matter what vacation problem they uncover, the timeshare they're selling will be the perfect solution. Except it won't. Nothing is perfect. 

ALWAYS

Who wouldn't like to always go on a dream vacations?  Who wouldn't always like to have their perfect accommodations just waiting for them?  Who wouldn't want to always be able to afford this dream vacation?  Once you start down this path, it's tough to stop. 

NEVER

'The timeshare will be a pre-paid vacation plan!  Your cost will never go up!"  Sounds great. Unfortunately, it's a lie. Don't fall for it. 

Another thing to remember is that the person asking the questions is in control. The salesperson will ask you many questions during the 'Discovery' part of the sales pitch. That's fine. Let them do their job. And then, voila YOU start asking the questions!  I've identified 19 questions you must ask before purchasing a timeshare. Shoot me an email at lisaschreier617@gmail.com to find out what they are. 

3 Ways Timeshare Could Be Better Post-Pandemic

The current worldwide pandemic has upended nearly all industries and hospitality has been hit especially hard. By some accounts, upwards of 70% of the timeshare workforce has been laid off or furloughed. It will be months, perhaps years, before the industry gets up and running again and many timeshare resorts will not survive. 

All is not lost however. I believe that this is a crucial time for timeshare developers. Those that are both nimble and not stuck in the past will thrive. Here are 3 ways the timeshare industry could be better after the pandemic:

1. OPCing will become obsolete. It will be impossible to maintain proper social distancing while hawking free dinner show or discounted theme park tickets to a wary public. Developers will learn, as every other industry has already learned, that target marketing using traditional advertising channels is the best way to attract consumers.
2. Packed sales centers will become obsolete. The days of consumers sitting across tiny round tables from the salesperson in a room full of hundreds of other tiny round tables will be over. This is good news, as timeshare never really was a one size fits all sales proposition. Asking consumers to spend $20,000 or more on a product that has a perpetual contract requires more finesse and more individual attention than those sales rooms ever provided. 
3. False promises of “today only pricing” will become obsolete. No one actually believes in this myth anyway, so it’s long past time for it to be retired. Because the sales process will no longer be held in large, over-crowded sales centers as discussed above, developers will be forced to provide more time for consumers to understand the product and reach a purchasing decision without forcing a false sense of urgency. 

In addition to these 3 significant changes, nimble developers will begin to change the way they communicate with owners and prospective owners alike. Owners in particular, will not easily forget how developers and exchange companies communicated and treated them during this crisis and will reward those good guys with their continued loyalty. The bad guys...they’re not going to be able to withstand the one two punch of a prolonged financial crisis coupled with owners abandoning them. 

It’s Time For a Reset

As I’m sure you do, I have quite a bit of time on my hands and I’m looking through social media posts for timeshare related material. 

What I find is post after post from consumers, many of them timeshare owners, angry about the way they were treated at timeshare sales presentations. The complaints fall into one of these categories:

1. Took longer than the promised 90 minutes
2. The salesperson wouldn’t let them leave
3. They were kept there without food...many of them claiming that they had a medical issue that required them to eat at a specific time
4. They were not allowed to read anything that they were forced to sign
5. They were not allowed to think about what they were buying, but forced to make a decision on the spot

Now, I’m not suggesting that people make this stuff up. It happens more often than it should and there’s absolutely no reason why it should be encouraged or even allowed to happen. 

Having said that, it occurs to me that in each of these cases the consumer gave up their power and abdicated their responsibility. 

These sales pitches are, for the most part, completely and 100% voluntary on the part of the consumer. No one forces you to attend. The resorts offer a bribe in the form of cash, meals, tickets for something, etc. in exchange for you sitting through a sales pitch. Voluntarily. 100%. No one has a gun to your head. No one has slipped some drug into your coffee or cocktail that your drinking when you encounter the OPC on the boardwalk. 

And once you’re there, again, you are the only one with any power over the situation. 90 minutes are up?  Get up and leave. You’re told you can’t read anything you’re signing. Get up and leave. Have to eat at 2:00 but the salesman tells you no?  Get up and leave. What do you think us going to happen?  Are they going to call the non-existent timeshare police to bring you back?

What I’m trying to point out is that when this pandemic is over, that perhaps it’s time for consumers to do reset of their behavior which will force timeshare developers to do their own reset. You have the power to change the entire industry paradigm

If this awful viral outbreak had taught us anything, it’s that tomorrow is not promised to anyone. Rather than waste 90 minutes of your precious time in exchange for two dinner show tickets, enjoy your vacation time. It may be the last one you take

Anatomy Of A Resale Scam

I’m reprinting this with TUG’s approval, which is where it first appeared. This should be required reading for all timeshare owners. These scammers are good. They know what buttons to push and when to push them. Remember that many of these resale scam artists got their start selling timeshare, so they learned enough about the industry to sound extremely convincing. 

We could really use your help on this one. I've read through a lot of other red flags/scam messages on the forums but I haven't seen any advice for if you've signed a sales agreement and then realize it's a scam.

A little background on our situation. We were cold called (which should have been red flag #1) and then offered far more for our timeshare that what we paid (should have been red flag #2) from a buyer (should have been red flag #3) interested in obtaining controlling ownership of Vidanta resort in Nuevo Vallarta. We were told that no money would be needed up front and that their commission fees would come out of the sale from the escrow account. So far this seemed reasonable. They even sent us the Citibanamex bank account statement - which we called and confirmed that the account is valid and that the money was in it. We did not provide the amount to CItibanamex when we called, and they told us what it was which matched the statement. They also provided us their realtor sales information which was confirmed with the Pennsylvania board and everything, again everything seemed legitimate. Then the kicker comes in, we would need to pay a tax and establish a Mexican ID to conduct the sale, which would be a reimbursement after the sale but we would need to pay that now or go down to Mexico and deal with this (that should have been red flag #4). At this point I said that we were told no money would be needed up front and now we have to pay these RFC Tax Payer ID "taxes" ($5430 - funny how others have been about the same amout). Now is when we felt this was a scam, and a good scam at that. We also noticed the website addressed changed through this process as well as e-mail addresses - as we've dragged out the whole process for almost 3 months now. We were provided with 2 satisfied clients, but can't tell if they're in on it, we're going to assume that they are at this point.

The problem is, as I've stated at the beginning, that we signed the sales agreement, and in it there is a clause which states that if we decide to cancel the sale (breach of agreement), we would be responsible to paying their commission - 4% ($2812.40). We've already spoken with an attorney and are prepared to go to court if necessary, but has anyone else been in this situation? If so, what did you do? Did you have to end up going to court? Did you just ignore them and they went away? Did you just stop taking their calls/block their calls? Did you tell them to go away and that you weren't going to be sending them any money? Did you end up having to go through with a court ordeal? We told them that our bank would not wire money to Mexico. We have a follow up call with the same attorney this coming Wednesday, but would love to hear if anyone else has been in our stupid situation that we put ourselves in.

While we did sign the sales agreement, we never signed the escrow documents, so this is the only point that we got to.

They have sent a cancellation letter saying that we need to pay the 4% but they can't do this before the closing date, so we're not too worried about that as they have already sent quite a few with wrong information.

Before we ever got started (around June 2019), we tried doing research, but nothing came up - only now am I finding others saying this is a scam starting around September 2019.

If this does go to court, we will prove that they knowingly committed fraud and then we will be counter-suing them for wasting my time. We will also be reporting them to the BBB, the state attorney general (Pennsylvania), as well as the Federal Trade Commission (which is where we did find some info starting around September 2019).

We don't want to get rid of our timeshare at this point, as we do use it, we just want these people to go away and are willing to fight it.

Players involved in this (if it is even their real names/companies):

James Adams

Real Estate Broker

Ace Properties LLC

1701 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103

(267) 678-0104 x375

William Canzino

Escrow Officer

1913 Capital Group LLC

403 Wythe Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11249

(917) 745-3729

We appreciate your advice and expertise in advance. We will follow up as information comes along for anyone else that's in our situation and shut these scam artists down once and for all.

Thank you for listening to us.

Incredible, isn’t it?  What’s troubling is that after this owner received a bunch of responses all saying it was a scam, there was still enough doubt in their mind to continue to ask questions and be concerned about the “4% fee.”

Keep in mind that if you receive a cold all or other form of contact regarding your timeshare, the chances are 99.9% that it’s a scam. With rare exception, there’s no buyer for your timeshare as evidenced by the tens of thousands of listings for $100 on the internet. 

Where Do You Get Your Timeshare Information From?

If it’s only from this blog, you’re making a mistake. That might sound odd, but it’s true. While after spending 20 years in and around the industry, I have a fairly good grasp of things in this country, I have almost no understanding of how timeshare operates in Australia for instance. Nor do I have a solid understanding of the byzantine language of how most timeshare contracts are written, other than they’re in perpetuity and they heavily favor the developer. 

Why am I saying this?  Because in 2020, it’s incredibly easy for anyone with a keyboard and an internet connection to disseminate all sorts of timeshare “stuff” with little or no regard for facts. 

Self-proclaimed exit companies with not a single licensed attorney on staff profess to be able to get you out of your timeshare contract and in the most egregious cases, also claim they’ll be able to get you a full refund of your purchase price. Angry owners, disguised as advocates who profess to be working to change the industry but instead show a clear misunderstanding of what meaningful change is. Bloggers who’ve never even sat through a timeshare sales pitch, much less looked at a contract, trot out the old standby “timeshare is a real estate investment.”

Of course, the industry itself puts out press releases and infamous infographics proclaiming how much money is being saved by owning a timeshare, curiously overstating the amount of annual hotel price inflation and mysteriously omitting the cost of food in their equation. Oh, and let’s not forget their claim that timeshare owners have more sex on vacation than those staying at hotels. 

Add this all up, and you’ll see that while consumers have access to more information than ever before, it’s imperative to be selective in what information you pay attention to. 

Should you believe the salesperson who has a short amount of time to sell you the most expensive product they can or the zealous but not fully informed creator of a Facebook page who claims to be legally fighting the timeshare industry on behalf of owners, but has accomplished nothing to date?  The answer of course is NEITHER without doing more digging and asking more questions. 

I’ve been saying for many years now that anyone who uses the words “free”, “perfect”, “always” and “never” is lying. I’m going to add “quick” and “easy” to that list. Nothing is as cut and dry as most people make it out to be when it comes to timeshare matters. 

It’s also important to find out what the other side thinks of the person or organization you’re getting information from. Have they been sued?  Why?  Are they respected?  Why or why not?  Are they able to work with the other side towards positive change?

I’ll take this opportunity to pat myself on the back here and let you in on a little secret...I’ll be announcing later on this year that I’ll be working with “the other side” on two, perhaps three projects designed to improve timeshare for everyone. That’s not an indication that I’m giving up my stance as a consumer advocate or under any influence by anyone or any organization, rather it’s a clear indication that I have earned the respect of both consumers and the industry. 

In the meantime, be careful, ask questions, follow the money and remember that no one knows everything about this complex product known as timeshare. 

Where Is Your Public Offering Statement?

If you’re like most first time timeshare buyers, you may have no idea what I’m referring to. BIG MISTAKE. 

The Public Offering Statement (POS) explains in detail everything you should know about your purchase PRIOR TO PURCHASING. In fact, if you look through the mountains of paperwork you received when you purchased, or as is increasingly common these days; buried in a CD-ROM, you’ll find the POS with this phrase on the front: “READ PRIOR TO SIGNING”.

Chances are you did not know you received, much less read this POS when you purchased your timeshare. 

To be fair, the POS must be received prior to or at the same time as the other paperwork. Either way, you didn’t know it even existed, did you?

Asking for this POS prior to signing any purchase paperwork is a wonderful thing to do as it will put the sales staff and the closing/verification officer on notice that they’re not dealing with an ordinary uninformed consumer. 

If this post helps one consumer from making a bad purchase, I’m happy. As for the rest of you who already purchased; find the POS, make a pot of coffee and settle in for a long and eye opening read. 

You’re welcome.