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This is the path my wife and I followed. Probably thousands of others followed the same path
At one time, timesharing had an actual property behind it. You bought one week at a cottage in a certain place and went
there every year or every other year. If you wanted to go somewhere else, you exchanged a week for that year through RCI.
We thought we were an owner of one week of this timeshare property in the world. We were told real estate prices never
go down and we could sell it for a good price when we didn't want to travel anymore.
However, we were into a system that used POINTS. Points every other year to be used the timeshare resort had a property.
After that, we bought into the same company's,VIP Club (Not it's real name.). We thought we owned part of the VIP Club.
How wrong we were. We didn't own any part of it. We didn't even own the points. They expired after three years.
We paid $20,000 for timeshares in 2007 and in 2011 plus two maintenance fees each year which amounted to $800 U.S.
We were lured into promotional/selling events by gifts like free concerts. The whole thing always degenerated into a very
hard sell for two or more or hours. The resorts were promoted, and the glories of timeshare ownership were promoted. There
was no downside on this, no consumer warnings, no step by step scrutiny of the contract, no lawyer in the area to answer questions.
They was lots sizzle but what was the product all about? You can't find out in two hours of hard sell.
Even if you bought one set of points, the next year they wanted you to buy more, and the year after that even more points.
There was no end to the greed of these owners.
Then there were the resell guys who previously worked for timeshare companies who tried to convince us there was a big
market for slightly discounted timeshare. We paid $1,500 for this service. We dropped the price considerably but still got
no offers whatever.
After that fell through, there were the vultures who for two or five thousand dollars wanted to take our timeshares off
our hands through some mysterious process. The guy I talked to was a former salesman for a timeshare company and he told me
that any timeshare was worth nothing and we should unload it so we wouldn't be hassled for maintenance fees or bill collectors.
I think these fix-it guys all work for timeshare companies like pseudo bill collectors. They try to tell you they are
the only way you can get rid of your maintenance fees. They are there to psychologically break you down and get your money,
just like regular timeshare salesmen.
On E-Bay most of the timeshares sell from $1.00 to $100.
Was there any good advice above? I don't think so.
We rely on the media and the consumer protection branch of a government to set the record straight.
Time to separate the truth from the lies on any aspect of timeshare products, pitches and costs.
David and Irene Barron
Lawyer and timeshare exit fees take money away from seniors, consumers and tourism and transfers it to exploitive opportunists.
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