Summer Timeshare Travel Vacation Scams

With the summer vacation season drawing closer it is important to watch out for false advertisements so you don’t end up losing your vacation savings. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission averages 15,000 consumer complaints each year that related to timeshare or vacation rental frauds. It is important to at least know the basics regarding these unscrupulous scammer plots so you can avoid becoming a victim this summer.

The major problem lately is often related to timeshare properties. In these high pressure sales pitches you are nearly forced into purchasing a timeshare, sometimes when you don’t even want to. Those who have the income and means to technically afford a timeshare are roped in with free gifts, dinner or show accommodations and sometimes even just straight cash. They offer you these “free” gifts in return for your promise to hear them out and learn about timeshares. Often these sales professionals will even lie to you and explain that a timeshare can easily be rented out to cover the costs of ownership. This just is not true, with so many timeshares out on the market today the fact is that you can rent a timeshare out from the resorts or timeshare companies for much cheaper than it costs to own one.

Most people are just not ready to attend a timeshare presentation sales pitch and still walk away with the free gift. These timeshare salespeople are dead set on making you buy a timeshare and will simply not take no for an answer.

As if the “legitimate” timeshare sellers weren’t bad enough there are also illegal scammers who will flat out lie to get a meager upfront fee leaving you with even less money. These misleading people will advertise vacation rentals or timeshares that don’t exist or that they don’t own and charge an upfront fee for their service, once you pay this fee you never hear from them again. They will also prey on current timeshare owners who just want to get rid of their timeshare. They will promise that they have a guaranteed buyer waiting and once you pay them an upfront fee for their service they will disappear leaving you with that unwanted timeshare and being the victim of yet another scam.

Check out the Better Business Bureau report on any company that you do business with.  Also, make sure that the company has been in business for a long period of time.  Fraudulent companies cannot survive for very long.

Buying a Timeshare: Shamrock or Just Sham?

Ever follow a rainbow, looking for the pot of gold at the end?  Timeshare salespeople will guarantee you it is there. Given their often hours-long smoke and mirror show, their sometimes shady practices, maybe even a little alcohol, and you too might buy the map.  You have to pay for the journey too and the pot of gold recovery tools, and leprechaun bait, but it would be worth it in the end, right? Probably not. Sorry folks, for many, timeshares are fools gold. X never marks the spot. It’s not all bad though–at least you get the as-beautiful-as-a-rainbow scenery around the timeshare resort! If that’s all you need to be happy, you’re in luck.  But if you signed on for the investment, that jackpot at the end, you may be feeling a financial pinch very soon.

Before stricter regulation laws, timeshare developers used to sell people on the “investment” of their timeshares. “You can rent them out; you can sell them later; the maintenance fees are cheaper than buying a vacation outright each time.”  And after all, you do get a deed—you are made to feel you own property, which in most people’s minds mean security, investment, and money.  Well, it IS securely yours “in perpetuity,” meaning forever. But there’s no get-rich-quick here; it’s all downhill from the time you purchase  So, the next time someone tries to convince you there is an upside to timeshares, remember how rare rainbows are, and how you never quite find the end.

China Provides Warning To Residents About Buying Timeshares

It seems as if timeshare companies are creating a stir in China and for Chinese citizens traveling abroad throughout the world.  We found an article from the China Daily that reports about an official from the Chaoyang district administration of industry and commerce and the attempts from their office to warn residents about timeshare scams.

Quoting the article:

“As many as 260 notice boards were set up in busy shopping malls like SOHO Shangdu and The Place, as well as in local communities in Chaoyang district to echo the administration’s month-long campaign to warn consumers about timeshare scams that was launched last weekend.”

A non-profit consumer watch group has received over 200 complaints this year about timeshare contracts in China.  Most of these complaints come from the larger cities in China.  Interestingly, as reported, court cases are difficult to win against the timeshare companies because Chinese law is not well-defined for such cases.

As we all know, there are going to be good and bad within the industry.  So many timeshare contracts are set up for timeshare owners to pay on a long term contract.  It’s enough that fraudulent companies need not enter the space to create more dissension and mistrust in the industry.