Tug Mentioned in June/July 2017 AARP magazine

[littlestar]

I do not know if this has been posted or not, but AARP magazine has an article called Timeshare Bandits (about upfront fee scammers). Tug is mentioned as a reference for knowing the market.

 

[TUGBrian]

wonderful! hopefully we can find a way to get the article posted here (or a link to it online)

 

[TUGBrian]

is this it?

http://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2017/timeshare-scams-how-they-work.html

 

[Panina]

Good informative article. Hopefully it will help others from getting scammed.

 

[littlestar]

That's it, Brian.

 

[pedro47]

I am so happy that AARP published this article about timeshare upfront fees companies; and maybe more of our senior citizens populations will read the article and not become a victim.

 

[deslagle]

When I have bought and sold a timeshare on the resale market I have used Redweek and followed TUG's advice to do so.
Have never encountered a scam through TUG or Redweek. But with each they are paying members and would get kicked out of TUG or Redweek if they were a scam and complaints were filed.
I have bought resale with no reserve auctions on EBAY but only with sellers who have high ratings from those who deal on Ebay and the feedback was over 95% positive. They were well researched properties or ones we had visited via exchange.

I equity exchanged my Wyndham/Shell Vacation Club properties to buy into a Club Interval Gold via Morritts Londoner.
I own at Morritts and have been going there since 2004. Was surprised when the actual acquisition service was Equity Acquisition Service (EAS) out of Florida and Cancun. I really did want to get out of Wyndham. I assumed Morritt's was dealing with an acquisition service that was reputable. Have yet to find out if it is was a scam but do believe Morritts believes they are legit.
I later found some "Scam" possible articles on Google.com about this particular company.
I have paid my fees which I knew about up front and have signed over with a "notarized" document to both EAS and in the last couple months
got a request from Wyndham to release the properties so Wyndham can deal with EAS. I got tired of Wyndham calling to sell me some Wyndham points so I could use my Shell vacation properties. So the verdict is out on EAS. But it sounds like I am rid of the properties and Wyndham will stop calling.

 

[BigRedOne]

I fell for a similar scam once a long, long time ago and learned from it. Scammed once shame on the re-seller company! Scammed twice shame on the owner!

 

[Larry M]

I fell for a similar scam once a long, long time ago and learned from it. Scammed once shame on the re-seller company! Scammed twice shame on the owner!

Happened to me once, too. And then the guy head the gall to use my credit card to pay for newspaper advertising a few months later. I had the payment cancelled and sent him a nastygram. Should have done more.

 

[Tia]

Yes that is the one

is this it?

http://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2017/timeshare-scams-how-they-work.html

 

[theo]

Excellent article. One factual statement citing hard, documented (not just speculative) numbers particularly impressed me:

Over a 30 month period preceding its' shutdown in 2011, one operation scammed 80,000 individual people out of a collective $24 million dollars.