Buyer's Remorse--Was I fleeced? Please help by Monday

[quixotecoyote]

This afternoon I attended a Trendwest presentation and purchased a membership in a Worldmark vacation club points program for 11k. 1100 as a down payment is broken up over the next 5 months and then the remainder will be fianaced at 13% interest. I got points worth 7-10 days a year, flexible between several resorts. There's also discounted rates if I go over my points. I was told this will build equity as I actually own an interest. I know only a little about timeshares, and I know I should have done more research beforehand.

Question: Did I just impulse buy into a poor decision? I can afford this (sort of) but I don't really need it, as I'm more or less happy vacationing at non-resort locations. It sounded like a good deal at the time so I jumped on it. I have 3 business days before I'm locked in to my contract. Can anyone give me advice as to if I got a good deal or how to decide if I should rescind the contract?

 

[EZ-ED]

This afternoon I attended a Trendwest presentation and purchased a membership in a Worldmark vacation club points program for 11k. 1100 as a down payment is broken up over the next 5 months and then the remainder will be fianaced at 13% interest. I got points worth 7-10 days a year, flexible between several resorts. There's also discounted rates if I go over my points. I was told this will build equity as I actually own an interest. I know only a little about timeshares, and I know I should have done more research beforehand.

Question: Did I just impulse buy into a poor decision? I can afford this (sort of) but I don't really need it, as I'm more or less happy vacationing at non-resort locations. It sounded like a good deal at the time so I jumped on it. I have 3 business days before I'm locked in to my contract. Can anyone give me advice as to if I got a good deal or how to decide if I should rescind the contract?

If you have to ask then you got fleeced. Cancel now and buy the same points for 70 to 80 cents per point on the resale market.

 

[MOXJO7282]

Paying financing on a timeshare is one of the biggest no-nos there is, increasing your true cost significantly, especially with a 13% rate. Cancel ASAP, and do your homework. You should be able to find a much better deal if you can be patient and do some research.

Regards.
Joe

 

[armlem2]

I agree rescind now while you can. Then do some research about timeshares, read lots of posts on TUG and save yourself lots of money. The deal you jumped on will be there if you want it next month, but your ability to rescind won't. good luck

 

[BevL]

Rescind. The same deal with be there later, but especially with Worldmark points, you can buy for about half price on the resale market, with no downside. There are also those (Perry on these boards) who advocates buying the smallest membership you can with them and renting points for basically maintenance fees.

You're probably sensing a theme here - four posts telling you to rescind within about 10 minutes!!

BTW, welcome to TUG. If the timesharing bug really bites you, there is nowhere better to learn how to live with the illness!!

Bev

 

[taffy19]

If you have any doubt in your mind, I would rescind immediately and follow the directions word for word otherwise you may be out of luck. Make sure you get a receipt of delivery of your written cancellation letter to the developer or sales organization and do it by mail, if this is what they spelled out in your documents. Read the forums here and educate yourself and you will read that you can buy re-sales for a lot less money.

I only own deeded weeks so cannot advise you when you buy points but even points can be bought cheaper in the after market too from what I have read. You will get more replies, I am sure.

Remember one thing, it is very easy to buy a timeshare but not easy to sell them unless you want to sell it for pennies on the dollar. It is like driving a new car off a dealer's parking lot. The car has lost over half the value once you have bought it and drove away. You have a chance right now to change your fate.

 

[elaine]

at least 10 othres will tell you to cancel---do to EXACTLY as it says!

you MUST send exactly as contract says--if it says by US Mail, do not fed ex it, etc. My advice: GO TO THE POST OFFICE ON MONDAY AND SEND IT CERTIFIED MAIL, RETURN RECEIPT--and make a copy of the letter that you send.

Expect to get a call offering you a better deal---realize that you can do your hoemwork and always call back and get the same (or better deal later). There are TONS more TS for resale than there is demand---lots of TS are 50 cents or less on the dollar.

If you decide you like Worldmark, and lots on TUG do, then buy when you are a more educated consumer--I am someone who bought from developer at a fairly decent deal 8 years ago, found tug and rescinded---never regretted it--and now have 4 TS--timesharing can be great---but rescind from developer while you can.

 

[quixotecoyote]

Wow that was fast. The contract says the rescind request must be mailed or walked in, so i guess I'll bring it by tomorrow, or monday if they're closed. I had a gut check that I made the wrong decision, but I needed someone to tell me why I was feeling that way.

Can someone elaborate on why it's a bad idea to finance a timeshare? How else an you buy a 11 thousand dollar item?

 

[elaine]

if you walk it in--make a copy and get someone to sign and date copy!

get their name and employee ID number and date on your copy with a notation "received." Not that these folks are dishonest, but if something gets lost in the shuffle--you will need PROOF that you complied with delivery. good luck.
And if you go in person---be prepared for another hard sell---if you hand deliver--say "financial advisor" said to cancel and you have to leave--AND LEAVE!

 

[jacknsara]

... Can someone elaborate on why it's a bad idea to finance a timeshare? How else an you buy a 11 thousand dollar item?

Aloha,
Start by paying the resale rate (maybe 50% +/- for Worldmark and much less than 50% for certain others). If you read enough past threads or join TUG and use the search feature, you'll discover a range of philosophy about financing. My simplified opinion is that if you cannot pay cash and don't have enough home equity for a line of credit against it, then think hard about your priorities. You could hang out here and learn to rent other peoples timeshares for the next few years. RCI has outlets open to the public that sometimes rent weeks for not much more (occasionally less) than maintenance fees.
Jack

 

[wbtimesharer]

Been there, done that, escaped with my hair

Coyote,

Did a similar purchase about 3 years ago at a small resort during a Summer vacation for even more cash. I followed your path and found Tug in the nick of time. I was lucky enough to work a contract that allowed me to try the ownership for 2 years with some bonus time tossed in which we used for great times. The Tuggers at the time advocated doing exactly what they are telling you and back out, which was extremely good advice.

If you want to know how much fleecing you are taking, do a walk on the EBAY side and look up the resort reales. You will find you are paying double what you will pay resale.

As for paying 13% for a timeshare purchase, you only need to multiple 11,000 x 13% to get $1430 a year in interest alone. You can get some decent digs for those even at rack rates. Toss in your yearly Maintenance Fee and you will see that your 7-10 days will cost you close to 2,000 a year.

If you decide to keep this unit, I would highly suggest replace the 13% loan with lower interest credit card or home equity loan ASAP if you truly want to keep the unit.

Best of Luck.

Bill

 

[Sydney]

Check ebay for Worldmark credits and you'll see how little you can pay for the same number of credits. How many credits did you buy? Financing for a timeshare at 13% increases the cost significantly, especially if you're buying from Trendwest. You end up over-paying twice. If you need to finance, can you do it through a mortgage at a much lower interest rate? Otherwise, I'd save for it. We're in the process of buying Worldmark resale and have paid cash for it. Much more affordable and better value for money.

 

[topcop400]

Can someone elaborate on why it's a bad idea to finance a timeshare? How else an you buy a 11 thousand dollar item?

Well, I purchased a three-bedroom, lock-out, floating week for $3,000---so I just paid cash. I later bought into a points system for just over $1,000 and paid cash again.

Lots of people on TUG use a 0% credit card to temporarily finance their purchase.

 

[brucecz]

I agree with the others. Recind! Recind!Recind!Recind!Recind!Recind!Recind!
Buy resale if you really like the product.

We turned that resort on Thursday (we got back this morning after stay at our Cliffs at Peace Canyon and at the Marriott Grand Chat.) to check out the resort for a possable future exchange into that resort seeing they were to pay us $100. to check out the resort.

Did they grab you by the Imperial Place or the Alladin by any chance?

We had a rep named Geno who was also the warm up person who addressed the whole group before you sat down with your rep.

We let him know upfront what we own so he knew he did not have a chance to sell us. He knows about Tug. I found him to be more knownlegdeable than 90% of of the timeshare salesman we have meet.

I noticed the Trendwest magizine and asked if the election was done and if a phone friend of ours named Phillip Abdouch was listed in that magazine. Phillip is one of the more savy who post on Tug and other sites.

To my surprize there was Phillips picture and IMHO his valid veiws why he should be elected.

I hope he got elected but it is very tough to be elected because the resort developers want to keep a strangle hold on any HOA, etc and will use various means to do so.

Some of the means are in the original condo agreements etc that were drawn up by the developers attornerys to help to make it hard for non deleveloper employees to be elected.

That being said a lot of Tuggers like thier program but buy resale. But if you want a timeshare just for use in Las Vegas there are a lot of great Las Vegas ebay buys.

The units at that Trendwest are IMHO a a bit nicer quailty compared to the Grand View for about the same delevoper prices. The resort you looked at have wooden kitchen cabinets while the Grandviews were of a cheaper pressed composite material. It is a nice resort but RECIND and get signed proof of that you recinded.

Bruce

 

[Karen G]

Hopefully you will be taking all the good advice you've received in this thread. Just in case you are waivering, remember that you have just this one opportunity to rescind, but you will have an unlimited number of opportunities to buy in the future after you've done your homework if you still want to.

Count yourself among the fortunate few who found TUG in time.

 

[PerryM]

The lucky stars...

Quixotecoyote,

Thank your lucky stars you found TUG – we are about to save you a boat load of money and offer you many alternatives the TW salesrep knew about but decided to not share with you.

The 11,000 WM credits you bought this afternoon for $1.80 each are worth only 70¢ this evening. By buying from the loveable TW salesrep you lost $1.10 per WM credit so total you lost $12,100. I’m going to take a wild guess here and assume the TW salesrep forgot to mention that ANY of the 230,000 WM owners could sell you the same exact WM credits for just the 70¢ each.

There are NO differences between the $1.80 TW sold credits and the 70¢ resale credits you can buy all day long.

Second, the 11,000 WM credits might be too many credits, you could just buy 6,000 WM credits for 70¢ each and do the same exact job with tricks we can teach you. So you only need to buy $4,200 worth of WM credits resale from an existing WM owner.

Now you can borrow 5,000 WM credits from next years usage to get 11,000 credits now, or just rent 5,000 WM credits for about 7¢ from other WM owners and get your 11,000 credits. So rent those 5,000 credits for just $350 this year and not buy those extra 5,000 credits at all. I’m going to take another wild guess and assume the TW salesrep forgot to mention these facts too.

Follow the rescind instructions to the letter – get something in writing from TW. If the instructions talk about sending a letter via US mail then do so or you are not rescinding correctly and could be on the hook for the 11,000 credits.

Financing a timeshare makes NO sense – it basically doubles the cost of the ownership over 10 years and resale is much much cheaper.

Good luck and don’t let the TW salesrep talk you out of rescinding – much of what comes out of their mouths are flat out lies, misinformation, rumors, and just crazy stuff that makes no sense at all.

Oh, don't forget to tell the TW salesrep hi from TUG.

 

[spatenfloot]

He didn't buy 11k points, he paid $11k. So it is probably a 6000 point account. Still, he can get that for $4800 resale.

 

[m61376]

Wow that was fast. The contract says the rescind request must be mailed or walked in, so i guess I'll bring it by tomorrow, or monday if they're closed. I had a gut check that I made the wrong decision, but I needed someone to tell me why I was feeling that way.

Can someone elaborate on why it's a bad idea to finance a timeshare? How else an you buy a 11 thousand dollar item?

I know others alluded to this, but I just wanted to make sure you follow the recission instructions precisely- make sure you get documentation that you delivered a recission letter if you hand deliver it. Make sure it goes to the party outlined in your contract. If there is any doubt, I would send a certified latter, return receipt, to the address stated in your contract for recissions. That way they can't claim you delivered it incorrectly.

As for why it's bad to finance a timeshare, there are many reasons. As others have pointed out, at 13% over 10 years you are doubling your cost and the interest isn't even tax deductible. A timeshare is a luxury and not a necessity; you should strongly consider whether you want to incur debt for one. Of course, if you buy resale you will save a lot of money for the same product, so you may not need to finance the purchase.

Good luck!

 

[PerryM]

Opps but...

He didn't buy 11k points, he paid $11k. So it is probably a 6000 point account. Still, he can get that for $4800 resale.

Oops, sorry 6,000 WM credits is all you need to buy and with that you can borrow 6,000 from next year's usage or just rent unlimited credits from other owners to accumulate any number of credits you want in your account.

There are quite a few No Housekeeping Accounts for sale now - http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...MEWA:IT&viewitem=&item=250042832677&rd=1&rd=1

This is a 6k account with 12k unused credits. We bought one and paid $1.50 a credit so this one should sell for at least $9,000 some recently have sold for close to the TW price of $1.80 a credit.

A NHK allows you to add as many other credits you want and the ALL never pay for another housekeeping charge again. This is handy to have if you make short trips to WM resorts (over the weekend) and the NHK accounts seem to hold their resale value well.

 

[Blondie]

Dear Coyote- Financing is bad because if you do not have 11 grand to play with you likely cannot affford it. Some folks here can shell out that kind of dough and never miss it. It does not sound like that is your situation. So, what is the option? Buy resale for one thing. For another, only buy what you can afford. Do not finance anything. There are TONS of affordable timeshares, points plans etc,and if you research thoroughly you will find something that fits your needs, and that fits your budget. Really!! Then you can vacation knowing you are really doing it cheaply and that is half the fun. You can get into a really decent program or timeshare for under $2,000. If you look at my profile to the left of this message you will see what I own. Every one was bought with cash and for less than $1,400 or so. It can be done and it is not that hard!!!

 

[johnmfaeth]

Timeshare Financing

Hi,

The two problems with developer financing are:

1) The rate is always a ripoff (unless you have terrible credit) at 13% - 18%

2) Timeshare loans are personal loans NOT mortgage loans and are not tax deductable.

You are MUCH better off getting a home equity loan or line of credit and paying with that as the interest rate is closer to 8% these days (varies slightly by state) and the interest is tax deductable (with a maximim loan amount cap on deductability).

If your home equity loan/line is already maxed out, you probably shouldn't be buying a timeshare.

 

[johnmfaeth]

OH, and rescind, you are being ripped off 99% of the time you buy from the developer versus a fair resale price.

 

[rickandcindy23]

I am also advising you to rescind.

Take the time to get a receipt of your rescission letter, if you are going to walk it into the office. Do not delay until tomorrow because there is no need to wait until the last minute.

Twenty-five years ago, Rick and I were young, only 26 years old, when we bought our first timeshare. We were having second thoughts by the time we got home and called them to rescind and were told we could not. I never knew if the law changed or if they were lying at the time, but I regret that purchase to this day.

Now we own 14 weeks, most of them were resale purchases and the best investments we have made for our old age. What better way to travel? We originally were going to build a cabin on our acreage in the Colorado mountains. That land has gone up in value substantially over the past 27 years, probably about 5 times. We paid $7,800 for it. The timeshare we bought for $7,200, 25 years ago, is only worth $1K, which is what I sold it for this year.

When the salesmen say that timeshare will go up in value because it is attached to real estate, it is so believable. After all, our week was deeded and we owned 1/52nd of that unit, so of course it will rise in value. The stand alone units in the complex sell for about $170K, yet we got only $1,000 for a week 25, which is late June. Makes no sense, but being a timeshare, the value of the property goes down.

 

[m61376]

Oops, sorry 6,000 WM credits is all you need to buy and with that you can borrow 6,000 from next year's usage or just rent unlimited credits from other owners to accumulate any number of credits you want in your account.

There are quite a few No Housekeeping Accounts for sale now - http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...MEWA:IT&viewitem=&item=250042832677&rd=1&rd=1

This is a 6k account with 12k unused credits. We bought one and paid $1.50 a credit so this one should sell for at least $9,000 some recently have sold for close to the TW price of $1.80 a credit.

A NHK allows you to add as many other credits you want and the ALL never pay for another housekeeping charge again. This is handy to have if you make short trips to WM resorts (over the weekend) and the NHK accounts seem to hold their resale value well.

This is probably a very stupid question, but what is the difference between an NHK account and the regular account?

 

[spatenfloot]

This is probably a very stupid question, but what is the difference between an NHK account and the regular account?

NHK= no housekeeping fees.
For regular accounts you are charged a housekeeping fee for each reservation, but you also get free housekeeping tokens each year depending on your account size.