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Getting called by Advance Travel Network to 'rent' Interval International Getaway weeks from me
- Thread starter kyaustin
- Start date
It is a well-known scam. They will get you hooked on the potential of making huge dollars, but then they will ask for money to be paid to them ahead of time. As you may already know, RCI and II weeks are not allowed to be rented, but that is not really the point.
- Joined
- May 5, 2011
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- Resorts Owned
- HGVC and DVC
This is an advertising/listing company.
Just my observations from looking at many of these scammers:
Almost all of the cold calls in which the caller claims that they want to rent your getaway weeks are the advertising/listing companies. These companies pop up constantly because the money is easy. It is my opinion that these scammers try to figure out how they can steal without going to jail. They have found a business model that does just that - the advertising/listing model of placing your timeshare ad on their website for big bucks.
Even though the website was only created to give the appearance of being a legit site it serves it’s purpose because they are providing a service for the big bucks (the ad). The fact that it is a horrible value doesn’t matter as that is good enough to keep them out of jail.
However, these are still scammers and they know what works to get credit card numbers and that is the getaway weeks lie. You can be sure that these are scripts that the callers are asked to read. When they send over the actual contract it will say nothing about getaway weeks and will be instead a contract to place your ad on the website. However, these lazy SOBs don’t even place a real ad. They just have a generic resort listing that supposedly covers every paid customer who owns at the same resort so it really costs the company nothing for the ad. What’s more, the website makes it difficult to actually search for something a renter might be interested in. Their highlighted resorts are all over priced. For example, with Flamingo HGVC “starting at $2,000 per week”. They have those high prices listed so that potential victims will think that is what they are going to get. They probably don’t get any real offers for anybody and that is just fine to them. If they had offers it would take away from their cold calling for more upfront fees.
So what about Advance Travel Network? This is a new company with the website created 9 months ago. Their search is a joke as it is similar to a hotel request - enter location (like Orlando), enter check in date and check out date. Timeshares don’t work that way. Of course, I was not surprised when everything I tried came back with “0 results found”.
Owners should stay away from every one of these companies. They are either an outright scam or at best, for those that have been around for multiple years like SMTN, they are an extremely poor value. Either way one would be throwing their money out the window.
Just my observations from looking at many of these scammers:
Almost all of the cold calls in which the caller claims that they want to rent your getaway weeks are the advertising/listing companies. These companies pop up constantly because the money is easy. It is my opinion that these scammers try to figure out how they can steal without going to jail. They have found a business model that does just that - the advertising/listing model of placing your timeshare ad on their website for big bucks.
Even though the website was only created to give the appearance of being a legit site it serves it’s purpose because they are providing a service for the big bucks (the ad). The fact that it is a horrible value doesn’t matter as that is good enough to keep them out of jail.
However, these are still scammers and they know what works to get credit card numbers and that is the getaway weeks lie. You can be sure that these are scripts that the callers are asked to read. When they send over the actual contract it will say nothing about getaway weeks and will be instead a contract to place your ad on the website. However, these lazy SOBs don’t even place a real ad. They just have a generic resort listing that supposedly covers every paid customer who owns at the same resort so it really costs the company nothing for the ad. What’s more, the website makes it difficult to actually search for something a renter might be interested in. Their highlighted resorts are all over priced. For example, with Flamingo HGVC “starting at $2,000 per week”. They have those high prices listed so that potential victims will think that is what they are going to get. They probably don’t get any real offers for anybody and that is just fine to them. If they had offers it would take away from their cold calling for more upfront fees.
So what about Advance Travel Network? This is a new company with the website created 9 months ago. Their search is a joke as it is similar to a hotel request - enter location (like Orlando), enter check in date and check out date. Timeshares don’t work that way. Of course, I was not surprised when everything I tried came back with “0 results found”.
Owners should stay away from every one of these companies. They are either an outright scam or at best, for those that have been around for multiple years like SMTN, they are an extremely poor value. Either way one would be throwing their money out the window.
Last edited:
Bill4728
Moderator
I've received at least 5 calls from them, each time I tell them it isn't allowed to rent your Interval get-a-ways.
Blocking the number doesn't seem to be helping
Blocking the number doesn't seem to be helping