Off the Wall Time Share Thought

[breezez]

1) After reading tug almost daily since July, and now joining the world of timeshares via resell, one of the things you constantly see in posts is most people feel they were drastically lied to during a developers timeshare presentations and owner updates.

While I agree there are several bad actors I believe at times a lot of people hear what they want to hear. i.e. the sales guys makes truthful statement that could easily be misleading to a person considering buying in.

But all to often you see programs on TV's where people go in to places of businesses, government offices, etc. and use hidden cameras to catch them in the act of scamming people, lying, or doing unethical acts. I am just wondering why we never see this on TV with the timeshare industry. It seems to me it would be great to get people all around the country to record there owner updates, and timeshare presentations and show the world just how bad of an actor these guys are if they are truly this bad. (Of course, Only is areas where the laws don't prevent recording.)

2) Why don't the users of TUG drive their local congress people nuts with complaints over the treatment of resell vs developer contracts? If they were required to give new customers the 6-12 month history of like size resells in their area or facility, how would that effect the timeshare market and value of resells. Because if they tell people resells are $1.00 but that is because you can only do X then I think they would have a hard time selling people unless the resells had the same benefits.

Just some thoughts...

 

[DeniseM]

In simplest terms - the people getting ripped off are not experienced Tuggers, they are newbies.

So personally, I don't have that much skin in the game when it comes to developer sales to be willing to "drive my Congressman nuts."

 

[TUGBrian]

we were atually approached by senator bill nelson (florida) office last year about timeshare scams and such...apparently nelson was a part of some council on aging/seniors and at the time timeshare scams were a hot item in florida.....while they seemed interested and spent a few hours on the phone with me laying out the major issues....I never heard a peep out of them after the first few conversations.

sadly, itll only become a political issue when someone has more money than the developers to lobby against them....or enough voters start writing in.

 

[DaveNV]

There are also a lot of Tug members, myself included, who don't "do" presentations, updates, sales pitches, and the like. My vacation time is much more valuable to me than wasting it listening to the blather of some fast talking sales weasel. There is nothing they could say to me that is worth sitting through the rhetoric.

As for complaining them into telling the truth, (which I what I think you're saying we should do), I offer the classic image of the Used Car Salesman. Decades of exposure hasn't changed that industry or image one little bit. Timeshare sales weasels will be the same. Even if the law required them to stop claiming such outrageous things, the most the average person could expect to hear would be something else, not necessarily something truthful.

In short, it's a waste of time trying to change an industry built on lies. The most we can do is encourage people to buy resale, which effectively takes the wind out of the sales weasels sails.

Dave

 

[theo]

There are also a lot of Tug members, myself included, who don't "do" presentations, updates, sales pitches, and the like. My vacation time is much more valuable to me than wasting it listening to the blather of some fast talking sales weasel. There is nothing they could say to me that is worth sitting through the rhetoric.

As for complaining them into telling the truth, (which I what I think you're saying we should do), I offer the classic image of the Used Car Salesman. Decades of exposure hasn't changed that industry or image one little bit. Timeshare sales weasels will be the same. Even if the law required them to stop claiming such outrageous things, the most the average person could expect to hear would be something else, not necessarily something truthful.

In short, it's a waste of time trying to change an industry built on lies. The most we can do is encourage people to buy resale, which effectively takes the wind out of the sales weasels sails.

Dave

I agree wholeheartedly with every word that Dave has astutely and eloquently expressed above.

Frankly, I think the better (...maybe even only) real solution is to continually attempt to educate consumers in an effort to "immunize" them from the sales weasel virus. For starters, people need to understand and fully assimilate that when it comes to any contract (including, but certainly not limited to, a timeshare developer contract) if a verbal claim or statement or "promise" or assertion is not also very clearly and overtly expressed in writing within the contract itself, then in the eyes of the law any and all such verbal claims and promises mean absolutely nothing, merely constituting distracting and meaningless background noise floating around briefly in the air.

 

[decadude]

"immunize" them from the sales weasel virus.

I laughed on this one for a good minute thanks for the laugh. The statement is very true with every post you guys do on here especially the regulars you are doing a good dead. I believe Brians family owns this site and the millions of people including myself that it has helped educate and save money I won't get all religious but this imo would rank up there highly as one of the best sites on the web when it comes to helping people.

I bought developer direct myself and rescinded I didn't know about rescinding through tugbbs, but I know many have. I was educated on the resale market here though so here it goes.

Developer's Deal

1. Cost $16,000
2. week 49 did get a red week at least was at the time
3. Unit cabin (their lowest level units)
4. Resort access was limited to 6 resorts and not any of their better resorts

They offered a red week presidential for $30,000 at the presentation when I inquired. They also offered the same thing that I got above for $8000 when I was going through the rescind process

Resell Deal

1. $1700 was the cost
2. week 26 red week(better week than week 51)
3. Unit Ambassador (their best unit)
4. Resort access there were no restrictions I could go to any resorts in their network

 

[T-Dot-Traveller]

Or re- watch the movie : Tin Men

There are also a lot of Tug members, myself included, who don't "do" presentations, updates, sales pitches, and the like. My vacation time is much more valuable to me than wasting it listening to the blather of some fast talking sales weasel. There is nothing they could say to me that is worth sitting through the rhetoric.

As for complaining them into telling the truth, (which I what I think you're saying we should do), I offer the classic image of the Used Car Salesman. Decades of exposure hasn't changed that industry or image one little bit. Timeshare sales weasels will be the same. Even if the law required them to stop claiming such outrageous things, the most the average person could expect to hear would be something else, not necessarily something truthful.

In short, it's a waste of time trying to change an industry built on lies. The most we can do is encourage people to buy resale, which effectively takes the wind out of the sales weasels sails.

Dave

Tin Men - 1987 Danny DeVito , Richard Dreyfuss ,Barbara Hershey
Aluminum- siding sales / scams in Baltimore circa 1963
Very funny
The sales equivalent of "Field of Dreams"

This was on recently on the Laff OTA sub channel (launched Apr 2015 / on many Scripps owned stations )

I was channel surfing & got hooked in . ( no "buyers" remorse while watching )

 

[dominidude]

TUGgers benefit from newbies buying timeshares at developer prices, because it is those newbies that turn around and sell their timeshares for nothing or next to nothing to TUGger.

That being said, selling timeshares for nothing would not exist if developers had clear buy back policies and informed their owners of it. Instead developers just keep building more and more timeshares, creating more and more opportunities for TUGgers.

 

[DaveNV]

TUGgers benefit from newbies buying timeshares at developer prices, because it is those newbies that turn around and sell their timeshares for nothing or next to nothing to TUGger.

That being said, selling timeshares for nothing would not exist if developers had clear buy back policies and informed their owners of it. Instead developers just keep building more and more timeshares, creating more and more opportunities for TUGgers.

Perhaps that was true at one time, but most Tuggers I know of are buying resale from anyplace they find the best deal on what they're interested in buying. In my case, every timeshare I've purchased came from Ebay for pennies. No Tuggers were involved. And every timeshare I've sold was ALSO sold either on Ebay for a dollar, or was given away on Tug for free. Several of the timeshares I bought came from postcard companies, and the deeded seller had owned it for a long time, some even before Tug was started.

But with over 75000 registered members, I guess Tug does account for a certain amount of resale purchases. Unfortunately, there continues to be more uneducated buyers paying developer prices than there are resellers on Tug.

Dave

 

[TUGBrian]

you will find even here on TUG (along with everywhere else) that even folks you attempt to educate will still prefer to purchase retail.

I like using the example that everyone has that one friend who wont ever buy a used car, always has to have the latest cell phone the moment it comes out, etc etc.

We can only help those that actually want to learn, or are truly looking for ways to maximize their vacation dollar. No matter how hard anyone tries there will be a percentage of the population that simply doesnt care.