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Sticky suggestion - Receiving a cold call about your timeshare.

RX8

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Suggestion for a sticky. There are many posters who come here seeking advice after receiving a call from so-and-so company wanting to rent or buy their timeshare. I do my best in helping these posters, as do many others, but I find that I keep repeating myself. Since I am retiring I apparently have more time on my hands because I was thinking just today that it would be a good idea to direct these posters to a sticky which can provide more detail than we can in a post or two. Here is what I propose but am certainly open to modifications/thoughts.

Did you receive a cold call about your timeshare?

Any cold call that is in conjunction with a request for upfront fees is going to be a scam. Below are the two most common scams.

We want to pay you for your extra timeshare weeks

If you received an unsolicited call from a company wanting to rent out your extra timeshare weeks it is a scam. They will tell you that they want your extra timeshare weeks (or RCI getaway weeks) because they claim they have immediate renters or that they have corporate clients wishing to rent your timeshare weeks. They will say that you will earn thousands of dollars for each of your weeks. In exchange, they want you to pay them an upfront fee for each week. What you are actually dealing with is an advertising listing company that wants you to pay them to advertise your timeshare. Once they get your upfront fee all they will do is place your timeshare rental or sale ad on their poorly designed website. You will never receive any legitimate offers because the prices are not realistic and also because no real prospects will be looking at their website. These companies skirt the law because they are not outright stealing from you since they provide a “service” which is the ad listing of your timeshare for sale or rent. However, the lies they make to get you to give up your money makes them scammers. Any timeshare advertising listing company that charges upfront is not in business to provide any real value to the timeshare owner. Instead, 98% of their business focus and time is spent cold calling to get the upfront fee, even if they must lie to get it. In short, their real business model is cold calling and asking for upfront fees. The company really doesn't want to be bothered with people actually inquiring on an ad or complaints from existing customers who already paid the upfront fee because it only gets in the way of their cold calling efforts.

We have a buyer for your timeshare

If you received an unsolicited phone call with an offer to buy your timeshare, or they say they already have a buyer who wants to purchase your timeshare, it is a common scam. These calls are primarily to owners of Mexican timeshares. They will be very professional on the phone and produce documents that look legitimate. They may even provide broker license information (using stolen information). The offer will be for tens of thousands of dollars, in some cases more than you paid for the timeshare. They promise no upfront fees just to get you hooked. Once all documents are signed, they will surprise you with a required fee to be paid to proceed. They may call it a Mexican tax, a bank fee, a Mexican foreign title release fee, what they call it doesn’t matter because it is a bogus request hoping that you will wire the money to them. They may even have you pay the fee to an escrow company for security. However, this escrow company is in on the scam. If you question the fee, they will promise that the extra paid fee will be reimbursed at closing. If the fee is wired to them, they will request another fee, and another fee after that. They will keep asking for fees until you stop paying them. At that point they will disappear. They will eventually close the website and start all over again with a new website. Note that if you proceed by signing the contract but decide to back out before paying the requested fee they will threaten to sue you for breech of contract (although this is only a threat in an attempt to extract money because scammers don't like to be in court for any reason). These scammers are difficult to locate and prosecute because they are most likely located in Mexico. Because of this, getting refunds from the scammers is virtually impossible.

This is a common game plan of this scammer:
  1. Search Google to get a random address of a nice "office"
  2. Create VoIP phone numbers that have a local pre fix to match their "office" location
  3. Make up fake testimonials
  4. CREATE a business name (Note that the scammers may also identify a random dormant corporation and pay the state a nominal fee to fraudulently reactivate that corporation. Purpose is to provide potential victims a false sense of security that they are dealing with an old established company)
  5. Create a new website
  6. Bombard timeshare owners with unsolicited phone calls with no regard to DNC rules
  7. Have shills post on TUG and elsewhere announcing what a reputable company they are
  8. Reap in stolen money until the complaints start coming in
  9. Close the website
  10. Repeat step 1
Final note – if you were scammed you are now a target for a follow-up scam. You may receive a call from a company stating that they can get your money refunded from the scammers. They too will ask for an upfront fee and will continue to ask for more upfront fees as long as the victim is willing to pay them.
 
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Iggyearl

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Fantastic recommendation. The posts get old after awhile, but it is always the "first time" for the posters. They need the help. By the way, you've come a long way for a guy who just found out (this year) how to weld 2 pieces of soap together. :ROFLMAO:
 
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RX8

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Fantastic recommendation. The posts get old after awhile, but it is always the "first time" for the posters. They need the help. By the way, you've come a long way for a guy who just found out (this year) how to weld 2 pieces of soap together. :ROFLMAO:

Lol. I guess I have. That little trick will come in handy now that I am retiring. I will need to save money wherever I can.
 

montygz

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The sticky helps but if someone took the effort of asking the question I have no problem answering. I think many people who ask these questions already know the answer, but are looking for sympathy, to reinforce what they already know, or just to vent in some way.

Remember the plot about the soldier on an island in the Pacific who thinks World War 2 is still on?

Some timeshare owners, who bought years ago and know nothing about their value, may come here cold and be shocked to learn the true state of the industry. They just want to talk to someone about it.
 
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dioxide45

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Good idea. Though, I have found stickies get skimmed over and people head to the main content of the forum. Many forums don't have a different color for stickies due to this reason.
 

Grammarhero

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Great idea. I see about one of them every week.
 
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