We Can Put Postcard Companies Out Of Business !

[nazclk]

Bogey 21

Finally someone with a logical solution

 

[Spence]

Just a thought (and I'm serious) but if these guys are put out of business, what are the large number of uninformend timeshare owners to do with the Weeks they no longer want? Continue to pay the MFs? Default and possibly mess up their credit? Is it the outrageous fees they collect that is really the problem rather than the concept itself? What if they only charged an amount equal to 1 year's MF?

GEORGE

Finally someone with a logical solution

Here's the solution
of one enterprising TUGger: Get Out of that
Unwanted Timeshare and
Never Pay Maintenance Fees Again.
Undercutting the PCCs
by $500-$1000.
Way to go!!!

 

[irish]

irish's Avatar
TUG Member

BBS Reg. Date: Jun 6, 05
Location: NEW YORK
Posts: 458

here's my story for what it's worth.
i have been looking to purchase a very particular week at a resort in flordia. i have been searching the resale sites for 2 years emailing owners with an offer to purchase. now, the owners feel that they should at least get the price they paid for the unit, or make a profit on the resale.very unrealistic pricing. i make my offer, they decline. down the road i recontact the owner again with my offer they again decline. now, my offer is not in line with their way of thinking, however, it is a reasonable offer.low and behold the exact week i want comes up on ebay. YES, it is with a 'postcard company' and yes i bid on it and won. so now i have the exact week i want, at the resort i want, for a price i am willing to pay. had the owners i contacted been willing to accept my offer i would have gladly purchased from them. they believe they can get the price they are asking(close to developer prices) and are not willing tp settle for less. so the moral of the story is while you may not like how the "postcard companies" are acquiring their inventory, the owners have no one to blame but themselves for not being able to sell their units on the open market. they refuse to accept offers that do not meet their expectations and they get stuck . this is in no way my fault. i found what i wanted, for a price i wanted, and i don't really care w how it came to be.

 

[rickandcindy23]

Irish, good for you for getting a bargain on the week you wanted. I have absolutely no problem with anything you said.

You have to understand that you have more knowledge of timeshare values than an ordinary owner, who does not know about TUG, has little knowledge of the resale market, and has been told by the upfront fee companies that their weeks are worth more than they paid, because after all, it is real estate and real estate always goes up in value! We know differently, though. We know that we are paying at least twice what the timeshare is on eBay. Sometimes, the difference is more than 90% between developer and eBay prices.

Do I think developers are horrible? Not really. They have a strange way of marketing their product, but how else are you going to get people to buy, unless you are Disney? DVC gives you iced tea, cookies, ice-cream and a few fast passes. Their product is worth the cost, with the ROFR and the value always going up with inflation. All of the other developers are offering a really great product, too, but the marketing costs devalue your deed, and the general distaste people have for timeshare also affects the value.

But why would anyone just believe their purchase has no value, unless they saw the proof themselves? Knowledge can be a bad thing. I am sure when you offered low prices to some of those people, they were just insulted because to them, the value of their timeshares is what someone told them, and more than they paid, because of real estate values, that always go up.

My sister-in-law called me to see if I would sell her timeshare, a blue week in Avon at Christie Lodge. I think it is a one-bedroom. I told her she would be lucky to get $200 for it. She was shocked, to say the least. When I told her I can buy Hawaii weeks for $1,500 on eBay, she checked it out herself and decided to keep her blue week and let their grown kids use it. They own at Twin Rivers, like we do, and were also surprised to see weeks on ebay for that cheap. After all, this is real estate, isn't it? We have the deeds, the units are selling for over $220,000 as whole-owned at Twin Rivers.

 

[rickandcindy23]

I also wanted to add that the person who paid the postcard company obviously felt the week had a negative value. It is too bad that person had no knowledge of Redweek or the many other sites out there, so you could have found them before the postcard company. If the resort had warned owners about postcard companies and provided a way for the owner to sell that week, you could have gotten it that way too. Now that you are an owner, perhaps some mention of alternatives to postcard companies would be logical for you, given your experience.

Again, congratulations on your bargain week!

 

[dougp26364]

As I said, I went to a presentation from Timeshare Relief. And it is not right, but is ok if they did business up front and honest. But, there were a number of misleading statements, and outright lies they made including that "you can't sell your timeshare on Ebay". They sell thousands on Ebay and HURT all the individuals who have timeshares they want to sell on Ebay... and now have to sell at lower prices since they DUMP their timeshares on Ebay.

Anyway, if Tuggers just organize a little.
Go to the presentations...you get a $25 gas card...so it is worth going.
But just go and if you get there a little early... hand out some flyers with info on it and inform everyone in the room that you can meet them in the lobby afterward to give them the truth. Would at least help a lot of timeshare owners.

It just isn't right to lie to take advantage of people and Tuggers can make a big difference here.

I bet Tuggers can think of many other things to do as well.
Wally

Be very careful of doing this. It's been rare but I have read of people ending up in court over similar actions. I can think of one car dealership and one electronics store (Best Buy I think) that have taken action against people who were picketing their business because of preceived unfair practices.

I would think that complaints to the state AG concerning the lies being told to swindle people out of their timeshares and getting them to pay the companies thousands to do it might have a better affect.

 

[JMAESD84]

Ray is correct

What if the market works to straighten this out. It is a logical assumption that the folks buying all these eBay bargins are Internet savvy. After they buy, they search the Internet and find sites like TUG, Timeshare Forums, etc. They become educated and are less likely to fall for the postcard scam. The "postcarders" will have a decreasing market and, eventually go out of business. What say you, wishful thinking?

Ray

Ray, It may take a while to clean-up the inventory held by people that just want out, but it will happen. The best of these companys will continue to succeed becuase they have built a loyal base of customers, by supplying good products, along with professional service and great prices. They will however, see their costs increase as this pool of products drys up. The cost of acquiring the product they sell will increase and of course like all businesses they will pass those costs onto the consumer. This is a free market system and it will settle out.

 

[DeniseM]

You can't change people

When you buy something (non timeshare) from an Ad in the newspaper, or on ebay, or at a garage sale, or a used car lot, and get a great price, are you concerned that the seller did not make good decisions in buying and selling their item? Probably not.

Unfortunately, there is a significant segment of society that does not make good financial decisions - and not just when they buy timeshares. Have you looked at the bankruptcies in your local paper lately?

These people are immature, poor planners, impulsive, unrealistic, irresponsible, or they just don't do their homework - whatever. Regardless, they make poor decisions, they get taken advantage of, and others benefit from it. That is never going to change...

If you eliminate the guy who takes the TS off their hands, what are they going to do with it? These same folks will never do the homework needed to get rid of it themselves. So either they keep making payments/MF's that they can't afford, or declare bankruptacy, but they are still stuck with something they don't want.

 

[Jya-Ning]

If you eliminate the guy who takes the TS off their hands, what are they going to do with it? These same folks will never do the homework needed to get rid of it themselves. So either they keep making payments/MF's that they can't afford, or declare bankruptacy, but they are still stuck with something they don't want.

I don't believe any of these company will take the TS with loan still attach to it. So to declare bankrupcy is not necessary.

As a person, it matter less what I think their business model, but matter more if they are doing what they promise to do better, and which one is the best. That means, if I am buying from them, I want to know if they are reponse to my question in a timely fashion, if they check what they sell before hand so I have nothing or much lessto worry about. Is their closing process smooth, and most important, if something went wrong, how eager they are to solve the problem.
And If I am giving the TS to them, I want to know what kind of guarantee I have that I am worry free now. To depend on them selling in eBay does not sounds a good promise to start with. And if they are doing it in a legal fashion.

I am pretty sure in here, the buyer part will get filled. I don't believe we will see selling part from experience tugger (isn't that saying what kind of value they really added?).

Eventually, there will have numerous competitions. If it has to be $3000 to pay for the owner to get rid of their timeshare, there is no way you can ask any company doing a good business to take only $1 to get rid of your TS.

If you are on HOA, and your board does willing to take the TS back, then it is good to let people know. You reduce the cost of waiting someone to pay the MF, thus more likely help the HOA to operate. You make sure your members can have a easy way out, thus provide them a good service. You make sure you can control the units, so it will sell with a bottom attached instead of in fire sale, thus help the survive owner preseve their value. But you need to make sure you can do it, otherwise, next SA happen, you will look at a very sad situation.

JMHO

Jya-Ning

 

[Bill4728]

Again, I don't have a problem about someone says that they will take you hard to sell TS from you for a fee. Which of course what the postcard companies are doing. My problem is that they offer everyone the same deal. From the almost impossible to sell blue week to a highly sellable RED week.

What these postcard companies are doing is slimey and IMHO, IS A SCAM!!! As long as these postcard companies refuse to give some reasonable valuation of the TS which their are taking they are slime. Even if they built in a huge profit, I be OK with it but they say all TS are worthless and make the same offer on each TS. Pay us $3000 ( to $4000 depending on the postcard company) and we'll take the TS off your hands.

 

[Jya-Ning]

My problem is that they offer everyone the same deal. From the almost impossible to sell blue week to a highly sellable RED week.

Bill:

It will take talent and some training to be able to tell the good saleable week to bad had to sell week. They may not have any experience of that. Anything outside of FF, I have no idea how to value them. Although you will expect that with the volumn they sell, they should have a very decent database to give them some idea about the value of the week.

Jya-Ning