Apparently my parents just signed a deal with a guy from Relief Solutions International to get rid of their timeshare points -- all of which seem to be Festiva points (used to be Peppertree).
Their maintenance fees are ~$2000 per year and they haven't been able to trade anything useful for several years. Part of the issue is that my mother is now in a wheelchair, which severely limits the number of timeshare units they can use.
If I understood them correctly, they will have to pay $3,995 to the company plus a ~$1,000 transfer fee to the developer (?) plus their 2016 maintenance fees (so ~$2,000). So that's a total of about $7,000.
Money well spent to get their 3 weeks off their hands, or bad idea? I think they have until Wednesday to rescind.
I halfheartedly tried to convince them that we could give the weeks away here on TUG, but that would presumably cost the 2016 maintenance fees plus the transfer fees, and I haven't seen a lot of good things about Festiva here on the TUG boards. :-/
This saddens me if they have given them any money at all if not I would try everything to get out of this immediately!!
There are other ways to get out of a timeshare this is NOT one I would recommend usually on upfront fee companies after paying all the fees they still end up with their timeshare and just fall victim to yet another scam.
Luckily I am not in the situation of owning a timeshare that I did not want BUT if I were then this is what I would do. Typically when I give advice I try to put myself in the shoes of the person.
Most of these give it back companies I have seen are scam artist I wouldn't trust em.
Scenario two is a WORSE CASE SCENARIO
Scenario One
See if I were within the window still to exercise buyers remorse for the state I purchased the timeshare in. If this did not apply I would move to Scenario two.
Scenario Two
If I owned a timeshare where I owed $20,000 or something bonkers like that and to my knowledge a lot of timeshare companies will not allow resale unless you have a warranty deed owing $0 so reselling this in most cases would NOT be an option if this applies. I would default on the timeshare and have it foreclosed ruining my credit and prior to doing so try to position myself where I wouldn't need a loan for a very long time and wait for the FCRAs statue of limitations for reporting the bad mark to fall off.
Scenario Three
If I owned the warranty deed owing a $0 balance on the timeshare and there was some resale value DVC timeshare etc then sell it for money try to recoup some of the money back out of it.
Scenario Four
If the timeshare was paid off and I had the warranty deed and there was no resale value I would see if the resort would take it back in some instances they do if it is paid off.
Scenario Five
If the timeshare was paid off and the resort would not allow deedbacks. Also the timeshare had no resale value then I would try to give it away for free. If really desperate I would try to offer an extra incentive like paying next years maintenance fees allow free usage for one year and pay closing cost etc.
Be very skeptical of give it back companies I personally wouldn't trust any of them. If you bought a timeshare from a resort I would say once burnt lesson learnt and try to not fall victim to other scams.
