SCEPCOP Forum

Have any of you ever been to a high pressure Time Share presentation after having been lured in by a free gift or vacation?

I have several times and each time left me emotionally drained. After their friendly greetings and intro, if you don't give in and say you're willing to give them around a thousand dollars deposit to sign up for the program, they get nasty, make you feel stressed, and even start putting you down, which is surprising behavior for mature professional adults!

Last time I was at one in Arizona, after having stayed in a nice hotel on them, I wouldn't give them any facts or figures that they could manipulate around to try to save me money. I kept saying that I do budget traveling, camping, that I had ways of staying in places for free, etc. They did not like that at all. The manager came and insulted me, and they looked as though they were offended and acted like I did something horrible to them. lol He even told me that I had no class! Do they really think that insulting me is going to get me to sign up and deposit a ton of money?! Stupid.

Time Shares are credits toward nice vacation homes in major parts of the world, that do not include airfare. Logically and mathematically, you only save money if you use them over many years. You do not save money right away. But you're only saving if you're spending a lot on luxury resorts and vacation homes, then you spend a little. But if you stay in Motel 6's, which are fine with me, you don't save anything. They are stupid in that sense. Yet the salespeople are very high pressure (even though they say they are not high pressure, surprise surprise) and do not let you go home to think about it (an obvious red flag, if they don't want you to have time to think) or else you lose the deal they offer you. When you say no to them, they push and push until you say no thirty times at least.

I have gotten some free gifts and vacations from going to them, but after the emotional drain and stress of arguing with them, I wonder if it's worth it.

We got really nice discounted disney tickets by going to one of those. I actually thought it was interesting and got a kick out of the sales techniques.

If you're staying in Motel 6s, then you are not the target market for a timeshare. We had friends who had a timeshare in Puerto Vuarta Mexico that we visited a couple of times. It was beautiful. They can be an economical way for people to have a vacation home, if you don't want the cost of maintaining a second home all year. It's not a scam. It's basically divided co-ownership. It's like a condo. But you don't just divide the property into units, you also divide it by time. If you know you'll be going to the same vacation spot every year, then it may be something to think about. Remember, its an asset, just like your house. But one should do their homework. For example, the presentation I went to they were a bit misleading = not lying, but they don't highlight certain things. For example, the price they were quoting sounded pretty reasonable. They gave you a breakdown of of the price and how much it would cost per year, compared to going to high end hotels as you pointed out Scepcop. But what they didn't highlight were the condo fees. These timeshares often have pretty extensive condo fees - they are not necessarily a scam - after all, they are often beautiful properties, with lots of common areas, that require a lot of upkeep and large staffs (many of them have cleaning services, landscaping, garderning, pools, tennis courts, etc. that yearly expense can't be forgotten in making your calculations. They may be entirely reasoable, but the sales people will not necessarily draw too much attention to it, giving you an overly rosy picture of your yearly expenses,

So, long and short of it: these are not necessarily scams, and may be a good investment for certain people. But tread carefully and never just buy at a presentation. In fact, better to get a real estate agent, if that's what you're looking for!

I've been to many different Time Share promotions over the years. Some of them were excellent and some were really bad, and I do mean BAD. People need to understand first and foremost that you will be entering into a contract agreement. If you don't understand every word on that piece of paper, you need to have an attorney read it and explain it to you in detail. Then you need to do some homework on the terms and stability of the place. Usually, these offers don't give you the luxury of time to do this and that is where people get in trouble.

The truth is that Timeshare scams are increasing, and every day more victims fell for them. Fortunately, there are many solutions to get rid of an unwanted timeshare; however, the best way to dump a timeshare is by cancelling the contract. Timeshare cancellation has many advantages, but the most important is that once the contract is properly cancelled, there are no further responsibilities attached to the resort.

I attended two timeshare presentations while on holiday, to get the freebies offered, and both times successfully managed to resist buying anything. But some of the tactics used to get you to sign are pretty outrageous. Typical tactics involve insults (you are too cheap / too stupid / too afraid), false promises, keeping you three times as long as they said they would to try and wear you down, and in one case putting a "plant" in the room they left me in to "have a think about it" so he could report back on what my objections were going to be, thus allowing them to have a ready answer. And to cap it all, the gift voucher I got at the end of it was for a store that closed an hour before I was "released" from the presentation. I imagine they try to target people who are on the last day of their holiday to avoid having to actually redeem any of the vouchers as a result. I had the last laugh, however, as it was only the penultimate day of my stay...