Those s.o.b.’s who run timeshare companies—who train their salespeople to trick, cajole, and torture innocent people into purchasing timeshare interests—lie. They just plain lie. All the time. It’s practically all they do. They are the dark heart of the worst sort of capitalism: the kind where good folks are pressured into buying a bill of ephemeral goods, and don’t get even a shred of what they’ve been presented onthe menu. One of the claims timeshare salespeople often make in their pitches is that when you buy a timeshare, you’re getting an investment. It’s baloney, plain and simple.
An investment is supposed to be a financial boon—one with the potential to increase the investor’s monetary wherewithal. It should increase in value, or it should generate some kind of income.
Timeshares do neither of these things. In fact, there are lawsuits in the offing which claim this lie that timeshares are an investment is a violation of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. We think the plaintiffs have a very good chance of winning—and, frankly, whether they win or not, they are right.
As long as you have “ownership” in a timeshare, it’s going to COST you money.
First there’s your upfront cost—$10,000; $20,000, whatever—and many people take out loans with astronomical rates (often supplied by the timeshare companies, naturally) to make this payment (which makes the amount paid much higher in the end).
Then, even after you pay off the loan, you have the maintenance fees to contend with. These come at you EVERY YEAR you own the stinking “thing.” Sometimes they’ll start out at $500. But the companies make no guarantees of a fixed cost (at least not in writing, though they might tell you differently in the sales pitch)—and you can bet the fees will increase. THEY ALWAYS INCREASE. EVERY YEAR, THEY INCREASE! Before long you’re paying $1000 per year just to go to the same property every year. (You could have spent that amount—JUST that amount—to take a vacation somewhere else, and never have paid that $20,000 up front.)
And if you miss a payment, what does the timeshare company get to do? It gets to foreclose on your interest in the property—the interest you paid $20,000 for.
Even if you rent the property out every year, you’re not likely to make any money from it, because of the free rein the companies have to increase maintenance fees.
The People’s Advocate is here to fight back against this egregious practice. We are an actual law firm that does battle on the part of consumers who need to get out of timeshare contracts that they have been tricked into. Contact us (click here) to request a free information session on how this can be achieved. But act fast! Where timeshares are concerned, time is quite literally of the essence.