Timeshare salespeople offer all sorts of goodies to you to show up to their sales presentation—all the way from the promise of a free stay in the resort if you just sit through a “90-minute” presentation (it is ALWAYS longer), to the small promise of a free meal for the same time commitment. It is very difficult indeed to go through such a timeshare presentation unscathed.
Have you ever seen or heard of a “Sea Devil”? It is a particular type of angler fish—depicted famously in a scene in “Finding Nemo.” It’s a predatory fish, which dangles a bioluminescent “lure” in the darkness of the deep sea to draw fish toward it—and when they grow close enough, it strikes out with large sharp teeth. There’s no getting away once entranced.
That image pops to mind where timeshare presentations are concerned. The free meal or the free stay (or the free snorkeling trip, or the free whatever—you get the idea) is that dangling blob of luminescent flesh growing out of the head of the timeshare sales super-complex. And the sales presentation—that’s the big sharp teeth. In which case, you might say, the timeshare you get saddled with is the long, painful digestion process.
Timeshare people know that once they’ve lured you through the door, they have you where they want you. Most people think it will just be a boring situation for a few hours, and then they can get on with their lives. These people are vastly unprepared for the high-pressure sales tactics and outright lies or that they are about to be confronted with. These salespeople make their living on commission—and they are desperate to get their teeth into you.
There are only a few things you can do to get out of there without a timeshare to your name. It takes some thinking upfront. Some people have success figuring out when the busiest presentations will be, so the salespeople are overwhelmed and some people slip through their clutches. Some keep to themselves, try to be as quiet and non-revelatory as possible, which gives the salesperson little leverage against them. Some who misrepresent the amount they make—to a much lower salary—may convince the salespeople that they aren’t “worth” trying to convince. And be ready to express a good number of reasons why you aren’t able to buy—scads of debt, a new house, and so forth. Any reason you can come up with. And be firm, unyielding. It takes an armor of steel to keep from being devoured by the Timeshare Devils. At The People’s Advocate, we consider timeshare owners to be evil because of the ways in which they defraud and cajole people into signing contracts for “ownership” that isn’t really ownership, which consumers don’t need and possibly won’t be able to afford over time. If you’ve signed a timeshare contract that you’re not feeling right about—regardless of what sort of property interest you have “purchased”—contact us for a free information session on what you can do about it.