When you want to catch a fish, how do you get it to bite? A worm. A fly. Some kind of bait wrapped around a hook. Usually you want to conceal the hook completely, right? To hide the unnatural, metal thing within.That’s what a “free” or “cheap” weekend at a timeshare is. It’s a lure. It’s bait. And what does it hide?
It hides the timeshare tour. The sales pitch you will have to endure as “payment” for the free snorkeling trip—which timeshare salesmen use to catch you, hook, line, and sinker.
You’ve got to figure: if a week at a timeshare is worth so much—so much that people pay tens of thousands of dollars up front (plus ever-increasing annual maintenance fees) for the awesome privilege of being able to return year after year—why would a company be willing to give away a free weekend, or a free meal, or a free snorkeling session, when all you have to do is show up for a short, 90-minute sales pitch?
Well, that’s the first lie you’re told.
Because there’s no way that pitch is going to last a mere 90 minutes.
They’ve got you on the line—you’re a captive audience in their resort, and they have given you something for free, after all, so don’t you owe them a bit of your attention? Don’t you owe them the actual, real consideration of potentially buying a timeshare?
Well, no you don’t. (After all, they’re the ones who mentioned the free week, or free snorkeling session, or free meal, or free whatever—not you.) But they count on the goodness of your heart, your sense of fair play.
It’s a psychological ploy they play. Just one of many. Most consumers—even in this world filled with sales pitches and advertisements of every stripe bombarding us all day every day—are not even remotely ready for the sort of hard-sell put to them by timeshare salespeople. (We do not exaggerate even a little when we say: there are professional torturers—yes, trained former foreign-military torture experts—who move into the timeshare sales-space in order to make a bit more money. And they use all the dirty tricks they learned about psychological persuasion—short of water-boarding and extracting fingernails with pliers—on the people to whom they want to sell their timeshares. Namely: you.)
No wonder so many people emerge from that 90-minute sales pitch (which regularly turns into five captive hours—or longer!) having signed away their right to $20,000 (or more!) of their hard-earned money just for the “right” to spend time in a single space for one week per year. Their minds have been toyed with.
The People’s Advocate can help you undo some of the damage done at a timeshare tour. Attorney Joe Brien has decades of experience battling for the rights of consumers, and he is ready and willing to take on the timeshare development Goliaths on your behalf. Contact us today to make an appointment for a free information session on how you can turn the tide on the jerks who have used every trick in the book to convince you to buy something you really don’t need.