I just got home, checked my voice mail and found a message from a group calling themselves Direct Reservations Centers. They are saying we are “invited” to a four day three night trip to Disneyworld and Orlando for $99 total to help “celebrate” Disney’s 100th birthday.
The problem is that we have to get our reservation in in the next 24 hours.
To me the whole thing smells. However, my wife says it is a good deal. I said it is “too” good (if it were that good why the time limit). My philosophy is still things that sound too good to be true generally are.
I want to just forget it, but she said I had to at least throw it to SDMB and get feedback. I said Ok on that.
Three nights in a hotel in Kissimmee is about $150.00, International Drive is about $300.00. On Disney or Universal you’re looking at $500-600. There are some flophouses for around $25/night, but you don’t want to go there. Three days of park tickets for two will run about $300.00. Add meals, air fare, T-shirts and car rentals and I think you will begin to see how this is too good to be true. I suspect a time-share wants to lure you in for the high pressure pitch, an all too common scam here. Go to the Keys instead.
I just wanted to jump in and back up what E72521 said. I work in customer service for Cendant which owns the franchising rights to Ramada Inns and we receive quite a few calls concerning package deals such as the one you’re describing from Ramada Plaza Resorts.
RPR uses Direct Reservations Centers for their telemarketing program and neither is affiliated in any way with Cendant/Ramada Inn. To be honest with you I’ve heard a couple of people say it was a good time, OTOH, I’ve had to listen to several hundred who thought otherwise.
i went to disney world on a time share pitch. had a great time, spent more money then my wife and i hade, felt preshered to buy into a time share that was a great deel, and went home with a lot of pictures. all and all, the good stuff out waighted the bad stuff.
ps: my spelling is twoice as bad as normal. i’m drunk right now.
On a recent trip to orlando, my wife fell for this scam-they promised tickets for DisneyWorld (and breakfast) if you attended a “seminar”-this was the sales pitch for the timeshare. We were herded into a large room, fed an awful buffet breakfast, and set upon by a slick 30-ish salesman. he gave me the standard spiel, and I politely told him that we were not interested…then he changed his tune, and became quite aggressive. I told him to stop, and that we wished to leave. he persisted, and finally I told him:
-we were leaving
-if we didn’t get an immediate refund, I was calling the Orlando Police Dept. and reporting an attempted kidnapping IMMEDIATELY
-I would file a lawsuit against him personally
That did the trick! Within seconds, we were out of there and on a bus to Disney World!
So, don’t fall for this-you will regret it!
So you put up with 2 hours of crap sales pitch and get a cheap vacation. What’s two hours of your life worth? Sounds like a good deal to me, where’s my phone call?
Once, about 10 years ago I got a call that I had “won” a trip to Orlando and all I had to do was go to an office building in the suburbs to claim it. Since I had a tendency to enter any contest I saw, I figured it was from an entry at a street fair or something. (I had never gotten the pitch before so it didn’t occur to me what was going on.) I went and naturally, had to sit through a presentation, then I was ushered out to a salesman. I politely told him that at no time in the phone call was I told about anything other than the trip. There was no mention of the presentation or that it involved time share. I told him that had it been mentioned I wouldn’t have bothered and I had no intention of buying anything.
He immediately started backpedalling. He apologized and told me that the callers are required to tell the recipients what exactly is going on, and could I give him the name of the person who had contacted me. I did, not that it did any good, and he gave me the voucher gift certificate. When I left I read the thing. It said I had to send in a request for the tickets, the company would send me another voucher telling me what dates were available to fly and then I’d have to send in another to claim the tickets. This all had to be done within a month or the offer would expire.
I never took the trip but I figured it was a lesson learned and let it go at that.
Lately I’ve been getting these calls from an organization calling itself something like the “Vacation Boutique” telling me I’m one of 200 lucky individuals who have qualified for 3 days and 2 nights in either Las Vegas or Orlando, and all I have to do is call an 800 number by midnight, or the offer expires. (Considering I’ve gotten the same offer at least 5 times in the last 4 months they must be having a hard time getting a full 200 people to go.) Once, for the hell of it, I called the number. I knew it was probably a time share pitch but I figured I’d at least see what the speil was like. When I called I got a recorded message telling me that I and my spouse or significant other would have to go to a presentation together in order to qualify, and it gave a specific date and time. I might have considered it, just to force them to give us the trip, if it weren’t at a time neither of us could make it.
My parents went on one of those when I was a baby. They said they were treated like royalty on the way down to Florida, and when they didn’t buy they were treated like trash on the way back. Not surprising of course.
I had the same message waiting for me on my answering machine when I came home from work on Wednesday. Direct reservations, Disney World, etc. I was tempted to call back the number with my reservation “code” at exactly twenty five hours later.
Wait, never mind, finally found a site explaining what a timeshare is (instead of just selling them). Apparently:“vacation ownership/usage in which you own certain weeks each year in condominium style accommodations.”
That’s all? Like that episode of NewsRadio? I don’t see what the big deal/scam is (e.g. some guy yelling at me from my TV to resell my timeshares!").
Am I missing something?
Cat Fight,
What you are missing is several things:
The time share ALWAYS has hidden costs with ‘administrative’ or ‘maintenance’ fees, not to mention your monthly fees for being a part of it
Yes, you have specific weeks at a specific location, and if that is what you want and all the costs are disclosed, then maybe it’s the right thing for you…but
Most people buy into time shares because they are shown how they can trade the week they bought in ‘mediocreville’ for a beautiful chateu in France…oh except that it is never available when you want it or there is a waiting list.
Basically, the timeshare pitch is basically get you to pre-pay for a vacation, but once you’ve done that, the company will put barriers up to prevent you from using it on your terms. That’s why so many people sell them. I don’t know about you, but even if I wanted to go to a beach EVERY year for my vacation, I’d certainly want to go to different beaches, or go at different times of the year depending on what else was going on in my life…
The usual time share is one or two weeks, the same weeks every year. In a real timeshare, which is a partnership, you pay 1/26 or 1/52 of the mortgage, plus some money for caretakers & whatnot. If you want to go to the same place every year, it’s not bad.
The condo timeshares are different; you pay a fee to the timeshare company, which makes a profit. There are extensive common areas, which require upkeep. These timeshares cost more money, and are usually very difficult to sell. However, if you own a good week at a good location, you can trade to stay at other places. I’ve seen a spring week at Cabo San Lucas traded for a ski season week at Lake Tahoe: pretty fair.
I got the same call. I automatically assume anytime I won a trip without actually entering a contest, it is a rip off of some kind. The 24 hour expiration period was the clincher.
I was told by a saleswoman for a time share in Orlando that I didn’t really love my wife because I didn’t buy what she was peddling. This was on our honeymoon.
