Is this scam unusual?

My mother received a call saying she had won a new laptop. I expected them to ask her for a credit card or something, but all they wanted was an email address, and tried to get her to meet with them in Little Rock (four hours away), and to bring a credit card and driver’s license.

She hung up before seeing it all the way through. Would they have actually tried to meet her, or was that just a way to make her feel more comfortable later? And, as I asked in the title, is mentioning a face to face meeting common?

It sounds like a timeshare promotion to me.

She would probably have to sit through an hours long sales presentation and then sit with a high-pressure salesman for a few hours. If she endured that, she would probably get a cheap generic laptop of some sort at the end.

These timeshare promos require people to bring a credit card (or checkbook) and ID with them so that they can close the sale and people don’t have the excuse “I left all my money at home. I’ll go home and think about it.”

It is very improbable that a flat-out scammer would have their mark make a four hour drive and meet in person just to get a credit card. (This is not to imply that most timeshare deals aren’t ripoffs.)

It could be a setup for a mugging or burglary.

Back before the internet I used to get mail solicitations for “Free Chicken Dinners!” and such - I quickly figured out they were time share or MLM promotions, but being poor, I took advantage of several, ate and left. The guilt-tripping and sales pitch was very aggressive, though.

Or it could be a set-up.

In either case your mom was smart to hang up. Whatever it is, it’s surely a scam.

Well, seeing as mom felt guilty hanging up on them, I bet higher pressure tactics would have been disastrous. But if there actually was an actual laptop involved, I feel kinda guilty since I’m the one who convinced her to hang up on them, telling her there was no way she’d actually get one.

(Her computer had been acting up lately–turns out it had a faulty memory stick. So she was really hopeful about the laptop.)

I’d do that! How do I get on the list for solicitations like this?

Sounds like fun stringing them along!

You can start here: http://www.timesharevacationpackages.com/
The number is: 1-866-850-9535 This may not be the company I “worked with”.

I’ve been a “prospective customer” twice. Once in New Hampshire for free plane tickets (on condition I stay over a weekend booked at one of their hotels for the rack rate)-- never used them. The other was 3 nights in Orlando for $250 (total) in a large 2 bedroom suite. A buddy and I did 3-night-stays consecutively for a cheap, week-long vacation.

Some of the rules:

  1. income minimums. Single people have to claim they make around low $40k’s, married couples high $30k’s (counter-intuitive, I know)
  2. You MUST bring an activated credit card
  3. married couples MUST come together (no pulling I-gotta-ask-the-wife)
  4. you MUST go on a full tour of facilities and an individual presentation

The pitch is HIGH PRESSURE. Once it’s clear you’re not biting, the sales guy gets angry, accuses you of scamming him for the freebie, and storms off, telling you to wait. (Most people don’t wait, and lose the freebie.) 10-15 minutes later a new salesperson tries again (their version of good-cop/bad-cop). Finally, after having spent 2-3 hours, you get your freebie. The tactics work, because you see other people at neighboring tables signing up, credit cards being run, etc. Some people were going to sign up anyway, obviously.

From a psychological perspective, IT’S FASCINATING! As a single guy, my pitch was tailored to: you will get so much pussy at our resorts! For families it was: you will have better vacations than the Joneses! Old people got: your whole family will always want to vacation with Gran and Gramps!

Definitely do it, but stay to the end and get your freebie.

Over the holidays, I saqw the documentary The Queen of Versailles on CNBC. It’s about David and Jackie Siegel (and the giant house they were building in Florida). He is the founder and CEO of Westgate Resorts, a large timeshare operator. In one scene, we saw David’s son run a sales meeting. He told the staff that they were saving lives, because people who took regular vacations lived longer than those who do not. He argued that the sales staff was as important as doctors in this respect.

LOL, whatever lets them sleep at night.

I agree probably timeshare presentation.

My wife and I recently went to a timeshare presentation, and I was surprised at how… not high pressure it was. Our salesguy was really nice. He talked to us like we were intelligent, thoughtful people, and asked us good questions to figure out if it could be a good fit. And the whole thing took less time than they said it would (we got $250 for 80 minutes of not buying something).

I went into it ready to resist the hard sell, but it wasn’t there. Honestly, the timeshare seemed like a not-terrible deal, if you wanted to go to the same place for vacation every year and stay in a fancy hotel. That’s not really how we travel, so it wasn’t great for us, and we said so.

Maybe our salesman just read that we weren’t suckers? I don’t care what they say, my final out is “there is absolutely no way I’m making a $20k+ decision without reading the fine print and researching the alternatives.” I’m still really curious what anyone could say to trump that.

Obviously, the fact that they’re willing to spend $100s to get people to sit down with a salesman means they’re making obscene profits on these things, and it’s not as good a deal as it looks like.

You got cheated out of the fun of a high pressure sales pitch. Both times I went happened to be on “One Day Sale Events”. So I had to decide THAT DAY or see the price jump from $20k to $25k. But, luckily, they would hold the price for a $200 deposit from my credit card. When I refused, dude got pissed because I wasn’t dealing with him “in good faith.” When I offered that he should be happy if I miss the sale because it’s an extra $5k for his company, he asked me if I thought he was “retarded” and told me he knows when “some wise guy is yanking my dick.”

The only argument he didn’t have an answer for was economic. He asked early in the presentation what I spend on a vacation. I said $2,000. He said, “See? It pays for itself in 10 years, and you get FREE VACATIONS FOREVER after that!” I said, “No, I have $20k in the stock market earning 10%. I can take the interest every year and vacation forever and still have the $20k. If I buy the time-share, I get the same vacation every year, but my $20k is gone.” He changed the subject to how much pussy I’d get in the hot tub.

Well that explains why the sales lady I had started crying and said she felt so sorry for me that I didn’t take regularly scheduled week long vacations in the same spot every year. She also said I was killing myself and my family this way. Now I know what her tactic was, too bad she didn’t perform it correctly.

Of course, I was also the guy they whisked out of the group sales pitch early because I kept asking math questions, such as how did they figure it only cost $91 a year to vacation anywhere in the world with their resort trading feature when you still had to pay $500+ in maintenance fees annually plus had the $20,000 initial purchase to factor in.

My parents were both time share masters growing up, they would go to them weekly and come away with so many free theme park or hotel vouchers.

Another thing is that at some point they’ll just start insulting you if they know you’re sandbagging them, trying to make you storm off in a huff so you don’t stick around long enough for them to finally give you the free thing. Dad told a story where two salesman literally treated him like he was the suspect in a murder investigation, both yelling at him in turns at how my dad was literally an idiot for not seeing how much a good deal the time share was.

I know it is an old thread, but I find that study of the human psychology involved in selling timeshares to be fascinating. They change with the times. For people who say that the salesperson never gave them the “hard sell” are likely right because that is not necessarily the ideal way to get you to buy in some circumstances.

I love these type of sales!!! My wife will not participate anymore so I guess I am done for now.

I, like Grotonian, have an answer they don’t have a response to. I tell them for this amount of money I will need my lawyer and accountant look it over. They of course argue and mention limited time savings so I need to buy RIGHT NOW! I tell them to give me the paperwork and if it is such a great deal as they state and it passes muster with my lawyer and accountant I will be back at another of their presentations to buy, even at their original price they started out with. Surprisingly they are not willing to let the paperwork out of their sight for me to take unsigned. Then the ball is in their court and if they don’t want to sell under my conditions to buy, too bad.

I wen o San Diego once mostly free on one of these things. I enjoy being a pain to the sales droids, and it is interesting to see how the price goes down if you stay around an hour.
We have friends who are into time share and we went with them to one in Vegas where they had a timeshare already. We got to stay in a suite for a week, had a free dinner and went to an okay show. When it was time for the pitch, the sales droids quickly figured out we weren’t going to buy and got them to buy another week.
They were low on sales resistance. Cycled through a number of religions also.
Since the original posts, I’ve heard ads for companies getting you out of timeshares.
I haven’t been called for one of these things in over a year, one blessing of Covid, I suppose.

When you buy a car do you have a lawyer or an accountant with you in the dealership to look over paperwork? Why would you need those people for a purchase for less money and a lifetime of benefits?

Also, that’s another benefit of having a spouse in there. Maybe you want to be cautious and they aren’t hitting your hot buttons, but the spouse is loving the pitch. Then they can work on the spouse and leave you alone so your spouse can beg you to sign. It is very interesting the methods they use.

Time share pushers love it when people say to go for it to get the prizes and just stand firm on not buying into the scam. They are trained to handle amateurs -Getting them to show up is half the battle won.

Which are also a scam.

Most timeshares have no value on the secondary market.

I have NO intention of buying, I am there for the freebies. That is the whole purpose of telling them I need to go over the paperwork with my account/lawyer. There is no way they will let that paperwork leave their sight so they will be unable to sell me anything as they can not meet my terms for the deal.