My sister has been sent an invitation to timeshare hell; she was tempted to go to the presentation because the promised ‘reward’ is cash (£150) - I’ll quote the entirety of the invitation text here:
Phew!
Now, I’m working on the following assumptions:
A. It is going to be hard, hard sell - including all the usual underhand and dishonest tactics such as faking an argument with a superior, crying when the client refuses to sign etc…
B. There’s no way that they’ll pay out any money.
OK, but the details… the details…
My guess is that they will conveniently not have cash available and they will write a rubber cheque, or never post the cash, or take your bank details (and your signature at the end of the ‘presentation’) and attempt to remove funds from your account.
Any other ideas how this scam is likely to proceed? I Googled a little and the company is definitely suspect, being run by a man well known for serial bankruptcy and who has changed his name recently.
I actually went to something like this (once) when I was in grad school and had plenty of time. They did pay out what they promised to. It was indeed a hard sell. More people came to the one I went to than they expected, so they let us go more easily than sometimes.
Only your sister can say if sitting through 2 1/2 hours of hard sell is worth it. These people do it because it is the only way they can get people there and in their seats for that long. Notice that she and partner have to be there at the end to get the cash, which I bet isn’t going to be easy.
Of course the two of them have to be there so that the deal can be signed and closed.
they’re prepared to sit through it at fifty quid an hour, but obviously they don’t want to do it if there will be no payout. They won’t buy the timeshare regardless.
The bit that makes me suspicious is:
How could there not be cash available? - they know exactly how many people are coming, because it has to be booked - it sounds like this is a ready-made stalling tactic.
The one we went to was a hard sell as well. I finally just got up and walked out. I was furious at the guilt dished out to me because I didnt care to give 140$ a month to them for the honor of spending one day ( two days after something like three years of paying) in one of their hotel rooms and swimming in an overcrowded pool.
Hubby and I have gone to several of these (probably 6 or 7) to collect the prizes/cash, and all have paid out as promised. They are hard sells, but if you’re prepared in advance, it’s easy to knock down their arguments. The first thing we do (before we go) is to look for timeshares in that area on ebay. When the salesman gets to the part about how these timeshares can be sold at later dates, we’re careful to ask if all the benefits of ownership transfer when they’re sold. The answer is always yes. When we get to the cost part, we simply say “Oh, we’ve found all these nice ones for sale for so much less. If we were going to buy one at all, we’d buy it through ebay”. The last one we visited, they wanted $15,000 for us to use the place one week a year. Hubby said, “So, if I assume that 51 other couples are paying the same price, then that makes this a $750,000 condo. It was nice, but I didn’t see anything worth 3/4 of a million dollars”. The salesman said, “well, that covers other expenses, too, like the advertising costs to give you this free vacation” to which hubby replies “Your advertising costs are not my problem, nor should they be”. The salespeople never seem to know what to say to these particular objections.
To us, it’s worth it to sit through these things, if what we were promised is valuable enough. As far as the part about “in the unlikely event that cash is not available. . .” I would ask if the cash is available before I sit through the sales pitch. If not, I would get up to leave, and say “call me when you’ve got cash”. They may magically “find” the cash, or maybe not, but at least time hasn’t been wasted.