Not to hijack, but how worthwhile are the “free gift(s) for listening to our pitch”? I thought I heard about one that wasn’t a three night vacation, but three one night (non-consecutive) vacations; by the time you factored in your travel costs, it wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on; most people aren’t going to fly to FL for one night, nor are they going to pack up & change hotels just for that last, free night. Do you really get what’s promised or are they usually BS ‘rewards’?
I’ve only been to one, but we actually got more than we were promised. They promised 2 lift tickets to Deer Valley Ski Resort, and we verified that we could use them that same day (we went in for an early pitch). When we got to the end, the tickets they had were on blackout that day since it was near a holiday. We pointed out that we had been assured we could use them today, and they gave us prepaid Visa card things for the value of two lift tickets, rounded up to the nearest $25, which was the smallest card they had.
So, at least sometimes, they give you what they promised. Our whole thing lasted just over 90 minutes and we got $250, which is a pretty good hourly rate.
Weird thing is as much as I was prepared to distrust time shares the people who I know have them love them and find it easy to trade times with other timeshares in other ares they wish to visit. In fairness it is my understanding they have relatively desirable timeshares.
If you can get a deal on the secondary market it might not be a bad option.
I wonder if there’s a bit of selection bias in your experience - i.e. the people you know that have one, and love it, talk about it. The people who bought one and feel like it was a dumb, wasteful purchase are too embarrassed to talk about it.
actually I remember going on vacation in Florida and my grandparents took a tour to get seaworld tickets …we played free arcade games in a room until the (grouchy) daycare lady got mad at me and made us sit and color
they tried to con me and my bro into conning them into taking the toys they gave out …but they held firm and we had a nice day at sea world
My parents.
He thought she wanted it, she thought he wanted it. They should have asked to leave the room and talked among themselves, but they didn’t.
I’ve met many people in the Caribbean who fly down, then pay nothing for their accommodations. Each day they listen for several hours to a timeshare sales pitch that includes an overnight stay in a representative unit. They move out the next morning and start over.
No way would I consider such foolishness.
I’m sure it varies from place to place, but in may case these two were definitely worth it. Of course, we were staying at the actual resorts, so it wasn’t something promised in the distant future. The down side was that you were a captive audience. In the first case we got chits for a meal at the resort, so we collected only hours later (and it was a very good meal). In the second case, I was staying overnight at the resort where that they were pressuring me to buy.
It’s not like a case where you had to send in a card for your “free” prize, and only then found out it was a cheap piece of plastic.
So how, exactly, is that any different from buying car insurance or cell phones or cottage cheese?
The free market is adversarial, and it is rigged. The bottom feeder will lose.
No they actually usually used the vacation slors and loved them. There are apparently different quality levels to timeshares and they had gotten one which was in a desirable location at a reasonably desirable time of the year. They mainly use the time slot they had but they had swapped it around on occasion for timeshares located elsewhere. I’m not sure the organization they dealt with but apparently that timeshare company was considered a top-tier one in that industry with desirable timeshares.
These people were not idiots and apparently understood the structure of timeshares and made their choice carefully. I guess the point is I can see how timeshares are a scam for some scenarios but they can make sense for some people if you like a location and have some degree of control over your time. Both things were true in this case.
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Exactly. Please, please, please think of your kids or grandkids or whoever will have to try to unload this shit when you are gone.
Have to try to unload it? Is that a thing? Can’t a timeshare inheritance be declined?
I have two stories about hi-pressure sales, one in which I resisted, one in which I succumbed.
For the latter, I went into an appliance shop to buy a stereo receiver. I found one that looked good and was buying it, when the salesman started on this high pressure shtick to get me to buy an extended warranty, guaranteed by the store. He went into details about all the things that could go wrong with what turned out to be the piece of shit I was buying. What I should have done was tell him that in that case maybe I shouldn’t buy it at all and walk out. That would have left him with well-deserved egg on his face. I knew that they Dynakits that I had built in the 50s were still working fine, although they were only monaural. I was also having a lot of trouble replacing the tubes, especially the high power output tubes. By the time the set stopped working a couple years later, that appliance store was out of business and the sales was doubtless harassing others.
Second story. Once I came out of the supermarket to find a paper on my windshield advertising a free gift if I would call this number and take a survey. I wasn’t interested, but my teen-age son was fascinated by the gift. I don’t even remember what it was. So I called and they said that they wanted to get my reaction to a vacuum cleaner. I said I was not interested in buying. They insisted this was not a sales talk, they just wanted to demonstrate it and get my reaction. I let two guys and the vacuum into the house and they first thing they said, after introducing themselves was they were not there to sell. Fine, so demonstrate. Which they did. Meh. Soon they were trying to sell. An hour later, as I was ushering them out, one of them asked me, “Where did we go wrong?” My answer was that they came in saying they were not there to sell and totally succeeded in not selling. They were not amused. Total waste of time for them and me.
The same son and DIL actually went on a timeshare cruise and bought one. But they have always found a use for it, trading it for vacations they enjoyed. For the last three years they have used it for a vacation in the Laurentians over the long Canadian Thanksgiving/US Columbus Day (a holiday where they live in Mass.) and they are able to get two rooms and take my wife and me along. So they are happy with it.
An estate may have liabilities that must be settled before any part of it is inherited. The estate taken as a whole may be bankrupt, but you can’t just refuse to meet the liabilities and choose to inherit other parts of the estate that have value.
If timeshares are being offered for sale for $1, that suggests that zero is not a floor on their value. Presumably there is a contractual obligation to pay ongoing fees, and this may give them negative value? Perhaps the estate becomes liable for some punitive financial penalty to terminate the contractual liability for ongoing fees?
My mother is still alive, and in Alzheimer’s care. This means that she is still on the hook for approximately $5,000 a year in “maintenance fees” for the timeshares they bought. And, no, I don’t think you can decline them. They are tied to the estate in the same way that any other debt would be.
Could be, but my family is one of those apparently rare cases where it has worked out very well. My parents bought the timeshare 30+ years ago and we have used it every year since. After my dad died, mom signed the unit over to me (quit claim deed). The annual fee works out to less than $60 per night, very reasonable for a 2 bedroom condo in a resort with modern amenities. The resort has been well kept and upgraded annually. It’s only a 1.5 hour drive away in a place that we love to go. My grown kids still look forward to that week every year. As of last year, with the addition of my grandson, we now have 4 generations there each year. It’s so popular in my family we usually end up renting an additional condo on property for the week.
As I said above, mom simply quit claimed the deed to me. If, when the time comes, none of my kids want to keep the unit we will simply sign it back over to the resort. It was never intended to be an investment.
I have never been offered a free gift to listen to a sales talk for car insurance, a cell phone, or cottage cheese. And in none of those am I being asked to sign up for a mid to high 5 figures legal commitment with only 90 minutes of information.
From LegalZoom.com:
IANAL, but it might be wise to speak with one.
Existing debt is tied to the estate, but execution of the future contract might not be.
So, you probably have to pay any accumulated fees that accrued while the decedent was alive, but you might not have to accept an ongoing agreement to pay those fees forever just to inherit other assets.
And, yeah, any timeshare where you can’t at a minimum simply cancel the contract and forfeit all future access is a horrible deal.
“Mid to high 5 figures”? Do timeshares cost $50,000 or more? I had no idea. Why not just stick that much money in an investment account and use the income to pay for an annual vacation? Few people want to go to the same place every year.
Although I know one guy who bought a timeshare exactly so they could go to the same place repeatedly. It was a Disney Vacation Club timeshare at Walt Disney World. He and his wife have three children and went there frequently.