I have seriously thought about taking up offers on time share opportunities that offered free travel because I am one of the most stubborn people on earth and I am basically sales-proof and shameless.
I haven’t done it yet because I get more than enough free travel through other offers like legitimate credit card deals that I play like a fiddle but I always planned on telling them that I just declared bankruptcy in my home state and appreciated their offer of a few days worth of accommodations before I was forced to go homeless. If that wasn’t enough, one of my more useful and unusual skills is the ability to vomit on demand. After I made a mess of their sales room, I am sure they would be more than happy to have me gone instantly but not before they give me the freebies that they promised for the minimal compensation for making me extremely sick.
Ironically I read this thread here for the first time today, and then I watched the Queen of Versailles tonight, a documentary about:
Westgate Resorts is, or was, one of the biggest sellers of timeshares in the country.
Watching the documentary, I felt a combination of disgust and interest. This is the stereotypical Walmart couple made large. They have no taste and no class but live this lavish lifestyle. I couldn’t get over how cheaply Jackie dresses and her husband acts like a mean old grouch.
It’s worth a watch, if you can stomach the first 35 minutes of extremely conspicuous consumption.
Of course, they claim to be back on their feet now, and ready to finish Versailles by 2017…
Last time we were in Orlando we were staying at this hotel and which we found out most of the other families were there for the same reason - to listen to a time share spiel and get our discounted cruise.
It was interesting sitting around where all of us were laughing at the salespeople. Well almost. A few couples had bought and now felt either ashamed or were defending their new purchase.
Now I will say I’ve talked to a few people who have bought timeshares second hand and enjoyed them.
Yep, I’m one of them. I paid $350 total, included the title transfer, for a deeded week in a specific unit that I can pass on to my heirs. I pay a $300 annual maintenance fee. I’ve owned it ten years, which means I’ve paid a total of $3,350 for 70 total nights of vacation lodging, or $47.85 a night for a house where basic hotel rooms go for a minimum of $149 a night in the off season, and our week is not the off season.
Any timeshare is going to have units available for resale at a cost substantially lower than what the property owner is asking. They can definitely be a good deal if you don’t buy direct and if you don’t feel obligated to join RCI or some other exchange organization that you ony need if you want to try to leverage your ownership to travel to other places.
Yeah I saw that and read about it, during the movie in fact. It was bizarre to watch this girl, who seemed one of the most “real” of the children, on screen. She was the only one who talked back to her dad, and who told him what a grouch he was being. And all along I kept thinking, she’ll be dead in just a few years.
I do have an answer for you on this topic. Id like to start by saying Ive always been a pretty honest person. However I did drugs for many years and got sober on October 22nd, 2020 and after getting a sponsor and working the steps that brought on a whole other level of honesty to myself and to others.
So on the my short time working in the field of Timeshares. My role was to call people and attempt to set them up to go to Timeshare meetings where they would prey on the weak and hustle them out of more of their money while promising that they are getting an even better deal than the one they currently have. Id say 95% of the folks are 65+ years old and most had reported that they had sold their time share 20 years ago and yet they still get 2 to 3 calls a day. Or they have a timeshare and are NOT interested in going to a meeting. Some will stay on the phone with you for a few minutes and then angerly ask to be put on the do not call list {which im certain the Do Not Call List isn’t real} Most immediately hang up on you.
Straight from the get go I had a real problem knowing that I was aggravating the majority of the people I was calling. I knew that these people didn’t want to be bothered. At one point I had asked my employer to sell me some “Honest” high points, like what are they really gaining? He told me the utmost worst answer. He said your whole job is to just get the people to agree to go and once they get there the real sharks will get them.
I quickly learned that to do this job you have to really not give a shit about people and Im not that guy. My breaking point was getting a little old lady on the phone…her name was Mary. Her Husband just got out of the hospital from a surgery and they were just arriving home. She was the sweetest old lady ever. She was so nice over they phone and as I was pouring out my lines to her…she seemed genuinely interested. I asked her if she would like me to call her back at a later time. The next day I called her at the sat up time and she answered. I heard a dog bark in the background and had asked her what her dogs name was. We talked for several minutes about the dog…then I asked her how her husband was doing. I was actually interested in knowing these things, because I was trying to decide if I really wanted to go through with pushing this fate upon her. After a bit i proceeded to explain a list of improvements that “had came available” for her. I did end up getting her to agree to go and she was so excited that I thought she was going to bake me some cookies. I want to mention I didn’t get paid for any of the 3 weeks I worked for this company because I was doing commission only which means if a person had no problem being the “problem” then they could make a shit ton of money. If I had booked just 5 people a day I could had made $400 a day. Absolutely crazy payouts. A person only gets paid if the timeshare holder shows up at the meeting. I couldnt do the job. I do not like upsetting people or suckering people into misfortune. I never got a single person to show up to a meeting. I took a loss by not working a real job for that 3 weeks…but I like to think I may had saved some peoples time and money by not being very pushy over the phone. IDK.
I have a friend that works at the same place. Hes ok with being shady and lying to old people. He makes about $1200-1400 a week.
Im all for making good money…but i have to be able to do it with and honest and open heart.
Hope this helps you all Have a good day.
Cap it off by telling them that by law you will have to notify all the other residents that you are a sex offender. In fact, it will have to be mentioned at any sales event.
Is there such thing as a legitimate time-share property? That makes perfect financial sense to invest (right word?) in and use once or twice or three times a year?
Yeah, there’s a certain class of businesses that kind of make sense if you look at them in isolation, but never actually work out in real life because the people behind them are just too committed to doing crime.
It’s like the tuk-tuks in Bangkok. I’d love to ride in something like that, but basically everyone I met on the way to Bangkok warned us that any tourist who tried to get a ride on a tuk-tuk was going to get ripped off in one way or another, possibly all the way up to actually being kidnapped.
As a tourist, I wouldn’t have any problem paying a premium price for a fun tour around the neighborhood in a tuk-tuk, but there’s no way I’m going to risk getting kidnapped. So they got nothing from me. If the drivers were just a little less criminal, I think they’d actually end up doing better.
Getting “ripped off” by a tuk tuk driver is still incredibly cheap, those warnings didn’t really do you any favors. We’re talking 150 baht for a short ride by tuk tuk that would have cost you 60 baht in a cab. Relatively speaking, the tuk tuk is a ripoff, sure. But 150 baht is like $4. Just pay the money and enjoy the ride! And your chances of getting kidnapped by a tuk tuk driver in Thailand are about the same as getting kidnapped in Thailand in general - virtually nil. Travel “warnings” along these lines really irritate me.
