we’ve shifted our focus to helping aspiring travelers navigate the vacation arena. Even though our cancellation company is funded by bad decisions, we want to play a bigger role in eliminating hardship and regret. You can’t count on the timeshare company to point you towards the best vacation package.
Nearly 10 years ago, Mark Gardner and Tammie Lynn Cline got together in a Florida boiler room to develop a fraudulent resale operation that targeted disgruntled timeshare owners. Universal Timeshare Sales Associates (UTSA) was launched quickly thereafter and a call center full of Orlando telemarketers were ready to execute the scam. In an attempt to cover their tracks, the duo claimed the headquarters of their timeshare resale company was in Beaverton, Oregon.
Although timeshare exit fraud continues to grow, there’re always a way to battle misconduct. We believe the best way is to educate fractional owners on the reality of the industry. At VOC, we take the time to ensure all paperwork is validated and at your disposal. Transparency and availability has built our trustworthy reputation over the years.
Trusting the misleading messages of 3rd party programs is more common when consumer regret brews with desperation. A majority of resale and cancellation services know this and use it to their advantage. Targeting unhappy buyers with an empathetic pitch allows them to persuade some to pay a lot of money towards bogus offers.
In 2015, St Petersburg residents, David Bell (55) and Troy Cater (30) were recruited to target people looking to sell their timeshare. Through 2018, both men played a key role in telemarketing to people who believed they’d been victimized by their timeshare company. Posing as real estate professionals, they claimed they had a pool of buyers looking for a property just like theirs.
Despite support from the ARDA-ROC, who represents over 1.5 million timeshare owners, HB 435 is being challenged by at least 3 cancellation operations and their legal teams. They’ve proceeded to hire a handful of powerful lobbyists to fight the legislature’s house bill with common sense tactics to timesharing.
While many fully enjoy their timeshare experience, others end up regretting their purchase altogether. After looking at the expense as a whole, a good number of owners begin looking at ways to exit their timeshare agreements. Even when the initial thought of exchanging, upgrading or selling seems promising, it’s never that simple. This makes it extremely difficult for users to follow through with their desire to move on.
After exuberating an enormous amount of patience, you’re finally free and clear of timeshare ownership. Whether you cancelled immediately or made the decision after many hope-filled years, exiting a timeshare contract can be a huge relief. Not only have you halted monthly payments and perpetual fees, but you’ve eliminated the frustrations of hindered vacations.
Falling victim to a scam is never on anyone’s to-do list. On the surface, many fraudulent operations seem legit. This was the case with Boyer and his co-conspirators. Despite there never being any “real” buyers, they went above and beyond to create online business “fronts” in order to manipulate over 1,000 timeshare owners. They also used fake identities and leased office spaces with actual map listings.
Before wiping the timeshare property from your recent memory, it’s important to set aside time to analyze the purchase. This will help you make more informed decisions and avoid future impulse buys altogether. When assessing your loss, the first thing you’ll want to do is acknowledge how much the timeshare actually cost you. From here, you can begin saving instead of wasting more money to recoup what you never received.
What’s important about this decision is that most timeshare purchases are perpetual (lifetime) agreements. Once the cancellation window passes, it’s nearly impossible for owners to get rid of a timeshare. “At some point, these are adults that come to a meeting of the minds and want to sign a contract,” said Republican Senator Michelle Ugenti-Rita, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee.
Have you ever confronted someone and they responded by offering you something? Although you really want to remain upset about the situation, the idea of being treated can be compelling. Sometimes, it’s enough to cause you to apologize for your holding a grudge or being mad. You might even forget about the problem or concern altogether – at least until they wrong you again. This is kind of how timeshare owner’s relationship with the resort is.
There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the explanation of timeshare contracts. Many timeshare companies have been busted for their unethical practices while others continue to find ways to misled their targets. Either way, a lot of the cancellation requests we receive are from timeshare owners who feel they’ve been lied to. What they thought was true inevitably wasn’t and now they’re spending their time trying to cancel a timeshare instead of enjoy one.
In December of 2018, Westgate Resorts became the latest timeshare company to be exposed for misleading sales tactics. Apparently, their Smoky Mountain Resort and Spa in Gatlinburg, Tennessee was selling “dream mountain vacations” that didn’t exist. Buyers were promised “rest and relaxation” in the heart of the Smoky Mountains; but important details were left out of the presentation.
Being lured to the Entertainment Capital of the World with promising intrigue is a common step of the timeshare sales process. But it doesn’t start and stop with the invitation. During most Las Vegas timeshare presentations, “free” and “complementary” items are frequently offered to prospects to entice them to stay longer and continue the pitch.
