Beware Of Timeshare "Relief" or "Exit" Companies
Excerpt from Chapter 6
Timeshare Relief/Exit/Transfer Companies--Buyer Beware!
As a product of an extremely saturated and challenging resale market, it is no surprise that proprietors and marketers have come up with a way to “unburden” the desperate timeshare owner of their “unsellable” real estate. This highly controversial process simply transfers a timeshare OUT of your name and into whatever source the timeshare relief/exit company has aligned themselves with, legitimate or otherwise. In many cases, and quite unethically, such “exit/transfer/relief” companies or individuals have created a shell company to transfer the title into. In such situations, more or less dumping the timeshare. But the bottom line is… YOU PAY THEM to TAKE YOUR TIMESHARE! Know what you’re getting into when considering this option to get out of your timeshare!
This very thought, naturally, seems ludicrous to any timeshare owner. Most are appalled at the very idea of having to pay someone hundreds, or thousands, of dollars to get out of their once-loved timeshare. However, timeshare owners intending to sell their vacation ownership are solicited and often convinced by the eager relief companies that their timeshare is somehow worthless and unsellable or has become an overwhelming burden. Such suggestions could easily be combined with the owner’s already realized perspective of today’s saturated resale market and plummeting timeshare values, along with possibly the resulting failed sales effort and lost money. Regardless of any future selling potential, once owners end up feeling that their asset has become more of a liability, out of desperation, they become receptive to any “relief” offered! With all said and done, those timeshare owners can be easily provoked to such desperate measures of transferring out of their timeshare at whatever added cost.
Here are the problems, and compounding issues that are a result of these often unscrupulous “exit” companies and why you should think twice before using them.
Fear Factor/Scare Tactics
The relief companies are expert in creating significant anxiety to the timeshare owner about their associated ownership fees rising “uncontrollably”. Additionally, instilling a sense of hopelessness in the owner of ever being able to “get out” of their timeshare in the future. They press that the longer the owner holds on to an unwanted and unused timeshare, the more it costs them.
While driving home the ideas of rising maintenance fees, taxes, usage fees and “special assessments,” the “relief” companies often create an over exaggeration of the “problems” of owning a timeshare. Furthermore, negatively portraying the concern of a “financial burden” being passed on to their heirs. Often these companies use the tactic of showing compounded costs charts with hypothetical projections, creating negative hype and building up an owner’s concerns about whether their heirs will ultimately be able to afford the ownership. No doubt a very biased and slanted form of marketing, using fear as a motivator.
The relief company suggests their “transfer” proposal as a way for the vacation ownership individual to merely “cut their losses” and presumably the sole way to eliminate their problems. Although the upcoming maintenance fee is a variable to be considered in owning their timeshare, as with the rising upkeep costs of maintaining ANY asset, this fear tactic seems to work well to break down the owner’s desire to keep the timeshare. And, ultimately motivating them, with a sense of urgency, to pay the money to simply transfer over the deed! The “savings” proposal typically starting with the owner’s upcoming maintenance fee through the suggestion that it’s partly the money that they were going to spend anyway.
