TimeshareGuru

I was reading the forum at Redweek yesterday and ran accross a number of posts complaining about re-sale company scams.  The primary complaint of course is when Sales Departments make assurances they can get your unit sold or rented for prices so lofty, you deserve to lose the money you pay them because you should know better!  PEOPLE, PLEASE.  If I told you I had a buyer for your car willing to not only pay more than you want for it, but more than you paid for it, YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER than to pay anything in advance to get it sold.  Why then, do so many people agree to pay (more than once it seems) based on false promises common sense can often discern the truth of?  But I digress …

What is not so easy to avoid is being scammed by your resort or timeshare company.  You’re an owner, your company is there to take care of you, right?  In our world there always comes a time when you must rely on or trust others.  We are supposed to build relationships on trust and trustful interaction.  Timeshare companies often don’t participate in this type of relationship though.  For them the relationship is based on money and profit.  They appear to lose sight of the possibility they can be profitable if they take care of their owners, choosing instead to be profitable at the expense of owners.  Diamond Resort International is a cse in point.  We all know timeshare resale prices are far less than direct purchase prices.  There are many facotrs, including professional sales staff working for the sdevelopers and developer budgets for marketing.  The individual timeshare owner does not have this marketing muscle.  The timeshare resale vultures make it worse, since they charge fees and for the most part do not exert a significant effort to market the resale units.  After all, what incentive do they have once they get the owners’ money?  Owners also act as individuals, people who will lower the price of their units to get them sold which causes buyers to learn they can always wait to get a great deal.  There’s noghting wrong with this, but it hurts all the direct purchase owners tremendously.

Diamond Resorts international (DRI) takes this one step further.  They are happy to sell you a timeshare  for top dollar, then buy it back from you for less than market value.  That’s right.  DRI has a buyback program which is not made known to many people.  In fact, often when owners need to sell their units and they call DRI about buying their units back, DRI will state they have no program to do so.  In fact though, they do.  However, that $20,000 timeshare you bought last year they are happy to buy back for $3,000 (if that)  and they will charge you over $500 in closing fees to boot!