The top 4 Mistakes You Can Make with a Timeshare
Some might say the biggest mistake you can make is buying one in the first place. However now that you own a timeshare here are five others you need to be aware of.
1. Paying a company to attempt to sell or rent it.
The IRS values most timeshares as worthless, hundreds of timeshares can be for on the internet for next-to-nothing. People just can’t believe that the timeshare for which they paid tens of thousands of dollars. Isn’t worth the paper their contract is printed on. This is why so many resale companies are able to pick the pockets of so many timeshare owners.
If you still think that someone out there might want to buy or rent your timeshare. Just do this, call any timeshare company. Tell the salesperson that you would like to pay full price for any of their timeshares. With only one condition. You would like the right to sell. That same timeshare back to the timeshare company for the asking price of only one dollar.
Any company selling a legitimate product would gladly jump at such a proposal. It would be foolish not to. Your car dealership would take you up on that. Your realtor would. So why not your timeshare company?
Hmmm, I wonder why…
2. Getting a low-interest loan to replace your high-interest timeshare debt.
Timeshare companies know that a certain percentage of customers will eventually figure out. That’s why timeshares use a couple of sneaky tricks to get as much money as possible from their customers as quickly as possible. One such trick involves the interest rate charged. I’m talking anywhere from between 13% to 22%. This high interest-rate strategy encourages customers to transfer their high-interest timeshare debt over to a low-interest bank loan. Which pays off the timeshare immediately. Now that the timeshare has been paid off. It doesn’t really matter if the customer figures out how to cancel their timeshare contract because the timeshare already has its money.
Whoever never realizes the extent to which they’ve been deceived, will pay dramatically more money to the timeshare over the next ten-year period. Often more than twice the original purchase price.
3. Paying a down-payment when purchasing a timeshare.
When a potential customer balks at putting money down on a timeshare (and most do), the timeshare company has a solution: get the customer to open up a new credit card with a third-party provider. Once the timeshare debt has been transferred to such a card, the timeshare company is paid off entirely and will feel little to no pain when the customer eventually figures out how to escape their contractual obligation.
4. Letting the timeshare salesperson begin the negotiation by establishing a ridiculously high asking price.
When you help people out of their timeshare contracts for a living, you spend a lot of time listening to stories about sales presentations. The ‘ridiculously high asking price maneuver’ is hands-down the most effective technique used to separate people from their money. All timeshare salespeople use it.
Salespeople use this technique for two reasons, both of which are critical to getting the sale. By starting off extremely high the salesperson establishes a price point by which all subsequent lower offers can be compared. This technique invariably leads to the following exchange between husband and wife:
“If we hadn’t held out as long as we did. Honey, we would have paid $50,000 instead of the final price of $15,000.”
Little does the customer know, the salesperson would have accepted $5,000 as the final price. This trick is pure psychology. $15,000 sounds like a small number and an awesome deal when compared to $50,000 – no two ways about it.
Second, by starting out high, the salesperson has the ability to make the customer believe. They’re getting a great deal by lowering the price due to discounts. The fact that the customer is a veteran or first responder. These sneaky tricks also plant seeds in the customer’s mind that their timeshare can be given back to the timeshare company in the future. Which is simply not the case. mistakes you can make with a timeshare.
