Timeshare Sales Nightmare: This Couple Survived

Author: Chris Crompton


Once you're gross income reaches a certain middle-class level,
you will no doubt be solicited to attend a timeshare
presentation. If you haven't already, you will almost certainly
in the future. Sometimes the request takes you by surprise.

My wife and I were staying at an inexpensive hotel near
Charleston, South Carolina for a weekend vacation. As we walked
down the beautiful Charleston streets, a nice man called out and
asked us if we wanted to take a tour of their resort. He said
they had just renovated it and he would offer us a $75 gift
certificate, plus 2 "ghost tour" tickets if we would take a 90
minute tour of the resort.

"I'm no dummy", I thought. I'd be crazy not to take him up on
his offer. It might even be fun to tour the resort for nothing,
but if he was going to offer a free night out on the town, then
this was an offer too good to refuse. He had us give him $10 to
"secure our spot" on the tour.

As we waited, my wife and I enjoyed the outdoor resort complex
scenery as we sat on a stone bench next to a beautiful fountain.
We both swore we would never actually buy a timeshare here (by
now we realized they were probably going to try to sell us
something). We knew we couldn't afford it. We just wanted the
free gifts. We came back a half hour later, got our $10 back and
sat and waited a bit longer.

The personal tour finally started. The rooms were very elegant.
This was almost like a museum tour, but we were getting paid!
What a deal! Then came the hard-hitting sales pitch. We didn't
know what we were in for. About 3 hours later, we were ready to
buy. The salesman had convinced us -- it made such great
financial sense. Another 2 hours later we had signed all the
necessary forms to become owners. They even sent a runner out to
get us lunch at Subway (for free) while we waited. What nice
people.

Driving home, we were a bit nervous that we had made a big
mistake. We were also giddy that we were now owners of such a
great timeshare experience. A couple days later, as I do with
almost every purchase, I checked online to see if I had gotten
the best deal. We had paid about $12,000 for our timeshare deed.
(We couldn't afford this, but the salesman told us we could rent
it out for enough to cover the payments.)

Well, I found that a similar timeshare unit was selling on eBay
for about $2,000. My heart sank into my belly as I realized I
had overpaid by about $10,000. I raced through all my contracts.
There seemed like hundreds of papers in the stack we came home
with.

Finally I found my golden ticket. God was very good to me on
that day. I had found the rescission clause which basically said
that I was free to cancel the contract anytime within 5 days of
the date I had signed it. It was day three. Actually it was day
4 if they counted Sundays. Did they count Sundays? I was in a
frenzy. I needed to cancel this thing officially, maybe by
tomorrow.

I actually contemplated making an emergency plane flight to the
timeshare company's headquarters in Florida to make sure it got
cancelled. I got a hold of someone from the company who said I
could FedEx it overnight to them.

I got out of my timeshare deed. What a relief. Now it was on to
the timeshare resale market to get myself a real deal.

About the author:
Chris Crompton is a timeshare and resort vacationing expert. His
free timeshare mini-course summarizes the right way to
buy timeshares. This resource is available at href="http://www.TimeshareVacationing.com">www.TimeshareVacationi
ng.com.