If you’re losing interest in a vacation spot, need money, or are settling an estate, it would be nice if someone else would just take care of selling the property for you, right? Our scam-savvy colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports explain how to avoid schemes that might be unfair to timeshare owners in many ways.
Fraudulent timeshare-buying companies might pursue you even if you don’t actually own a timeshare. For people who really do have property to sell, scammers claim to make the process very simple: they contact you, claiming to have buyers lined up, if you’ll just pay them a few thousand dollars in fees to get the transaction started…
Even worse, there’s another variation of this scam where someone claiming to represent a different company contacts you to help recover the money that you lost in the first timeshare scheme.
To protect yourself when selling a timeshare, keep a few things in mind:
1. Don’t pay upfront fees. A reputable seller will take any fees out of the sale price at the end.
2. Don’t listen to extravagant promises. It’s unlikely that anyone who contacts you out of nowhere already has a buyer lined up, no matter how much money you pay up front. Also: see item #1.
3. Check the prospective agent out. If they claim to be a real estate agent, make sure that the agent’s real address and phone number are the same as what they provide you in a letter.
Check with your resort to find out whether you’re allowed to sell in the first place, and whether they’ve worked with this specific company or agent before. Look for complaints filed against them with government consumer protection agencies, or the Better Business Bureau.
Timeshare resale scams [Consumer Reports]
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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