The business world is a funny place these days when any company defines itself by what it does not do. But with all the misinformation that is out there regarding timeshare sales, timeshare resales, and timeshares on the secondary market, sometimes reminding people who you are “not” is important to do.

1. Sell My Timeshare NOW does not make cold calls—ever. If you want to buy, sell, or rent timeshare or just find out more about the opportunities in vacation ownership, we will be delighted to talk to you—but you have to initiate the contact. We are not cold calling off a list and risking waking you up, interrupting your dinner, or intruding on your privacy.
2. Sell My Timeshare NOW never makes empty promises. We do not guarantee you that we will sell your timeshare—why not? Because that would be a promise no reputable timeshare sales or timeshare broker company can make. We will promise to work diligently and responsibly to sell your timeshare or in helping you sell your timeshare if you choose to work with us.
3. Sell My Timeshare NOW does not ‘bad mouth’ our competition, although we do warn consumers about disreputable sales and business practices within the industry. We deliver facts and trust consumers to make their own judgments. With an average of over 2 million page views of our websites each month, that’s a lot of interested consumers and a responsibility we take seriously.

Timeshare Sales are Changing: Metamorphosis in Process

Timeshare sales and timeshare resales are clearly an industry in the midst of change and redefinition. And although the change is transformational, perhaps resulting in the emergence of one incredibly beautiful butterfly, change always brings with it a certain level of stress. As timeshares go through these necessary growing pains, look for a more stable industry to evolve. Expect (and demand) more flexibility in the timeshare and vacation ownership product allowing it to be better suited to the needs of timeshare owners.

And perhaps best of all, look for a newfound unity and professionalism within the industry, creating an environment in which no timeshare broker or timeshare sales company ever has to define itself by separating its practices from those of disreputable companies. When we, as an industry, work the ‘bugs’ out of how to serve the consumer regarding new timeshare sales and sales of timeshare on the secondary market, we will effectively be closing a door that in the past has allowed timeshare scams to slip through.

I got fooled recently by a letter I personally received in the mail. It appeared to be ‘official’ and appeared to require me to file a certain form with a state agency. Yet because the letter almost made sense, but didn’t quite, I called a financial advisor with questions about it.

He said, “It’s garbage. It is a marketing come-on from disreputable company. If you call the number in the letter, you will get someone trying to sell you services you don’t need, designed to fulfill requirements that aren’t really required. Throw it away, or better yet, send it to the State Attorney General’s Office and file a complaint.”

Although relieved I didn’t have to add one more task and one more expense to life, I was also annoyed—really annoyed both with the disreputable company that had done this and with the fact that I almost fell for it. Luckily I didn’t. I escaped the ploy without throwing away any of my money.

But the experience served as a good reminder for how many consumers must feel when they try to deal with timeshare, whether they want to buy timeshare, resell timeshare, or rent timeshare.

Identifying the Reputable Timeshare Sales Companies and Timeshare Brokers

1. Look for history. Timeshares themselves are still a relatively new concept in the marketplace, not available before the 1960’s and with the global hospitality brands not moving into timeshare and vacation ownership until the late 1980’s and the 1990’s. So while there are no ‘oldies’ in the business, there are companies that have at least been around five to ten years in timeshare resales and brokerage, and longer than that as timeshare developers. A disreputable timeshare company often has to shut its doors and reopen under a new name, once, twice, sometimes even more than that. SellMyTimeshareNOW, LLC (also seen in our communications as Sell My Timeshare NOW) has been doing business successfully and consistently under the same name for more than 7 years.
2. Look for strong professional affiliations. Reliable timeshare sales companies are members of and are actively involved in the premier professional organizations for the timeshare industry, including ARDA, the American Resort Development Association and CRDA, the Canadian Resort Development Association. Sell My Timeshare NOW is a member of and is now or has recently served on various panels and committees for both associations.
3. Look for specific numbers not empty claims and promises. Because there are many naysayers out there, who want you to believe that it is impossible to sell timeshares, it is very important for a timeshare reseller to communicate the truth in precise numbers. Questionable timeshare companies will tell you they have offers for hundreds of timeshares or thousands of timeshares on the resell market. Sell My Timeshare NOW will tell you that in 2009, we generated 61,743 offers to buy timeshare resales and 85,949 offers to rent timeshares
4. Finally, look for validation from experts and professional agencies. If you are not sure about a timeshare sale or timeshare resales company with which you are considering doing business, do exactly what I did when I got the questionable ‘con’ letter in the mail from a business in another industry—turn to a third party expert for validation. Contact the Office of the Attorney General for the state or states the company does business in; ask questions of industry experts. Beware of random information you find on the internet that attacks a brand or company; sometimes it is created as an attempt at competition by the very companies you are trying to avoid—the con artists. Sell My Timeshare NOW never targets attacks on other companies; it is unprofessional and it is a waste of our time to put it out there and a waste your time to read it.

Sell My Timeshare NOW obtains formal legal advice from the highly respected law firm of Baker & Hostetler LLP, affirming that the business practices of Sell My Timeshare NOW and Timeshare Broker Services are in full compliance with Florida real estate brokerage laws. Sell My Timeshare NOW is counseled by Robert J. Webb, RRP of Baker Hostetler, a board certified Florida real estate lawyer with substantial experience in commercial real estate, timeshare and hospitality industry law.

The facts speak for themselves.

Readers of The Timeshare Authority blog are always looking for updates on Singapore timeshare, perhaps because the country has struggled in working out government guidelines to protect Singapore timeshare owners from timeshare scam. Now it seems that unscrupulous fraudsters have used yet another tactic to take advantage of loopholes that exist in the regulation of Singapore timeshare sales.

Companies representing themselves as legal firms are contacting some timeshare owners. These companies have purchased timeshare owner information illegally on the black market. More importantly, they are not attorneys and they are not law firms, even though they tell consumers that a legal firm “is the same as” a law firm.

These ‘legal firm’ companies operate by cold calling timeshare owners to ‘surprise’ them with the good news of how their Asian timeshare has appreciated in value, often claiming the property to be worth double or triple the amount the timeshare owners originally paid. Their next step is to require the timeshare owner to make one or more deposits of funds for purposes of conducting the sales—sales that never materialize.

Here’s red flag number 1: Reputable timeshare resales companies do not cold call their clients.

Red flag number 2: Timeshare rarely appreciates. It is far more likely that, just like the car you drive, your timeshare has depreciated significantly since you purchased it.

And finally, red flag number 3: When you are selling timeshare with a reputable timeshare broker, you will never be asked to front expenditures of the sale. Costs of the timeshare sale transaction should be paid from the proceeds of the sale. The only time you should consider paying prior to the sale of your timeshare is if you are advertising your timeshare on a by-owner basis and have advertising and marketing costs to cover.

Protecting Timeshare Owners

While the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE) does not have numerous reports of timeshare owners scammed by the pseudo-law firms, no one knows how many other people have been duped and have not come forward to report it. In one instance that CASE did investigate, they found that the legal firm was a company operating under the name of a bar and pub one day and as a ‘legal’ firm the next—public record information the consumer could have discovered had he or she done even a small amount of research first.

At this point, problems in Singapore continue as timeshare sales practices have been tops for six years on the list of complaints that CASE reviews. You can learn more about CASE’s “Knowledge is Protection” Campaign here: http://www.case.org.sg

Other related Singapore timeshare news:

Singapore Timeshare Will Benefit from Tougher Laws

Singapore Timeshare Alert

The Consumer Association of Singapore (CASE) says that time will make a difference. Although the country continues to work to cleanup timeshare and real estate sales practices, changes don’t apparently happen overnight. Unscrupulous property agents in residential, commercial, and timeshare real estate remain in the top ten professions about which Singapore consumers complain.

In 2009, CASE received more than 1000 complaints against property agents for unsatisfactory service and misleading claims regarding real estate transactions. Singapore timeshare complaints in general still top the list of all grievances brought to CASE, with over 2500 complaints annually.

In 2006, The Timeshare Authority blog reported to you that Singapore timeshare complaints for the previous year had reached 2500.

In a December 2, 2006 timeshare blog post, we wrote:

“A frequent tactic of an unethical Singapore timeshare deal involves charging consumers between $30,000 and $50,000 for lifetime timeshare vacation memberships. For this expenditure, the timeshare buyer gets one week of timeshare vacation annually. Not only is this timeshare deal a bit pricey, but it includes the caveat that vacationers schedule their holidays one and sometimes even two years in advance.”

Sad to see that after five years of Singapore regulatory involvement, the number of complaints has yet to decline. To be fair, perhaps the number of overall timeshare sales has increased significantly, (information we don’t have). If this is the case, the percentage of complaints might have actually declined, a possibility that seems even more plausible in view of the fact that in first half of this year, Singapore boasted the fastest-growing economy in the world with a GDP of nearly 18 percent.

Related Update on Singapore Timeshare

In September, the RDO (Resort Development Organisation) issued a statement saying it had no affiliation with two Singapore timeshare companies: United Wealth Management and Beaufort Park Pte Ltd may. Reportedly, representatives of both companies had told timeshare owners that their companies were registered with RDO.

The timeshare industry can’t be guilty of pointing fingers. I’ve been in the timeshare resale business for seven years now and every year I see the same cycle: some developers pointing fingers at the resale companies for all the fraud that has happened while some resale companies point fingers at the developers for creating the problem to begin with.

Let’s face it, solving resale is challenging or it would have already happened. For starters, the days of pretending the secondary market does not exist are over. The internet has brought unprecedented transparency into the secondary market. People are bringing iPhones and Blackberries to sales presentations and that’s not going to change; they have on-the-spot access to the asking prices of timeshare resales and to owners’ forums and blogs which are loaded with in-the-trenches advice.

Changing the Timeshare Sales Model

The industry will need to move away from the antiquated and highly inefficient tour marketing model. Today’s consumer does not like to be “sold”. There is still robust demand for the product but one of the reasons the secondary market is growing while much of the primary market is largely struggling is due to both the consumer unfriendly sales process and the value one can receive in buying resale that is not overloaded with marketing costs.

1. The primary market can still thrive, but to do so they must better leverage the internet and eliminate inefficient and ineffective marketing.
2. While many brands have been surviving on current owner sales, this is not sustainable long term.
3. The industry must evolve to meet the demands and expectations of the new generations X and Y, and the changing demands of an increasingly tech-savvy Baby Boomer generation. Personally, I love timeshare–grew up going on timeshare vacations, but I would never go on a timeshare tour. I (like a growing number of consumers today) use the internet to do my research and ultimately make most of my purchases online.

The Timeshare Resales Solution and Where Developers Fit In

Developers should be, and many are, looking at their responsibility either to provide a resale solution in-house or partner with a resale company they vetted to refer owners to when the timeshare owners are ready to sell. While no developer wants to recommend the wrong company, not recommending anyone is even worse. Without guidance from the resort they purchased from, timeshare owners can fall prey to any number of outright timeshare resale scams.

Here’s What Timeshare Resales Companies Must Do

The resale companies also have a responsibility to be more transparent and offer “success based” options. While Sell My Timeshare NOW has built a good business offering owners a for-sale-by-owner advertising option, I also believe that it is important to provide owners with a “no up-front fee” option.

Sell My Timeshare NOW partners with several developers and successfully offers their owners both options. In fact, we are currently transitioning our entire business to offer even more success fee-only options to even more owners. Legitimate resellers should support reasonable regulation and should be willing to be transparent where and when they feasibly can be.

Sell My Timeshare NOW started as a good entrepreneurial idea… that has continued to get better and
better.

Today, Sell My Timeshare NOW is a leader in timeshare resale and rental advertising and with our brokerage arm, Timeshare Broker Services, a leader in brokered timeshare resales. The company is proven and trusted, with our websites averaging more than two million pageviews each month. But SellMyTimeshareNOW.com began seven years ago as nothing more than the vision of entrepreneurs who believed in an idea and were willing to invest energy, personal resources, and genuine sweat equity into seeing it develop.

Timeshare, as a concept, was originally the result of entrepreneurial minds willing to think, pardon the cliché, “outside the box” about new possibilities in vacation ownership. As the industry grew and time passed, companies such as Sell My Timeshare NOW developed because new entrepreneurial minds recognized unmet consumer needs in the timeshare industry and could offer cost effective ways to meet those needs.

But in a struggling global economy, with timeshares taking both deserved and unfounded criticism in the media virtually every day, you have to wonder if there is anything to entice new blood, new ideas, and exuberant entrepreneurs into this business. And if there isn’t, will the current thought leaders of the industry put forth and embrace the kind of new thinking necessary to recharge the concept, making it vibrant and flexible in all the ways it needs to be?

Why Entrepreneurs are Important to Timeshares

Startup companies in any industry (on average) account for more than 60 percent of the new jobs available. Between automation, downsizing, and the fact that more people enter the workforce each year than exit it, new job creation is critical in maintaining (or recreating)a healthy economy.

The timeshare industry began with a basic flaw, that being the absence of a process for reselling timeshare. Imagine the automobile industry without a resale option? What if car dealers offered owners no way to resell their vehicles; it would be like saying we will sell you a new car, but should you ever want to resell it and buy a different car or even get rid of it entirely and go back to riding the bus, well… you are just out of luck. Until Sell My Timeshare NOW began offering affordable, effective, and trustworthy timeshare resale solutions, timeshare owners were left struggling over what to do with a timeshare they no longer wanted to own.

The combination of a very atypical sales model for new timeshares and the lack of a viable plan for timeshare resales has haunted the industry, creating an Achilles heel of vulnerability. With no regulated or structured timeshare resales plans in place, the door was left open for unscrupulous people to jump in trying to make a quick buck off of someone else’s problem. Timeshare resale scams have popped up like a “Whack-a-mole” game, with government agencies wielding a rubber mallet, trying to keep them at bay.

As long as there are lemonade stands operated by pint-size visionaries, there will be another crop of entrepreneurs to charge into the business arena and both shake it up and smooth it out by challenging old ideas and instigating new ones. Let’s hope the timeshare industry closes the door on scammers and at the same time, puts out the welcome mat for the dreamers and doers who have so much to offer for the future.

The office of the Maryland Attorney General, Douglas F. Gansler, has published its latest edition of The Consumer’s Edge, focusing this issue on good advice for buying timeshare. The article, titled, “Timeshares: a Break from Reality?” takes timeshare buyers and prospective buyers through points they should consider before making the decision to become a timeshare owner.

The two-page report is easy-to-read and packed with clear, concise definitions and insights written to help consumers better understand the product they are buying. Here are some of the points made by the Attorney General’s report:

1. Do your homework so that you know what you are buying and that the timeshare or vacation ownership product you select is truly the right one to meet your needs.
2. Look at the total cost of your timeshare purchase, including mortgage payments, travel costs, maintenance fees (that are likely to increase over time) your finance cost, and your taxes if they are not included with your other fees.
3. Visit the timeshare resort where you plan to buy.
4. Learn the differences in timeshare intervals and deeded timeshare. Become knowledgeable about fixed or floating timeshare, timeshare points, vacation clubs, biennial timeshare, fractionals, and lock-offs.
5. And perhaps most important of all, don’t expect your timeshare to appreciate in values, or even to hold its value. Timeshare –like a resale automobile— consistently sells for less on the resale market than when purchased as new timeshare. As Attorney General Gansler, explains, “Timeshares are an expensive purchase and should not be considered an investment. Consumers need to do their homework before signing any contract.”

“Timeshares: a Break from Reality?” is a strong, informative report that is bound to be helpful to any consumer who is considering buying timeshare and even to many timeshare owners who don’t fully understand the product they have purchased. Best of all, the Attorney General’s report doesn’t represent that timeshares themselves are inherently a bad buy nor does it attempt to paint the entire industry with a single brush, declaring timeshare scam and timeshare fraud.

Following up on yesterday’s post on The Timeshare Authority, I want to share more with you about this past week’s ARDA New England Regional Meeting held in Providence, Rhode Island.

Howard Nusbaum, President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Resort Development Association, was the keynote speaker, discussing ARDA’s key issues for 2010. Point one, along with my thoughts, appeared yesterday in The Timeshare Authority, so you will want to check out that post, if you missed it.

And now here’s a look at the next four important areas of focus for ARDA and the timeshare industry as a whole:

2. Working to foster growth in the secondary marketplace:
This point is part of an overriding and significant theme for the timeshare industry. Timeshare fraud is the exception, but to any degree, it cannot be tolerated. Laws must be adhered to and the timeshare industry on all levels, including timeshare sales and timeshare resales, must be able to show itself to the world with transparency and creditability.

3. Nurturing and supporting timeshare owners:
The timeshare industry is not, and never can be, solely about new timeshare sales and timeshare resale. Instead, we must all be about nurturing and supporting customers and honoring the dream that customers purchased in becoming timeshare owners. Timeshare ownership products must be maintained as strong, vibrant, and fulfilling products.

4. Utilizing social media technology:

It is no longer acceptable for any business or any industry to rely on drawing consumers into the store or onto a webpage. Instead, through the power of social media, the timeshare industry must reach out to timeshare owners, timeshare buyers, timeshare renters, and prospective clients, connecting with them in the online locations they already frequent. Embracing social media marketing is one of the most timely and relevant sales and marketing strategies for spreading the message of what a great product timeshares really are.

5. Changing business models:
ARDA is working to help the timeshare industry explore new business models and evolve old business models. Thought leaders of timesharing and vacation ownership are addressing how products can be revised to better suit consumer buying profiles and vacation patterns. One of many points in question is that of ownership in perpetuity, which may no longer have the desirability factor it once did. In response to that, new products that offer short-term ownership opportunities are being explored.

It’s all good, isn’t it? When the goal of any industry is to work together to make its products more consumer-focused and more desirable, under an umbrella of forthrightness and complete transparency, then only good things can come of that effort. Timeshares are a great product, getting better all the time, and frankly, I am proud to part of an industry that focuses on bringing affordable vacation opportunities to individuals and families in ways that are relevant, timely, and flexible.

Posted on the Disney Vacation Club website you will find a warning to everyone who may have received a letter saying that they have won a “Travel Passport Cash Giveaway. The letter, according to Disney Vacation Club timeshare, is fraudulent.

Not only are some people receiving letters, but many are receiving telephone calls as well from an individual who represents him or herself to be a Disney Vacation Club Cast Member (Cast Member being the term the Disney Parks use for all of their employees).

The Disney Vacation Club advises those who receive the letter or the phone call to report it to their State Attorney General and to the Federal Trade Commission. As an added control measure, Disney Vacation Club timeshare is recommending that any timeshare owner or vacationer who receives a phone call from a Disney employee to validate the authenticity of the call and to refrain from giving out any personal or financial information until the caller’s identity is confirmed. The number to call to verify an employee of Disney is 888-727-4880.

Difficult times seem to give rise to more scammers in every industry. Be smart, play it safe and be wary about the information you share with anyone, whether it is by phone, email, or postal mail.
The link for more information on the Disney Vacation Club timeshare website is located near the bottom of the page and asks you to click-through to a pop-up page. You must have pop-ups enabled in order to read the full text of the warning. http://dvc.disney.go.com/dvc

And to learn more about safe, reliable opportunities to buy Disney Vacation Club timeshare resales or rent Disney Vacation Club timeshare, visit Sell My Timeshare NOW.

Just because callers claim to be affiliated with RCI, doesn’t mean they are.

This is the costly lesson some timeshare owners are learning. To combat the recent problem, RCI is notifying it’s subscribing members to be on the lookout for a timeshare scam in the form of misleading timeshare resale or timeshare rental offers. Some “entities” have been contacting timeshare owners and either claiming or implying to be connected with RCI.

These businesses may then ask for fees or even power of attorney in order to conduct business (supposedly a timeshare sale or timeshare rental) on behalf of the timeshare owner. RCI suggests that timeshare owners with any questions about the authenticity of a call they receive, simply contact RCI directly at 800-338-7777 for confirmation.

If you are an RCI subscribing member and did not receive RCI’s letter, signed by RCI North America President, Gordon Gurnik, or you are a non-member, but you wish to learn more, go to the website for InnSeason Resorts and click on the words– Alert: RCI Resale Advisory. InnSeason Vacation Club has helpfully posted the letter there.