Choosing the right timeshare resale company
Thursday, June 2, 2005
Here you can find some common pitfalls encountered by people who want to buy or sell timeshare, and some resources to use when determining which timeshare resale company is right for you.
In our line of work, it is frequent that we encounter people who have been treated unfairly at various stages of timeshare ownership. Often, the property has already been advertised for months with several online timeshare resale companies, but the seller may get no offers. Some companies charge an up-front fee for their services PLUS a commission on the back end. To increase the commission, sales reps will often inflate the value of the property beyond reasonable market value. What this means is that an overpriced timeshare will languish in an obscure part of the reseller’s website for an indefinite period of time. If it finally sells, a large chunk of the proceeds goes toward the commission. This is a time-consuming, aggravating, and expensive way to sell timeshare.
Other resellers might not charge a commission on the back end of a sales transaction. This sounds good to a prospective seller, but what if a company has no incentive to deliver a fast sale? Unfortunately, many online timeshare resellers are focused on getting a fast buck from each client who signs up. Their business models are oriented toward making a big profit in the short term, with little regard for anything else. Some of these companies really don’t care whether or not a property ever sells! Their only concern is the customer’s money. After the up-front fee has been paid, again we see timeshare properties gathering dust on some webpage that no-one can find.
Worst of all, some companies do not actually exist. A prospective seller will get a call from someone pretending to be a rep from a phony company. When the seller falls for this ruse, the “sales rep” takes the money and disappears.
Naturally, because of the poor treatment they have received at the hands of other companies, at first many of our existing clients were hesitant to enlist our services. These people have learned to take a more cautious approach to the timeshare industry, but at a very high cost- often thousands of dollars!
How can a timeshare owner tell if a resale company will do what it promises?
As with everything else on the internet, the information is available, it is just a question of finding it.
-Any company that is doing business regularly will have a record with the Better Business Bureau. The BBB lists any complaints made against almost every business, so by comparing records, you can quickly determine which company is right for you. Can’t find a company’s record at the BBB site? Either the company is brand-new, or it doesn’t exist. Our Better Business Bureau record is of almost immeasurable value to us because we are determined to be in the timeshare business long-term. We care about our customers because we believe that time will either promote a business, or expose it. Our exemplary customer service ensures that SellMyTimeshareNOW will continue to be a member in good standing of the Better Business Bureau. A company that refuses to provide quality customer service in this highly competitive business will inevitably fail.
-Many companies offer their own traffic statistics documenting the flow of visitors to their sites. While this is admirable, we feel that impartial, third-party traffic statistics give us greater credibility. For this purpose, we use a company called Extreme Tracking. Here can be found detailed information on our traffic. Another third-party resource is Alexa, long considered the standard by which sites are ranked according to traffic. As our company has grown, our Alexa rank indicates that we have constantly been driving more and more traffic to our site, and that in a short time we have become a major player in the timeshare sales industry.
We believe that you should demand proof before you spend money to advertise your timeshare. We are so confident in our ability to achieve success for our clients that we choose to let the facts speak for themselves. Regardless of how you ultimately choose to sell your timeshare, you owe it to yourself to investigate the claims of any company.