Singapore Timeshare Will Benefit from Tougher Laws
Friday, November 19, 2010
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.