Timeshares have a pretty bad reputation. But how did things get this way? While it’s true there are some legitimate timeshare sellers out there, more often than not, timeshares are a shady business. Once you learn about all of the unethical and often illegal practices of timeshare companies, you will definitely want to cancel a timeshare or avoid them altogether.
Perpetual Contracts
In this case, the word perpetual means forever. One of the more common unscrupulous tactics of timeshare sellers is the perpetual contract. They attempt to sell you the service for not only the rest of your life but your children’s lives as well. What’s worse is you aren’t stuck with the deal you paid for, you’re stuck with an ever-increasing financial burden with often stagnant benefits. If you simply decide to stop paying for your timeshare and the perpetually-growing fees, it will ruin your credit. If this alone doesn’t make you want to cancel a timeshare, brace yourself – there’s more.
Foreclosure & Buybacks Encouraged
These companies don’t want you to cancel a timeshare, they want you to foreclose on it or sell it back to them (at a loss.) If you ever stop paying your timeshare fees, they will waste no time in reporting it to the credit agencies and stoking the flames of foreclosure. Once you foreclose on a timeshare and ruin your credit, they happily come back, buy, and resell that same timeshare for full price.
Restricted Resale Policies
Nothing says ‘great deal’ like a company actively preventing the resale of said deal. Timeshare sellers attempt to restrict resale through a few different strategies. They will restrict access to membership and club offers to new purchasers only, they will restrict access to certain resorts as well. They also charge conversion fees, transfer fees, assessment fees, and education fees for anyone attempting a resale. They prevent the exchange of the timeshare points you’ve already earned and purposefully make the approval process more difficult for resale purchasers. Timeshare sellers want to sell you a deal that immediately becomes non-transferrable, leaving you stuck indefinitely.
Talking To Co-Owners
So who exactly do you ‘share’ your timeshare with? Seems like a fair enough question, especially considering the fact that you can be hit with fees if one of your co-owners refuses to pay their bills. Although you pay for and vacation at the same timeshare, these timeshare sellers make it very difficult to find out who exactly you are sharing time with. They don’t want you to collude with the other owners to cancel a timeshare as maintenance fees rise every year with a diminishing return.
Shady Sales Tactics
Timeshare sellers are famous for their sales tactics. There are entire sitcom episodes based around the idea of trying to get through a timeshare presentation without buying anything. How can timeshare sellers offer a free vacation if you simply attend a sales presentation? They hit you with so many false promises that you would be crazy to not at least hear them out. They inflate the benefits at every turn while promising that it’s easy to cancel a timeshare whenever you’d like. They even try to keep people there for such long stretches of time that they make a purchase to simply get on their way and enjoy the ‘free’ vacation or offer. By the time you know what hit you, all of the contracts are signed and the deal is in motion.
Cancel a Timeshare Today
At Timeshare Legal we offer a way out. For qualified candidates, we can completely cancel all recurring points and credits and any outstanding financial obligations owed directly to the timeshare developer.
If you still enjoy your timeshare but upgrades have gotten you in over your head, we also offer partial cancellation services. We will reduce your ownership to a more manageable level where you will still be able to travel within your budget. As one of the most respected and trustworthy timeshare cancellation companies, we are committed to helping our clients find the best possible solution for their timeshare issues.
The lifespan of timeshare ownership often has a certain trajectory of disappointment. You are sold a dream of an inexpensive vacation getaway that’s there when you need it and take care of when you don’t. The timeshare salesperson will buff up their sales pitch by floating the idea that you can eventually sell or rent out your timeshare. Once the maintenance fees, blackout dates and other shortcomings of the timeshare become apparent, owners will start looking for a way to free themselves of the burden. Unfortunately, selling and renting a timeshare is not as easy as you might hope and you should probably cancel a timeshare instead.
