Clare Louise 
Unfortunately, throughout the timeshare industry there are scammers, fraudsters and dishonest individuals, groups and organisations who seek out desperate timeshare owners to pray on their vulnerability and use it to their advantage.
In the war against timeshare scams, there are legitimate, honest and trusted companies who work to help fight back and where possible, assist timeshare owners so that they can legally exit their contracts.
It can be difficult for some people to tell if they are dealing with a genuine time share exit company or if it’s an unethical and illegitimate company who is trying to manipulate you into parting with more money.
Here we give you some tips on how to tell if a timeshare exit company is genuine or not.
- Cold Calling
A genuine timeshare exit company will never contact you first or cold call you claiming to have gotten your details from a third party you have in common. This is how they usually first reach out using every trick they can to ascertain your personal details, try to gain your trust and get you to believe who they are by;
- Being very friendly
- Making big claims on what they can offer you
- Applying pressure or some kind of time-based urgency so you have less time to think
- If initial tactics don’t work, they can often turn aggressive
- Tell lies about what might happen, claiming you will go bankrupt from unpaid fees etc
Don’t engage with anyone who cold calls you, especially when it relates to your timeshare. Hang up, block the number and continue to do so if they call again, being sure to let them know you are not buying into what they are selling.
- Faking It
In this advanced world of technology, it is surprisingly easy nowadays to create a fake business with a legitimate looking name, logo, social media, website and so on to make it easier to trick people that they are scamming.
Another approach is to claim to be from a genuine agency or law firm, using a very similar, genuine looking email address to correspond so that when you do run checks, the business comes back as being authentic and trustworthy.
Do your due diligence by really digging deep into the company, organisation and individuals. Check every online resource at your disposal to confirm that they are who they say they are and always phone the main office number to confirm that a person works there with the email address they gave you. It never hurts to be cautious when it comes to timeshares.
- Questionable Advice
These types of people are experts at what they do and will not hesitate to lie, cheat, trick, deceive and swindle their victims in order to get them to hand over their money. They will even go as far as to claim to be solicitors or lawyers so that they can give ‘expert legal advice’ which is more often than not completely ill advised and the wrong thing to do.
Some ways to identify these scammers is by being critical of the advice and if it is;
- Too drastic
- Has no legal explanation
- Does not explain the possible risks involved
- Claims to be 100% successful
- Gut Feeling
It is always important when it comes to these things to trust your instinct if something feels off or wrong. You should never rush into making a big financial decision, especially if you do not truly know the person claiming to be able to help you.
Take your time, do your research and if you come to the decision, they are not someone you want to deal with then make that very clear and cut all contact.
