Desperate timeshare seller are easy prey, Mitch Lipka Consumer Alert warns

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People hoping to get out of a timeshare obligation all too often become targets for timeshare scams, cautioned Mitch Lipka, author of the Consumer Alert column for The Boston Globe and The Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

“After writing last month about a timeshare scam that involved a made-up company, a flood of timeshare owners reached out with a lot of questions,” Lipka wrote in his Jan. 9, 2012 column. “The most frequent: how to get out of a timeshare property.

“Their plight is a common one, which is why they are targets for scams,” he added. “These are folks who liked what they saw and heard at sales presentations and made big commitments to get to stay at certain vacation properties for a certain number of weeks each year. Over time, the expense and commitment to those vacations lost their appeal. But mortgage payments, maintenance fees, and other costs continue.”

While getting rid of a timeshare property isn’t easy – “especially when there are far more sellers than buyers” on the market, Lipka noted – the cost of maintaining one of these properties can be so high that more than a few owners are prepared to just give away their timeshare, he noted.

“And they are so desperate to unload the properties that they will pay up to $3,500 to companies promising to relieve them of their obligations,” Lipka wrote.

Don’t buy that kind of sales pitch, he warned. The firms making these claims can’t guarantee success with a sale, despite what their advertising suggest — “creating the potential for you to still have the timeshare and end up deeper in the hole,” Lipka warns.

He quoted Lisa Ann Schreier, the author of books on timeshares and a consultant for the industry, who said owners have other options, including trying to rent the property or donating it to charity.

But that’s not always a guarantee, either, Lipka noted, since “The very few groups who accept these donations only want certain properties and require that they are not in arrears.”

The bottom line: it’s likely to take a while to sell a timeshare property, so patience is a virtue – and can save the owner some money in the long run, assuming they don’t fall victim to scams made by companies that claim to have a great track record for selling these properties.

“Beware the promise of the quick fix and the demand for upfront cash,” Lipka wrote, while adding that owners should consider “offering the vacation time you don’t want as a gift to friends and family.”