Florida Attorney General Bondi taking a lead on timeshare fraud cases.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla.– Since taking office in January 2011, Attorney General Pam Bondi has used her office to crack down on timeshare resale fraud, highlighting an important conviction last year against a woman accused of stealing $30 million from timeshare owners, while also spearheading new legislation designed to make these kinds of fraud cases much harder to pull off in the future.

Last October, Bondi proposed the Timeshare Resale Accountability Act, intended to protect people who own and want to sell their timeshare from this kind of deception. The bill picked up two key supporters, state Rep. Eric Eisnaugle, R-Orlando, and state Senate Majority Leader Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, and the bill recently won unanimous approval from the Senate Regulated Industries Committee.

“I am grateful to Senate Majority Leader Gardiner for his leadership and to the Senate Regulated Industries Committee for their support of this bill that will help eliminate misleading marketing targeted at timeshare owners,” Bondi noted in a statement issued to the press.

Bondi first introduced the bill last October. At the time, Bondi said timeshare resale fraud had become the number one complaint that the Attorney General’s Office has received for the past two years.

The timeshare resort industry is big business across Florida, with a lot of luxury resorts in this state that market to people who want to own a property they can use on a yearly basis for their vacations in the Sunshine State.

But anyone who has ever tried to sell a timeshare knows that there are businesses out there ready to help them do it – as long as they pay an upfront fee. Whether they get any help after paying the fee, on the other hand, is another question.

“Florida is home to millions of timeshare periods that consumers purchase,” Bondi said when she unveiled her bill. “We cannot allow unscrupulous individuals to mislead and defraud our consumers who are attempting to sell their timeshares, many of whom have invested their life savings into their dream vacation homes.”

Bondi noted that between January and October 2011, the Attorney General’s Office received almost 6,863 complaints about these scams. In all of 2010, it was 12,000 complaints about timeshare resale fraud — more than the next four highest complaint categories combined.

The most common complaints filed with the AG’s office involve timeshare resale firms that claim a buyer is ready to purchase or rent a property, once the seller signs a contract; deceptive claims that a timeshare property will sell or rent within a quick time frame; failing to honor cancellation policies, including refunds of fees; and misrepresentations of the actual services provided to consumers.

To counter these problems, the bill filed by Bondi would mandate by law that a timeshare resale advertiser can’t misrepresent a pre-existing interest in the owner’s timeshare or mislead a customer about the success rate of the advertiser’s sales.

If approved by the Florida Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott, the bill would also mandate that a timeshare resale advertiser may not provide brokerage or direct sale services, must honor a cancellation request made within seven days following a signed agreement, and must provide a full refund to a timeshare owner within 20 days of a valid cancellation request.

No payment can be collected in any resale advertising activities until the timeshare owner delivers a signed written agreement for the services, and the timeshare resale advertiser must also provide a full disclosure statement printed in bold type, with no smaller than a 12-point font, and printed immediately preceding the space provided for the timeshare owner’s signature. A timeshare advertising agreement must be put in writing, and any company that violates these provisions will have committed a violation of the Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act and could face a penalty of up to $15,000 per violation.

Even though the bill hasn’t been passed by the Florida Legislature yet – the session continues through April – Bondi’s office did score a victory over timeshare fraud last year, when Jennifer Kirk was sentenced to 188 months in federal prison for conspiracy to commit fraud and wire fraud. Kirk had been charged with operating a timeshare resale scam that stole $30 million from more than 22,000 victims across the nation.

Universal Marketing Solutions, which later became Creative Vacation Solutions, operated from October 2007 until December 2009 when the Florida Attorney General’s Office shut both companies down. The companies run by Kirk were located in and operated out of Palm Beach County. “Florida will not tolerate people who prey on those trying to sell their timeshares,” Bondi said. “This case is a great example of law enforcement working together to protect consumers.”

The civil complaint was filed against Kirk in December 2009, when she employed telemarketers who placed cold calls to timeshare owners and then falsely claimed they had actual buyers lined up for the owners’ timeshare property. Her telemarketers then solicited advanced fees of up to several thousand dollars from each victim in closing costs – money the victims were promised would be refunded once the closing on the property occurred. That never happened. To file a complaint with the Florida Attorney General’s Office, call the fraud hotline at 866-966-7226.