We’ve been posting a lot about scammers and fraud lately: how to avoid it, what it looks like, who’s gotten busted, and tell-tale signs and warning signals. With another piece of good news, this article reports how more scammers got busted and are facing long sentences and hefty fines.
One of the things that makes timeshare scams hard to bust is their ghost-like features. They don’t need an address or a registered phone account (pay-and-go phones are often used so they can’t be traced). And like the ones that just got busted, timeshare scammers can operate from anywhere, even internationally, so deciding how to prosecute them, and under which jurisdictions can be difficult.
We apologize if we’ve lost your interest already: “another scam alert or bust,” you might be thinking. But we need two things from you, as our interactive audience, our clients, and our timeshare community.
The first is your support in our efforts to legitimize the timeshare industry. As we’ve mentioned before, vacation ownership has a bad rap, and not least due to these scamming slime-balls, but timesharing is a valuable beloved way of vacationing for many. We believe in the love of travel, and hope you will help us re-make the image of timesharing so that it can be useful to a wider group of individuals.
The second thing we need from you is to help us reach these vulnerable groups of people affected by scams. The primary victims of timeshare scams are the elderly. They likely don’t read our blog, aren’t on social media sites, and spend limited amounts of time getting obscure news like these scam-related articles. Please, spread the word on savvy timeshare-selling. Whether it’s a letter to the editor in your local paper or a note in a bulletin at a weekly meeting or place of business, help us get the word out to elderly timeshare owners on how to protect themselves from becoming a timeshare scam victim.
1-Never pay upfront fees.
2-Work only with licensed agents.
3-Verify the company’s legitimacy however you can.
(Look them up in the Better Business Bureau, the Real Estate Agent directory, research them online—or ask a trusted friend to do so on your behalf, or visit their place of business, when possible)
And never, ever, EVER pay upfront fees.
