i have received a mailer that talks about this company that is ready to make an offer to buy my timeshare. they are in my area and want me to attend a meeting to finalize this deal. is this a real thing or what?
APEX is the name on the mailer ? ? ?
Last edited by vexed; June 12th, 2009 at 02:39 PM.
No. Their offer will be to take your timeshare after you pay them. They will use tactics called "scaremongering" and you will start feeling grateful that YOU can pay them. It's a real thing.
If you truly believe your timeshare has no value and you have money to give away, check them out.
i have received a mailer that talks about this company that is ready to make an offer to buy my timeshare. they are in my area and want me to attend a meeting to finalize this deal. is this a real thing or what?
APEX is the name on the mailer ? ? ?
Hi Vexed, This is not an offer to buy your timeshare, but an offer to take the timeshare off your hands and it is considered to be a scam by many. It will cost you thousands and according to many reports even if you do agree to pay a company like this a couple to a few thousand dollars to rid yourself of your timeshare you are simply giving these companies a Limited Power Of Attorney to control the selling of the timeshare and collect any and all sale proceeds in full. You are still legally the owner until and IF a sale does occur and therefore still responible for the timeshare maintenance fees, dues and taxes.
I found the following story on the internet - Pretty interesting:
Quote:
This company sends out postcards to timeshare owners stating that they are making immediate offers on timeshares.. they will put your timeshare into closing immediately ON THE SPOT if it is paid off and all maintenance fees up to date.
They hold 'meetings' at a local hotel for several days. You must have an appt. after they screen you to make sure you 'meet their criteria'. At the meeting they have several owners, about 6 at a time, and they have a low-key guy doing an AV presentation about why timeshares are such a ripoff and how much money you will lose if you don't get rid of it immediately. They make it sound like they are going to 'save you'.
In the presentation they go through how much it would cost you if you were even able to sell it yourself, which they claim only less than 3% of people are able to do. As the presentation unfolded I had the feeling that there was going to be some kind of sales pitch because of the way they were emphasizing 'you must get rid of your timeshare now, no matter what the cost'. They say they will put it into escrow on the spot but they don't tell you how much they will pay you for it.
At the end of the presentation each seller goes into a 1 on 1 meeting with their 'counselor'. I asked the counselor, so what is the offer? After a lot of beating around the bush, he throws around a number of 7 times the annual maintenance fee, up to a maximum of $3500, which I took to mean that's what they are paying the owner. Then, as we were going through the paperwork, he asks me how do I want to pay. I said pay? Pay for what?
It turns out that the 7 times the maintenance fee is what THEY ARE GOING TO CHARGE YOU TO 'TAKE THE TIMESHARE OFF YOUR HANDS'! I said so what do you pay the seller and he said 'its a ZERO SUM' transaction. So, bottom line, not only do they NOT pay you, they expect YOU to pay THEM. My maintenance fee was $404/yr and he wanted me to pay him $2828 on the spot to 'buy' my timeshare! Once I completely understood what he was saying I said I'm not doing it. He then started to pour on the exact same strongarm tactics that the timeshare people utilize when they sell them to you in the first place! I told him I needed to make a phone call and I didn't go back.
BEWARE OF THIS COMPANY! They act like they are trying to help you and they're going to save your credit rating. This fee that they charge you is supposedly their fees to close the transaction. In my case, because my TS is in Mexico, they claimed that my resort charges a 'transaction processing fee' of 10% of the original price (which would have been around $1500 in my case).
In fact I called my resort the next day and they told me the transfer fee was 1 maintenance fee, which was $404. They claim you need a 3rd party lawyer to process the sale, etc. My resort said they would email me the papers to transfer ownershiip. It was a matter of filling out the papers and sending them back with $404 to get the ownership transferred (assuming you find someone to buy it yourself for whatever price).
The sad part is, they get people to go along with this! People were paying them thousands of dollars to 'take the timeshares off their hands'. Its bad enough to get roped into a timeshare in the first place. These people take complete advantage of that and make you think you have no other alternative but to pay them to take it. In fact when I called some of my friends and family members and asked if anyone wanted to buy my timeshare for $2800 plus the $404 transfer fee, I had 2 takers! Instead of paying them over $2800 to get rid of it, I'm getting $2800.
BOTTOM LINE: WATCH OUT! YOU WILL GO TO THE MEETING THINKING YOU WILL BE WALKING OUT WITH A CHECK.. IN FACT THEY WILL BE CHARGING YOU! KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT IF YOU GO.
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Here's an update to an older post, asking about what's become an interesting, but many times unsuccessful business model(at least from the timeshare owners perspective).
Now, it seems, at least one these timeshare relief/rescue/escape type companies have violated the law.
Quote:
Time share repurchaser settles with Vt.
BY NICK REES
MONTPELIER, Vt. (Legal Newsline) - A Nevada-based time share repurchaser has agreed to pay more than $120,000 in restitution and penalties to settle claims it violated Vermont law.
Apex Professionals, LLC, will pay more than $64,000 to 15 Vermont consumers and $65,000 in penalties and costs to the state over the alleged violations.
"If out-of-state companies offering an economic benefit to consumers in Vermont violate the state's consumer laws, they can expect strong enforcement and serious consequences," state Attorney General William Sorrell said.
Apex representatives began soliciting Vermont consumers in the spring of 2009 to transfer ownership of their unused timeshares to allow the original owners to be relieved of timeshare maintenance fees, taxes and other costs.
The Apex representatives met with consumers in March at the Courtyard Burlington Harbor in Burlington and in March and May at the Capitol Plaza Hotel in Montpelier. The meetings were advertised in postcards mailed by Apex that stated, "Don't play the waiting game in this economy! If you accept our offer we will put your timeshare into closing immediately."
Consumers who went to the meetings with Apex went with the understanding that Apex would offer them money in exchange for their timeshares. Apex instead charged them a fee of several thousand dollars to transfer ownership of their timeshares, Sorrell said.
Apex representatives then told consumers that the several thousand dollar payment could be offset by filing for a federal income tax deduction for investment losses on their timeshare, the value of which was claimed to be equal to or greater than their payment to Apex. Sorrell says this claim was not true as consumers had purchased the timeshares for personal, not investment, purposes, which made them ineligible for a tax deduction
will they buy my timeshare? 
Timeshare Offer is NOT a BUY Offer . . . 
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