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Ah yes the good old Timeshare sales pitch. My wife and I once made the mistake of putting up with one of those deals just to get free theme park tickets. The whole day was miserable and we will never go through that again. At least not on purpose.
Submitted by ShadesOfGrey on June 17, 2009
Ahhhh....so glad that episode is OVER! I was clenched in my seat, waiting for the last lines. Very grateful it ended well!
Your Pepere used to say, "If it sounds too good to be true, it usually IS!". I know he borrowed the saying from a little-known group called the Better Business Bureau back in the late 50's... but if Pepere felt it was worthy of repeating, it meant something.
I had a great time at a time-share "collection", once. We got $50 worth of free gas, coffee maker, kitchen knives, $100 shopping spree at the local t-shirt factory, 3 days at a Hot Springs hotel, and more. The salesman's final attempt to lock in the sale was interrupted by your 3-year-old cousin falling into their pond that was in front of the office. How sweet...and perfect! We had to leave right then, of course....kid soaking wet! Hee hee! I heard the man mutter to another lady salesman, "Talk about lousy timing!". I pretended to be surprised, with a generous (but lady-like) "I BEG your PARDON?", and then slowly ennunciated each word as I apologised for my son nearly DROWING in their DANGEROUS ornamental pond. They couldn't usher us away fast enough! It took less than 45 minutes to ruin their day. Just wait a few years, and coach your daughter to respond to a certain cue. Saves a lot of time.
By the way...within 5 years, the time share company went bankrupt. Everything anyone bought was lost. You are gambling thousands of dollars on someone else's ability to run a business. Not conducive to wise investments.
Have you tried to upgrade your airplane tickets? If you can fly to Africa for only $300 extra instead of $3,000...it is worth it!
Submitted by ElizabethMills on June 23, 2009
Glad to see we're not the only ones thinking such events are a waste of time. Honestly, we wouldn't have gone had we known the true details. As for the plane tickets, they are "in the mail". We aren't holding our breath, and its not likely worth suing over.
Submitted by Michael on June 23, 2009
Jen and I "won" a fantastic prize a few years ago at the Portland Home Show. It was a camera, a $1000 gift certificate, $25 cash, and something else I can't recall (I"m sure it was awesome). All we had to do was drive to Somersworth NH and claim our winnings. I, being the cynic that I am, knew it was some promotional gimmick, but we figured we'd go and at least have our gas and lunch paid for (with the $25 cash). An adventure and a way to spend an overcast day, anyway. They were selling timeshares to a cheesy resort for the great one-time-only-but-you-have-to-buy-within-15-minutes price of a ridiculous $90,000. "But you'll have equity!!". Hmmm, I looked around and I asked, "If this is so popular and there are only a few shares left, why is there absolutely no one here?" Stammering and hiccuping ensued, at which point we said we'd be leaving now and we'd like our prizes. The $1000 gift certificate was an online gimmick; they were selling really crappy junk for exhorbitant prices (the best thing was probably a coffee mug with a nose on it....I'm not kidding). The camera was a really cheap little thing, worth about $1.59 with tax, but we had a nice outing, including lunch, paid for with the $25 cash they did give us. And we had a good laugh. Priceless.
Submitted by Cindy and Jen on July 1, 2009
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Timechairs
At Westbrook's Together Days a couple weekends back, Karrie signed us up to win a Lowe's gift card. Imagine our surprise when we got a call last week telling us we'd won several prizes.The list of prizes was rather long, so Karrie asked what the catch was. The gentleman explained that these “prizes” we’d won could only be redeemed by going up to a resort near Wiscassett and listening to them talk about their new condos for a couple of hours. He explained that while they’d try to sell us one, the main intent was to spread the word. We decided the trip was worth it and booked an appointment for this past Sunday. I figured in return for not buying anything, I’d do a nice writeup on the new condos here on the web site.
Upon our arrival, we were asked to fill out a form and then we were ushered upstairs to an empty restaurant. An older Irish man sat down with us and explained that in return for our “gifts” (no longer called “prizes”), we had to sit in our chairs and endure 90 minutes of him speaking. He had a weird kind of sales-pitchy demeanor; he always tried to take the offensive and as such put us back on our heels. At the same time he tried to appear as if he had our best interests in mind. After he asked us some questions (in order to formulate his plan of attack, it would seem), it soon became obvious that he was not going to try to sell us a condo, nor was he interested in getting any good publicity; he wanted to sell us a timeshare. Not only that, he wanted to sell it to us that day.
It became very clear that this was one of those now-or-never deals. Whenever I asked any questions about purchasing later, he brushed them aside as if he were making his way through loose foliage. To his credit, he had me interested in the whole timeshare thing when he described having equity after a lifetime of vacations (I drew an analogy to owning a house vs. renting); nevertheless, no matter how good the deal was there was no way Karrie and I were going to spend any frivolous money three weeks before having our first child (and less than three weeks after getting my full schedule—and paycheck—back). At the end I told the man we wouldn’t be purchasing that day but asked for any materials he might have in case we become interested later. Upon making that statement and asking that question, we were given our gift packet and ushered out the door like nobody’s business.
Strange experience aside, we now supposedly have four round-trip plane tickets to pretty much anywhere in the world, $500 towards groceries, $100 to spend on our next vacation, and a $50 gift card to Target. That last one is the only one without a catch; our tickets only come when we book three nights at a preferred hotel (as does the spending money) and our grocery money only comes in $25 increments (monthly) when we mail in receipts (that’s 20 months of mailing in receipts, folks). We haven’t gotten the details yet, but Karrie’s aunt indicated that she was unable to use tickets from a similar experience due to blackout dates and other technicalities. It all seems like more trouble than it is worth.
Needless to say, I don’t believe we “won” anything. I think that all attendees who signed up for the Lowe’s gift card were invited to the resort and given the same gift package and sales pitch (there were other people from Westbrook at the resort when we were there). While it seemed like it was worth it early on, I now feel that we should skip such events in the future; also, after discovering how complicated they are, I’m relatively turned off to timeshares for now.
Posted by: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) in News on June 16, 2009 at 11:53 PM