[Music]
well it being Spring Break season our
main story tonight concerns vacations a
wonderful time to realize that you're in
love with someone or realize that you
are absolutely not and be honest you
knew in the TSA line before the flight
keep the streaming passwords for as long
as you can but do give back his
grandmother's ring specifically we're
going to talk about time shares and some
of you might be thinking hold on are you
going to tell me that they are a scam
because surely everybody knows that and
it is true that the sketchiness of time
share vacations has been a punchline on
TV for years you moreon these aren't
free vacations these are time sharing
deals they're total scams these time
share people they don't stop until they
sell you something they they pray on the
week in gullible ieu perhaps you and
your yellow friend would like to set up
a time share plan don't do it Sandy I
won't give into your time share vacation
scam yeah susp about time share programs
are so ubiquitous they can get laughs in
children's programming and look
obviously SpongeBob was never going to
say yes to a time share otherwise they'd
have had to change his theme song to
this
oh who lives in a pineapple under the
sea except for one week a year when he's
in a studio and he
West yeah still good but doesn't quite
have the same ring to it does it but
despite Decades of mockery on TV Time
Shares are a much bigger business than
you may think they're actually an $8.1
billion industry with nearly 10 million
households owning one or more types of
time share and they can be sold by big
hotel chains like Hyatt and Marriot as
well as companies like Windam and
Westgate Resorts but one of the things
that may have obscured their continued
growth is that they're not always called
time shares now in recent years they've
been rebranded as vacation clubs or
Vacation Ownership plans and while
traditionally you'd buy a time share
that consisted of one week every year at
say a condo in Florida nowadays
companies offer floating weeks that can
theoretically be used anytime throughout
the year or time share points where you
buy points that you can redeem in a
number of Resort properties owned by the
same company but whatever you call time
shares the people selling them maintain
that they are not just excellent value
they are actively good for you here is a
vice president at Westgate firing up his
sales team in the weirdest possible way
why are we here
the save lives those who take the fewest
amount of vacations are most likely to
have a heart attack you're just like a
doctor nurse
fireman
policeman a
lifeguard they all save lives and you
all do it too you're right time share
salespeople save lives just like doctors
and nurses that is why during the
initial outbreak of the pandemic we New
Yorkers would loudly cheer for all the
time share salespeople as they came back
from work we do that at 6:00 p.m. and
then if we still had some energy left
we'd throw a few claps to hospital
workers at 7 for whatever they were
doing but the fact is time shares don't
save lives in fact in many cases they
can them up because they are
incredibly easy to get into but as you
will see incredibly hard to get out of
so tonight let's talk about time shares
and let's start with the first thing
that you probably already know about
them that they tend to be sold in person
aggressive L and while you're already on
vacation Often by suckering people into
agonizingly long sales presentations
with the promise of a free gift there
are so many horror stories out there
like the woman whose parents was
subjected to a 7-hour sales pitch that
ended with them spending more than
$10,000 on a time share or the person
who signed an agreement following a
five-hour presentation because quote I'm
a diabetic after 5 hours I just gave in
I needed something to eat and I do get
that listen to a Time presentation is
dead last on the list of things that I
want to do for five straight hours right
after watching avatar the way of water
telling children that their pet hamster
was eaten by their other pet hamster and
that neither one ever knew the child in
question existed and of course hearing
other people talk about watching avatar
the way of
water the problem is though once you are
in that room companies can go to extreme
lengths to get you to commit on the spot
just watch as that Westgate executive
encourages his staff to to stop at
nothing to make a sale our number one
person in Orlando owns several weeks of
time share you know you should own at
least one week
yourselves and if you don't lie and say
you
do don't let these people leave here
without buying
something something I don't know what is
more alarming there that he knew a
camera crew was filming and still
instructed his sales team to lie or that
he knew that and willingly wore that
shirt because what the is that
thing it looked like someone ate a
Persian rug and then threw up on it he
looks like the mascot for
divorce lying is actually a key strategy
for many time share salespeople they
will lie about everything from the ease
of making reservations to the total cost
of the time share according to a lawsuit
against Windam salespeople even had an
acronym Taft which stood for tell them
any fraking thing and come on at this
point just say cuz it's one
thing to lie it's another to do that
while talking like a middle schooler
who's in the car with their mom but
still trying to sound
hard but the thing is lying is basically
allowed in this industry many time share
agreements contain a clause that
absolves the developer from
responsibility for anything sale reps
say it's often referred to by attorneys
as these salesman's licensed to lie
clause and look I get that sales reps
customers constantly it happens
to me every time a w Parker employee
tells me you look so cool but you
wouldn't expect them to be able to lie
about something as objective as how much
a thing will cost now the good news is
depending on where you made your
purchase you can have between three and
10 days to resend your signature but
remember a lot of people sign up for
time shares on vacation so that time
time May expire before they get home or
have a chance to have a lawyer look at
the contract and this would be less of
an issue if people generally loved their
time shares but a study found that 85%
of time share owners regret their
purchase which is a rate of regret on
par with people who bought teacup pigs
only to realize that teacup pigs don't
really exist what do exist are baby pigs
that grow into a 90 piece of livestock
that can suffocate your
cat and at this point let's talk about
why people might regret buying a time
share and the first major reason
unsurprisingly is cost because The
Upfront cost for a onewe annual time
share vacation can average around
$24,000 but that is just the beginning
because on top of that come other
expenses like maintenance fees which
typically go up every year and at high
value Resorts can run from 2500 to
$3500 per year and you are on the hook
for those costs whether you use your
time share or not which actually brings
us to another major problem because if
what you bought is points or a floating
week plan you still need to book time at
your Resort which can be unexpectedly
hard just listen to this man explain his
attempts to book a vacation at the
Westgate time share that he bought in
Branson Missouri 6 years earlier the
first year I call a month in advance M
they say you're calling you're giving us
a very short notice so year two they
called 6 months in advance you are
calling too early year three they called
two months in advance but we're told
they called too late you can still go
but uh we have to charge you like any
other person so far the ners have spent
more than
$15,000 for a time share they've never
spent a single night in when the ners
complained to Westgate they were told
they would have an easier time using
their time share if they upgraded to a
better plan for an additional
$115,000 yeah that's not great is it
being asked to pay $115,000 for
something that you've only seen in
pictures is not a Time shift that's an
expensive and remarkably Niche only fans
account but westgate's response is
pretty common across the industry once
you buy a time share the pitch is you
really need to upgrade to get the most
or possibly anything out of your
purchase and these upgrades are a
fundamental part of the business model
at one investment conference Marriott
stated that every $30,000 spent on the
purchase of a new time share should
generate an extra 20,000 from upgrades
after just 5 years so it's hardly
surprising that companies frequently
pressure people to pay for upgrades
sometimes with the exact same aggressive
tactics that got them to buy the time
share in the first place customers of
Windam Resorts have said that whenever
they'd go on vacation they'd be forced
into so-called owner update meetings
where they were then pressured to spend
more like this woman the 76-year-old
Widow is deep in debt owing more than
$175,000 after she claimed she was
repeatedly tricked harassed into buying
time share points FS also claims in her
lawsuit Windam sales reps told her
things to convince her to buy more
points that ended up not being true if I
would just sign it then they could lower
the interest
rates is that in fact what happened
no no she says Windam salespeople also
told her the company would buy back any
extra points she didn't use and that too
she later found wasn't exactly as it had
been explained were you surprised to
discover that very surprised
not only
surprised he may need to bleep this out
I was mad as hell wow she is pissed
there I know mad as hell might not sound
that extreme to us delinquents on HBO
but coming from a 76y old woman in
tennessy that's equivalent of a child
screaming through a
bullhorn at an elementary school it's
that level of
intensity so between fees and the
constant pressure to pay for upgrades
you can see how people might end up
regretting retting their purchase even
those who initially enjoyed their time
share might end up wanting to get rid of
it either because they're getting older
and not wanting to travel as much or
they're just getting tired of going to
the same place but the problem is
whatever your reason for wanting to
leave a time share you will soon realize
it is very hard to do that and that is
because many agreements contain a
so-called perpetuity Clause that means
that the purchase as well as all those
regular maintenance fees are a
non-cancellable lifetime obligation
which is ridiculous a contract for a
vacation shouldn't be harder to get out
of than Scientology where's
Shell by the way I'm sure she's fine but
where is shell now some developers claim
to have programs where they'll take a
time share back but there is a lot of
fine print there including the fact that
they're often only available at the
developer discretion and could involve
paying a significant fee which sometimes
can be equivalent to 2 years of
Maintenance fees and if the company
won't take it back
good luck because it can be hard if not
impossible to sell a time share in fact
the resale site red week shows a number
of them being sold for literally
0er and keep that in mind anytime anyone
says that a time share is an investment
Investments are supposed to gain value a
time share is as sound an investment as
opening a gan Maxwell themed restaurant
GES when you're here you're in
danger and and all this actually gets
one step worse thanks to something
that's often framed as a selling point
for time shares it's a great feeling to
know that our grand children when we're
not around um we'll be enjoying it it
will be our Legacy to them even as we
pass on it's something that we can
continue to give to our children it's a
gift that we keep on giving Beyond us
now that we have two children it's kind
of exciting that we know that our
credits will never go to waste it will
still be in our family through our boys
okay one of those boys seems happy about
that but the other one does seem pissed
and much more interested in the upside
down construction truck that he's
holding and he's honestly right because
if there's one thing to take away from
this episode is that if you have a
choice between a time share and an
upside down truck take the truck every
time at least you technically own that
but given everything that you've seen so
far you won't be surprised to hear that
many people aren't super keen on
inheriting a time share and while you
can technically decline it
that can be much much harder to do than
you might think walking away does take
work namely you must file a disclaimer
of Interest with the court saying that
you reject the time share you only have
9 months after the death of your loved
one to file it and even then it's not
that simple you see when the first
person in line rejects the time share it
goes to the next in line and then the
next and the next every single person
has to file all of that paperwork it's
true every single person person and time
share paperwork clearly isn't what
grieving families need it is pretty
upsetting to think that there might
genuinely be a market for sympathy cars
that say I'm sorry for your loss but
also move fast if you don't want to get
stuck with the fees on your dead mom's
Hilton Head two bedroom and all of this
brings to what might be the most
surprising thing here Time Shares are so
difficult to get rid of a whole separate
industry has now cropped up known as the
time share exit industry you may have
seen ads on TV for them more upbeat
segments on local stations like these
for a company called time share
termination team where they can get a
pretty strong endorsement Colorado's
local time share termination team has a
100% success rate joining us trusted
advisers Brian and Holly Wilbur with the
first steps you need to take to legally
get out of your time share I'll be
honest I know I said this before too I
didn't think this was possible but it
actually is now that sounds pretty great
doesn't it the basic pitch of exit
companies is for an upfront fee they'll
either resell your time share or get you
out of your contract and given how
critical they are of the time share
industry you might assume that they are
the good guys in the story unfortunately
they are very much not which you
probably already suspected after that
woman claimed a 100% success rate
because that's one of those phrases
that's just an automatic red flag like
endorsed by Dr Ros or Forbes cover model
it just immediately raises
suspicions also you should know while
that sure looks like the news crucially
it and all those shows you just saw are
sponsored content programs we did a
story on them a couple of years ago and
it's where local stations will allow you
to buy your way into fake segments that
look like news but are in fact ads we
actually bought all way onto that exact
show on Denver 7 to sell a Nazi
blanket and if you miss that story go
back and watch the whole thing because
that was one hell of a sentence that's
missing about 21 minutes of context
anyway as it turns out
time share termination team was even
sketchier than our Third Reich
fleece because not not long after that
Denver 7's actual news team had this
story to report dubby hired the company
in June 2019 in all she paid more than
$14,000 signed the contract the two-year
contract that ended this last June well
under the terms of the contract if they
don't resolve my issue I can get a
refund two years came and w that's when
she went looking for answers so I came
to came to see them and it's empty the
signs are still up on this office in
Greenwood
Village but there's no employees the
furniture is gone wow first I'm not sure
it was totally necessary to force her to
go back and knock on the glass of a
clearly empty office but I'm very glad
that they did but second that is a 19
century snake oil salesman level scam
they just disappeared one moment they
were there the next they were suddenly
gone with no warning like a ghost or a
TV show on HBO
Max everything's fine at this company
everything's
fine and unfortunately that is by no
means a one-off as one consumer Advocate
puts it I don't like generalizations so
I'll say that 99% of them don't do what
they say they will or Worse are out
andout scams but you know what I do like
generalization so I'm happy to say time
share exit companies are total
a lot of follow the same basic pattern
that you just saw they'll charge an
upfront fee and then either stall
indefinitely Or fully disappear and they
are taking advantage of people on a
massive scale in Missouri one group of
companies stands accused of deceiving
consumers into paying more than $90
million for exit services that were not
delivered and while that case is still
pending all of these other companies
have gone under in recent years and I
know that these exit companies might
seem immediately suspicious to you now
but they have slick marketing and have
also been endorsed by some supposedly
financially Savvy people in fact Dave
Ramsey the popular personal finance Guru
who to his credit has been a vocal
critic of time shares actually gave one
exit company a ringing endorsement time
share exit team will get you out of
their time share now you're going to pay
them money to do that that's what they
do and they charge you up front and they
give your money back guarantee if they
don't get you out but they'll get you
out well that sounds trustworthy doesn't
it and after all why wouldn't you take
the word of a man whose look and general
Vibe answers the question what if Billy
Joel and Dr Phil had a kid and it sucked
but but not long after that the
Washington State AG sued time share exit
team claiming among other things that
the majority of his customers either did
not receive their promised exit received
one that caused them unanticipated
negative Financial or other consequences
or received an exit that the customer
could have obtained for themselves the
company eventually shut down but only
after it was forced to pay $2.6 million
in restitution and if you're thinking
any of that gave Dave Ramsey pause for
reflection you should know it did not
because after Inside Edition did a
segment covering time share exit team's
issues and questioning his endorsement
of them he pushed back like this I
didn't know you could buy a story on
Inside Edition I didn't I didn't think
you all were that I knew you were
tabloid but I didn't know you were that
low or are you just so dumb that you
didn't understand you were on the wrong
side of this argument on the basis is
the
consumer so this is why time share is
not on the air anymore time share exit
team but guess who's still on the air
me me and I'm
sitting in a $300 million paid for
building neck deep in cash you
jerks yeah that is champion of the
working people Dave Ramsey braging about
being next deep in cash to his own
viewers who got caught up in a scam that
he actively promoted all while having
his hands like this a pose used almost
exclusively by cartoon Super Villains
plotting ways to kill Batman but the
thing is there is no right side to be on
here time share companies and time share
exit companies are both terrible one is
a shitty business model that somehow
technically legal and the other is often
times an out andout scam but neither is
good and it's very important not to lose
site of the fact that beneath all of
this are people who can get victimized
and in some cases twice if you watch a
lot of stories about these companies it
is heartbreaking just how often the
people in them talk about how ashamed
they feel about falling for this nobody
in my family knows nobody makes you feel
bad when you think you done something
that's stupid we bought the time share
which took us to the cleaners and it
just it made me feel stupid doesn't make
me too good you know like I I think I'm
smarter than that yeah I get that but to
be clear the shame here should not be on
the people who were duped it should be
on the industries that exploited them
told them any fraking thing they wanted
to and abuse their understandable desire
just to take a break so what can
we do here well on the off chance that
anyone watching right now is considering
a time share don't do it if you know
someone considering it send them this
segment if you happen to inherit a time
share get rid of it as fast as possible
and and if it's too late and you're
stuck with it you can try and give it
away for $0 online but the truth is
you'll only be someone else over
them unfortunately the best option might
actually be to call the time share
company and see if there is any chance
that they will take it back from you as
for exit companies as you have seen
there's been sporadic legal action
against individual companies but by and
large it is a whack-a-mole ecosystem
when one goes down another one tends to
pop right up so the truth is the best
bet right now seems to be to make sure
that we all warn each other about just
how up this whole industry is or
I suppose we could go another way with
it and if you can't beat them join them
so joining me now for a special
sponsored segment that she may or may
not have paid $3,000 for please welcome
back to the show my lovely wife wand Joe
Oliver
[Music]
hello there m Wanda hello there
MN now W I understand you have a new
time share product that you'd like to
share with us that's right I'm here to
introduce my new company time share exit
squared yes the world's first ever time
share exit company exit company W
fascinating wonder what does time share
exit squared do exactly well let's say
you're stuck in a time share and you go
to an exit company to get you out of the
contract but uh-oh that company just
took all your money and disappeared
without doing a dang thing well times
share exit Square can free you from your
time share exit company and get all your
money back wow that is amazing wonder
you are truly saving lives just like
doctors nurses and
firefighters you are you all you all you
all w m I am way better than all them
all those people are scum compared to me
I Spit on them you spit wow as you
should my Wanda now tell me how exactly
does time share exit squar work how does
it work well it couldn't be easier
[Music]
Maan simply pay us a quick and easy
upfront fee of
$20,000 and within 3 to 58 business
months
your time share exit company will
deposit a full refund to your bank
account wow wonder is that guaranteed oh
it's even better than a guarantee it's a
pinky swear promise ooh I like it I like
that that's why Tom share exit squared
has over 9.3 billion happy customers and
a 200% satisfaction rate a 200% you said
that's right for every time share exits
squared customer another random person
is also left satisfied wow W that is
incredible I'll be honest I didn't think
this was possible but it actually is it
sure is depending on your definition of
possible sure sure that's fair and if
you run into any problems or delays just
call our hotline at 1 1800 Flowers oh
nice nice yeah or come to the time share
exit squar offices and you know what how
would someone do that Mya well all you
have to do is drive up next to the time
share exit Square van and scream your 27
digigit case
number and we'll be happy to help with
anything you need until we cross the
border into nealis Mexico that sounds
very reasonable but people should act
fast shouldn't they my Wonder that's
right MN this particular company is only
going to exist for the next 3 days right
right and we're shutting it down and
starting a new one in the Cayman Islands
have you ever been I haven't I haven't
well I could sell you one week a year
for just $50,000 oh I like it and nobody
leaves here without buying
something something she's right thank
you so much Manda that's our show thank
you so much for watching we're off next
week we'll be back after that good night
thank you so much