If you’ve read my articles on timeshare resale scams, and timeshare resale companies you would know how crooked the timeshare community can really be, I know I’ve been there and done it. So in this article I thought I would share the story of how I was scammed by one of these companies but more importantly how I got my money back from one of these timeshare marketing scams.
I should also mention that I am not going to mention the name of any of these companies since I have been sworn to secrecy by this company and am not allowed to reveal their name on my website, but if you have been trying to sell your timeshare for anytime you will almost certainly have heard of these companies. Also know that I can’t guarantee this will work for you but it’s worth a shot. So read on about how you too could get your money back as well.
How I Got My Money Back
Back several years ago I was driving home from work and I heard a commercial about a company that works with people to help them sell their timeshare. After 5 years of paying maintenance fees I wanted to sell my timeshare once and for all. So I called this timeshare sales company and they claimed they could help me sell my timeshare, however to sell my timeshare I had to pay them $600 upfront.
However after considering the fact I didn’t want to pay any more maintenance fees anymore I paid their fee. Then I waited and I waited. I waited over 2 years and didn’t get even just an inquiry about my timeshare. I called the timeshare selling company and they claimed to have several buyers on the line. So I waited and waited and still nothing happened.
So after a couple of years and no replies and no answers I learned that almost all timeshare resale companies are nothing more than a timeshare sales scam. This then prompted me to help others from being caught up in this timeshare selling scam so I wrote an article.
How To Get Your Money Back
So how does writing an article get your money back from a timeshare scam. It’s actually very simple, the key is to apply leverage against this company so they will give you your money back. So I wrote an article an about this timeshare resale company and shared my story with others all over the internet.
I then began to work with that article to get in to rank well in the search engines. Sharing this article on Google and other search engines drew a lot of attention, in fact it drew so much attention that this company finally called me and asked my to take the article down.
I agreed to take the article down as long as they would refund me the $600 I originally paid them. They agreed but I also had to sign a wavier saying I would never write anything about this company on my website again. However it did work.
The Step By Step Process
Now that I’ve given you the long version of how I got my money back for timeshare sales scams I’m going to give you the step by step instructions so you can do this yourself.
- Create a Website. You don’t have to make it anything fancy, in fact it won’t even cost you any money to do this. Just go to WordPress.com and they will walk through the process.
- Write The Article. Once you have the website up and running write an article talking about your experience with the timeshare sales scam. The point of the article is to share your story. Don’t come claiming the company is a scam without any proof to hold it up, finally don’t mention your doing this get your money back. This might sound contradicting but asking for money is not the point of doing all of this. In fact when I wrote the article about the company that ripped me off I had no intentions of getting any money back from them.
- Build Up Your Ranking. In order to get the attention of this company you will have to rank well in the search engines, this means being in at least the top ten search results. To do this you will have to first include the name of the timeshare scam company in the title of your article and in the URL of the site. On top of that you will also need to build links. To do this you will have to submit guest post back to other other sites build up ranking. Their are tons of sites you can submit guest post articles to like Ezine Articles, Go Articles, and even my site Zoom Articles.
Finally, I must reiterate before you do this that the point of doing all this is to prevent others from getting hit up by this scam and if this is all that ever happens with it I would consider it a success. However if the company calls you I would consider it an added bonus.
I must also remind you that this process is not very fast either you can expect this to take anywhere from 3 months to year or longer before your message starts getting heard over the internet. On top that their is also no guarantee it will work for you but it’s worth a shot at the very least.
Questions? Leave a comment below.
June Parks says
May 30, 2011 at 6:03 pmHi Christopher.
How in the world does a person get out of of a contract with a developer?
Morales says
July 18, 2012 at 5:21 pmI think another option could be by filing a CC dispute with the bank. Many disputes have been won by doing so and clients were able to recover their money.
Marge says
March 2, 2013 at 1:34 pmWe purchased a timeshare at Hilton Grand Vacations in Florida while on vacation at Hilton in Hawaii.
They totally misrepresented the package. We were not interested in a timeshare. They told us that our points could be converted into Hilton Honor Points and our 3400 bi-ennial points were equal to a week at any Hilton Location or RCI resort. In actuality it is equal to 2 nights in a $250./night room and our yearly fees are $500.
Our initial $14K investment was surpose to be worth 6 weeks at a resort.
I didn’t discover this until (we had paid everything up off) and I was booking a trip from another one of their offers to check out my Florida purchase and adding other stops in different cities along the route at Hilton Hotels.
To make a long story short… This is $14K we can affort to P___ away. We are still planning on taking the trip, but I am making some nice custom made (from craft store) tee shirts embellished with print outs from Google sites about the time scams at Hilton and BBB site. I figure if I walk all around Florida with my tee shirts and maybe even stop in at the local newpaper office, it might get some attention.
Christopher says
March 2, 2013 at 3:46 pmHi Marge, it’s amazing what timeshare resorts will do to get you to buy a timeshare. I didn’t buy a high end timeshare but I still lost over $4000 when I was finally able to get rid of my timeshare. As for the shirt idea I think that is a great idea. Protesting is a great way to attract attention and that’s the last thing these resorts want to deal with.
You may be able to score some extra free night in exchange for taking off the shirt or even better getting them to refund the money you invested in the timeshare and getting rid of it for good. Thanks for the comment Marge, and let me know how things go with your trip. The reader would like to know how your story turns out.
Nancy says
December 12, 2013 at 11:54 amI appreciate all of the information you’ve provided on this subject. I’ve been dealing with a company called Timeshare Property Services of Atlanta for a year and a half now and was promised that they’d sell my current timeshare when I purchased a new timeshare in Mazatlan, Mexico. Thankfully, I got my money back for the timeshare purchase from my credit card company, but didn’t have the same luck for the resale portion of $1000+. Although I’m diligent with contacting them, they rarely respond and I’m fairly certain that no marketing was ever done. They’ve sent me 3 different (sketchy) contracts with intended buyers, but they always seem to fall through with some issue. Where would you recommend that I write about my experience on the internet to warn people about them? I plan to contact them and let them know about my intent, but would like to have a plan. Any input would be appreciated. Thanks.
Christopher says
December 14, 2013 at 11:33 pmHi Nancy I hear your pain. Resale companies will make things sound like they are always on the verge of selling your timeshare but never seem to hook that buyer. As far as a place to write their are several of them but one I could suggest is SquareSpace.com Setup is simple and they even give you a free domain to get you going. Then with every article you write make sure you promote it on social media sites such as Facebook, google plus, twitter, pinterest, and whatever other social site you use. The other option is to set up a full on wordpress site which will cost you since you will have to buy a domain name, and hosting space. On top of that setup can be a bit more complicated if you aren’t familiar with WordPress.
I hope this helps Nancy, if you have any other questions just let me know. Also if you do get a something up let me know I would be interested in checking it out.