Found another older post I can contribute to and maybe offer some advice based on my experience.
Just like when we bought our timeshare from a developer, we fell into the "TAN" trap.
My wife and I bought a membership in "TAN." This was maybe 10 or 15 years ago, and we knew nothing about timeshares at the time (other than a vague memory of a presentation we went to many years before). We were impressed at first. We ended up paying around $5000, and there was an annual membership fee of somewhere around $250 (sorry, I do not remember the exact amounts, but these are close). We had the "opportunity" to book week-long vacations at good places, twice a year I think. Hilton Head was on the list. We were interested in Hilton Head. So we booked a week at Hilton Head. I cannot remember if we had to pay another fee for that (probably, but I really do not remember).
Hilton Head was great, but the place we stayed at was not that great. We were not impressed. In fact we were very disappointed. It was nothing even remotely like clean, Gold Crown timeshare properties. It was basically a condo unit in Hilton Head, with no front desk, no pool, and a long walk from the beach. (We actually decided to drive to the beach for a few of the days we were there.)
We paid their annual membership fee for a couple years, just to keep our options open, but we were so disappointed with this program that we decided to abandon it. We stopped paying the annual dues. They sent us e-mails with a dues invoice every year, but we just ignored it. After a few years of this, they sent us a "special deal" - past dues would be ignored, and we would pick up where we left off. We were not interested. Eventually they stopped sending anything to us, and we do not hear from them anymore. I do not remember whether there were any provisions that they could initiate some kind of "foreclosure" proceeding. It's not like this was a piece of real estate. (I might see if I can find the old paperwork and check this, just out of curiosity.) Nothing about this ever showed up on our credit report.
Last year, my wife talked me into attending a "vacation" presentation. I didn't recognize the name of the company. Even though we promised each other we would not buy anything, she wanted to go because of the "free" ("free" is in quotes for a reason, as you can imagine) cruise and airfare. So we went. During this presentation, the guy was flipping through a chart book, and I recognized a logo. I asked whether this was affiliated with TAN, and it turned out it was. So I told him we already bought into their program, and that we were so disappointed we just decided to give up on the "investment" and never use it again. I actually felt a little sorry for the guy, although I have to say he kept a stone face and didn't seem surprised that we would just walk away from something we paid $5000 for. I think he was either a college student on a summer job or maybe a recent college graduate in his first job, and with kids of my own around his age, we understood his pain in trying to make a living as a recent graduate in this climate. After checking things with his manager, they gave us our "free" cruise and airfare certificate, and we departed. (We never went on the "free" cruise. Of course it wasn't free. Maybe we would have saved some money on it compared to what it would have cost us to book the same thing ourselves, but it certainly was not "free.")
The advice? Don't buy a vacation membership from TAN. The money can be spent better elsewhere, such as on a timeshare on the resale market. And if you have a TAN membership, you can consider the option of just not paying any more dues. They will not let you use their program unless your dues are current, but if you are not using it, consider forgetting about it. One year's worth of dues will buy you a timeshare, and especially if you buy a triennial timeshare, you can find places with annual maintenance fees that are less than what the TAN yearly dues are. It probably would be a good idea to read all of the TAN paperwork to see what kind of trouble you could get yourself into for abandon them. I don't want to guarantee that nothing would ever happen, but at least you would know the range of potential outcomes.
