Up Front Advertising Cost

I contacted the timeshare-resale-brokers advertising on TUG.
Anyone ever used them?
Is the upfront advertising cost legitimate? (it isn't that high, but I am heeding warnings of up front charges...).
Thanks for any input.

Sometimes Google ads sneak through onto TUG pages that are upfront fee companies. Generally if they are asking more than $50 or so upfront, then they are more concerned about getting people to pay to advertise than to help anyone sell anything.

Looking at the site the prices are really unrealistic and that is another hallmark of a company that should be avoided.

I doubt, though I could be wrong that they are paid advertisers on TUG.

High prices?

Thanks.
Their website is Timeshare-Resale-Broker.Com. Guess I didn't see any up front prices listed there?

They make you contact them so they can give you the hard press to pay to advertise. This way they can also tailor the offer to get the most they can out of the person looking to sell.

If it was a nominal fee they would list it on the site. If you look at the bottom of the page it says it is an advertising site and the ads come from owners and from the Stroman reality. Here is an article from 2007 about Stroman. I don't think they have changed much. Basically it said they make 94% of there revenue from upfront fees. When they make that kind of money from the upfront fees they really have very little incentive to worry about selling anything other than more advertising. They certainly don't need to worry about helping anyone sell a timeshare because all fees are non refundable.

One of the chief complaints customers have had over the years is that they feel their up-front advertising fee has not gone toward the promotion of their property as promised. Stroman says it spends millions of dollars advertising in publications such as USA Today, the New York Times and the Washington Post. Consumers, however, complain they have been duped because the ads are for the promotion of Stroman Realty's listing service, not the individual timeshare properties.

The court broke down Stroman's advertising expenditures, saying of the approximately $3.5 million it spent on advertising, $3 million went toward promotion, while more than $450,000 went toward maintaining Stroman's computer system, which houses the online database of all timeshare listings.

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Thanks again

Yes as I started digging it is a Google ad not a TUG ad.

I saw all of the bad press about Stroman.

Heading down another avenue. Just so time consuming to get rid of the dang thing...

do it yourself...save a fortune!

http://sell.tug2.net

also thank you for telling me they are an upfront fee "broker"...ive blocked their ads from the site.

I tried selling it

I have tried selling it on TUG and even asked a bare minimum. Unfortunately, only had about 3 people interested.
We are losing more and more money on it every month with maintenance fees.

Live and learn not to be stupid. We also were HORRIBLY lied to during the presentation. Told since we were RCI we 'had' to convert to Wyndham, using their credit card would more than pay for the maintenance monthly and could be set up to do so automatically (which it will not and never was intended to do), etc....

BiggJake2 said:

I have tried selling it on TUG and even asked a bare minimum. ....

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That may even be too much. To give away one unit I had I paid for a years use and all closing and transfer costs. All in all I paid about $650. I was glad to give the person the years use, it's what really "sold" the unit. If I had not done that I would have had to pay again for 2014 and on and on until it "sold."

If you are going to give it away at no cost to the taker, freecycle.com will bring some interest and don't forget Craig's List and eBay classifieds. These are all free to use and advertise on.

sadly wyndham points go for nothing on the resale market, especially in small amounts.

not sure why you havent tried giving them away...yet considered paying someone an upfront fee?

Give away??

Believe me once I found out it was pay up front I quickly decided not to do that.

What do you mean give away?

ie...list it for $1

offer to pay closing costs and or next years mf...

sadly the resale market is flooded with wyndham points being given away.

Thanks

Yeah it seems like it.

Appreciate it.. their RCI owners 'have' to convert scam must have worked on a lot of people!

yes it has....the "convert to points" scheme is very profitable unfortunately.