Why upfront fee scams litter this industry?

this is why

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...cle_4893948a-9507-11df-a574-0017a4a78c22.html

In a five-month period beginning Dec. 1, 2009, when the telemarketing began, the scam netted $1.3 million from 615 victims in 46 states and six Canadian provinces, prosecutors said.

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The root cause is that the Resort Developers have no desire to educate owners about the market value of resales. If they did, upfront fee scams would slowly go away as all timeshares would be sold and marketed at the real market rate instead of the false hope you see today on many websites.

BocaBum99 said:

The root cause is that the Resort Developers have no desire to educate owners about the market value of resales. If they did, upfront fee scams would slowly go away as all timeshares would be sold and marketed at the real market rate instead of the false hope you see today on many websites.

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Retail prices would also plummet if the resale market were "common knowledge" though.

Update to this...appears these individuals are facing federal charges for mail fraud now!

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/3-palm-beach-county-men-charged-in-illinois-818461.html

I think it goes back further. Back to how they were sold to start with.
Telling any and all lies, making false promises just to make a sale without considering what a client vacationing needs are.
The upfront resale people are only following the sleezy ways of the sales people.
They look at timeshares as get 'em coming and going.
I would like to know the name of the person who stated, lets take this timeshare business and make it into a sleezy way to seperate people from their money.
His/her middle name has to be GREED !
The concept of sharing time is a good one.

1950bing said:

I would like to know the name of the person who stated, lets take this timeshare business and make it into a sleezy way to seperate people from their money.
His/her middle name has to be GREED !
The concept of sharing time is a good one.

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bUYERS ALSO HELP THIS ALONG. Let's not forget the buyer's GREED factor in all this. The buyer also is blinded in this equation as the buyer too often times simply does not want to acknowledge the fact that "IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE THEN IT IS."

Hey, how often have we here on TUG stated to not pay UPFRONT FEES and yet how many people still get caught? Just another example. Buyers so want to get into timesharing and then get caught with the same zeal when trying to unload them.

FRENCHIEINME

What a concept

The truth is exagerated and people over pay and make an $ 15 30 thousand decision in 90 minutes

They then get suckered in paying $ 1,000's ( some many times over ) by out right lies to "list"

When that fails they the pay $3,000 to $4,000 for someone to execute a Power of Attorney docuement, which if lucky enough to find some one to pay something for it, will record it and it will finally be out of your name (OR NOT)

The scariest part is the same people participate or have particpated at each level

I can see there were those that netted a great deal but clearly they got caught and the risk of being caught i would have thought was pretty high--these people are a real menace and should get a long sentence. There are some people it actually pays society to keep away for long periods..

Surely i would have thought it better if people need to get rid than to list for free hold back that years use rather than bank it and offer to pay all closing costs, certainly there are some people out there buying if the conditions are right (I did) and I realise it goes against the grain to effectively pay to give something away but this is a few hundred and better than 1,000s in advertising.

I have come to the conclusion that there are some people with plenty of cash (goodness knows how they acquired it unless inherited) but not too much in the "logic" department.