New to bbs...Question, please

We want to sell our Mayan Palace Riviera Maya, Playa del Carmen timeshare and received a postcard this morning from APEX Professionals LLC out of Reno, NV. They come to your city, check-in to a decent hotel and have you come by appointment where they look over your documents, etc and supposedly offer you a price. We are curious but cautious and want to know if anyone on this board has had any experience with this outfit? Your comments will be greatly appreciated, please. William

Companies that do that are known as "postcard companies." They are predatory and opportunistic. They prey on the tired and maintenance-fee weary, and will offer to "take your albatross of a timeshare off your hands" for a certain sum of money, sometimes reaching into thousands of dollars. They get you to pay them up front, then may or may not make any effort to actually sell the timeshare. The next time the maintenance fees roll around, you'll be stuck with them, because you likely will still own the place. Don't ever pay anyone to sell your timeshare for you - once they have your money, they have no incentive to actually try to sell it.

Join TUG and read about how to make the most of what you own, including how to sell it. You'll never get back what you probably paid, but you may find someone to take it off your hands.

Hope this helps.

It will be one of two things, either:

1) They will charge you a large listing fee to advertise your timeshare and you will never hear from them again, or

2) They will want you to pay them $2,000-$3,000 to take your timeshare off your hands.

Here on TUG, we don't recommend either. In this economy, it's really hard to sell a timeshare, in fact, it's hard to give away many timeshares. The market has been flooded with Mexican timeshares for sale, so they are especially difficult. I know this is hard to stomach, but if you can find someone to take it, the cheapest thing to do may be to give it away.

There is a list of resell websites at the top of the board that you should take a look at.

In addition to the free TUG Marketplace (linked in the red bar at the top of the page) I personally use these cheap or free websites to post my Ads:

www.craigslist.org (free)

www.redweek.com
* Membership $14.99 for 12 Months
* Timeshare Rental Postings - $19.99/ea for 6 Months - $49.99/ea for 12 Months

www.myresortnetwork.com
$19.95 posting fee ($24.95 for a float week ad)

BTW - we have a no-advertising rule on TUG, so you will not be able to post the specific details of your ownership here. If someone asks, you can click on their blue user name and send them a private message, if you want to.

Good luck!

Question, please.

Thanks for your responses. They are not offering toSELL our timeshare but rather to BUY it and I suspect they'll make a very low offer, however we want to avoid paying fees to get it off our hands and have already started creating a flier to post on numerous sites as well as the good ol' standards.
This outfit is probably a questionable operation and best to avoid.
Thanks, again, for your input. William

William - I will be VERY surprised if they offer to buy it - see #2 in my post. That's the most likely scenario. In this economy, they can only make a profit off your TS if you pay them to take it AND they turn around and sell it cheap.

That's a nice resort, but it has some drawbacks that are going to make it very difficult to sell (All inclusive and high transfer costs.) If you just want to get rid it of it, list it for $1 and offer to pay the closing costs. In this economy, you have very little hope of selling it.

Jonathan Gibbs resurfaces --- new name, same game...

WGReau said:

They are not offering toSELL our timeshare but rather to BUY it....

Click to expand...

This "Apex Professionals" outfit is reportedly the reincarnation of Timeshare Collectors, aka We Collect Timeshares LLC, "PostCard Companies" which got into legal trouble with licensing authorities in the state of Washington in 2007 for not recording deeds in their own name before reselling. The state evidently regarded this as real estate broker activity (...but with no real estate license) and took public and formal exception to their practices.

Principals in those instances (and apparently in this new one) were / are reportedly Jonathan Gibbs and his wife Christine. While the mail address for "Apex Professionals" might be Reno, NV, they are actually (still) based in Washington state. A new company name eliminating the word "timeshare" and an additinal "rebranding" attempt to appear to be in or from a different geographic area does not in any way alter the game or its' players.

Rest assured that these folks absolutely are not going to offer to buy your timeshare --- not at any price. On the contrary, the only "offer" you will receive is an "offer" of the opportunity to pay THEM (somewhere around $3,000 -- $3,500) to generously "take your timeshare off your hands" . This magnanimous gesture will take place after a presentation enumerating the many evils, pitfalls and trappings of timeshare ownership.

Attend any such meeting only for entertainment purposes, if at all --- and leave your checkbook and deed copy at home...

DeniseM said:

That's a nice resort, but it has some drawbacks that are going to make it very difficult to sell (All inclusive and high transfer costs.)

Click to expand...

Denise,
Agree with most you've written, but don't believe the MP RM is all inclusive. In fact, I'm getting the impression the MP groups are some of the few remaining MX timeshares which are not AI. Hope they don't change this.
Also, transfer costs can be fairly low--depends on the contract. Some of the older contracts only require a transer cost of one year's m/f.