Upfront fee resale companies are against the law in Florida .... report them ASAP

Please be aware of the following pulled from BBB.gov .....

(http://centralflorida.app.bbb.org/newsearch2.asp?ComID=073300175003582) the State of Florida - the collection of advanced listing fees from Florida residents, regardless of the location of the property, and owners of Florida timeshares is prohibited. Section 721.20(6), Florida Statutes, prohibits the collection of any advance fee for the listing of any timeshare estate or timeshare license, and requires that any seller of a timeshare plan be a licensed real estate broker, broker associate or sales associate as defined in Section 475.01, Florida Statutes."

If that's the case, then why haven't all upfront fee companies in Florida, that are still in operation and are rampant across that state, been arrested and jailed if what they are continuing to do what is against the law? How are they continuing to get away with their scams ????

Someone that's been taken by any upfront fee scam company in the state of Florida needs to copy and paste that statute and then report the scammers to the law ASAP ..... my mission is to put every upfront fee resale/rental timeshare company completely out of business .... this is certainly a good way to start.

I need to know if this holds true for NY state residents too? I was scammed by Resort Equity Marketing which promised me to rent out my time share property. I wanted to rent my Whyndham property.

MT

manisht2 wrote:

I need to know if this holds true for NY state residents too? I was scammed by Resort Equity Marketing which promised me to rent out my time share property. I wanted to rent my Whyndham property. MT

I'm sure you could go online and check out that state's statutes concerning upfront fee scammers .. you might have to do a little researching.

Hard to tell - does this also apply to the non-FL residents these FL-based companies are going after? And why are they all located in FL?

It's a Florida statute .... read the statute ... hopefully other states will follow.

Sad to say, because I thought I was smarter than this, but I, too, have paid an up-front fee for a lifetime subscription to rent my unused timeshare weeks. Not only did I NOTget any performance from this company on the units I reported to them at the time but I've not heard from them since. Imagine my surprise on that count. Is there any information on companies like this that have actually performed on their promises or are they all just a scam? My company was based in Orlando, FL also. I wonder if it's possible to write this off as "education expense" on one's tax return??? Just kidding. Seems that the U.S. Attorney General would get involved in these scam operations since it transcends State bounderies and, I'm guessing, extends nation wide. I tried to get a refund through my credit card company because my contract stated NO FUNDS would be collected until I returned the SIGNED contract. They promised me this on the phone too, and this is why I gave them my cr. card number. I DID NOT return a signed contract to them and sort of forgot about it. When I realized they HAD CHARGED my credit card I called the cr. card company but was told I had waited over 60 days to respond and so they could not do anything. I argued that they were perpetuating a fraud but that had no effect. Educational expense, no? Dennis Noble

dennisn36 wrote:

I tried to get a refund through my credit card company because my contract stated NO FUNDS would be collected until I returned the SIGNED contract. They promised me this on the phone too, and this is why I gave them my cr. card number. I DID NOT return a signed contract to them and sort of forgot about it. When I realized they HAD CHARGED my credit card I called the cr. card company but was told I had waited over 60 days to respond and so they could not do anything. I argued that they were perpetuating a fraud but that had no effect. Educational expense, no? Dennis Noble

This is sad but true that if you waited over 60 days to file a complaint then it was too late for a refund. One other thing you could do is file a complaint with the attorney general of Florida, which is one of my number one recommendations to people that have been fleeced by these scammers. You can do a forum search to find out how to get in touch with the AG of Florida.

dennisn36 wrote:

Is there any information on companies like this that have actually performed on their promises or are they all just a scam?......

Seems that the U.S. Attorney General would get involved in these scam operations since it transcends State bounderies and, I'm guessing, extends nation wide.....

Any and every "upfront fee" company is in the business of collecting upfront fees --- they successfully "accomplish" nothing else. To the best of my knowledge, there are NO exceptions. None.

Don't shoot the messenger, but there is no federal prosecutorial interest whatsoever in these matters because, plainly stated, there is generally no actual violation of any underlying law(s), interstate conduct of the sleazy (but not illegal) "business" activity notwithstanding.

If a person voluntarily CHOOSES to pay money to an "advertising and marketing" company, which carefully and quite deliberately obligates itself to do NOTHING more than provide a "listing", and the company then posts an ad or listing (...usually on an obscure and useless web site), then the "upfront fee" entity has actually fulfilled the "performance" component of a lawful contract (...and there need NOT be any actual signed document in order for there to be an entirely lawful contract, contrary to common but incorrect belief).

The law in Florida concerning upfront fee entities is very new and is frankly very limited in its' overall scope when read and understood in its' statutory entirety. No other states even have anything comparable --- yet. Nonetheless, this new legislation in FL constitutes at least a START toward corrective legislation with more teeth, hopefully to be adopted in other states and ultimately at the national level. In the meantime, NEVER PAY A PENNY TO *ANY* UPFRONT FEE COMPANY. Period, amen.

I paid RI STROMAN about $800. up front, around 10 years ago, to sell 2 weeks I 'own'. I have never heard from them since.

To the victom of RI Stroman, they scammed me 10 years ago. They told me they would call me every month until they sold my timeshare-Iam still waiting.