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There are two reasons we are asked to pay an upfront fee. First: Any company not licensed to sell real estate in the state the timeshare resides in, or in the state the company resides in, will have to charge an up front listing fee and is not legally allowed to represent the buyer or seller in any sales transaction. Second: Scammers know owners have a very difficult time selling or renting their units and there is not a properly regulated environment to prevent them from taking advantage of the situation. Rather than constanting telling people not to pay the upfront fee it would be far better to encourage lobbying our politicians, property management companies and developers who manage our timeshares, and DA's to create an environment with true penalties for scams, standardized nationwide sales regulations (rather than state by state due to the challenges of owning timeshares in states we don't reside in, or the fact that many of us own multiple timeshares in multiple states, or the fact that timeshare sales on the internet list units in all states as well as international units for sale), and enforcement for violations. Technically advertising requires an up front fee, with pretty much the only exception being for sale of "traditional" real estate. Depending on the ads, fees range from $10 to thousands and the upper range can be incurred in respected publications such as the Wall Street Journal. So the problem is not with the up front fee. It's with the complete lack of protection, enforcement, and regulation of the timeshare industry - both in the protection for owners during the initial purchase but even more importantly for resale.