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[Q=lollis3] I think you are being way too kind. It's an absolute fact that the sales team stretches the truth (i.e., lies) and anyone who is an experienced owner and has gone to an "owners update" knows that to be true. So it's not too far out to call it a scam when you have a company that encourages lying in order to make a sale.[/Q] Well, you know what? You may be right -- I may have been too kind, tho I must hasten to note that my wife and I have been generally-satisfied timeshare owners for the better part of 20 years (and readily concede that "owners updates" are a form of self-punishment). A definition of "scam" is "swindle," and "swindle" is defined as "to put forward plausible schemes or use unscrupulous trickery to defraud others; cheat." "Flimflam" or "flim-flam" is defined as "a trick or deception, especially a swindle or confidence game involving skillful persuasion or clever manipulation of the victim." With those definitions in mind, think about timeshares this way: When someone buys a timeshare, whether from the Dreaded Sales Center or an ad on eBay or Redweek, he/she does in fact receive something. The difficulty is in the USE of that something. The good old fixed week/fixed week/deeded timeshare is a no-brainer. You pay your maintenance fee and show up. The variants -- (a) fixed week, floating unit or (b) fixed unit, floating week or (c) floating week, floating unit -- don't require much more effort except planning ahead. Points? Whole different ball game, unsuited for all but retirees with lots of time to learn how to play plus the flexibility to play the system(s) for all they're worth. Trouble is, most points buyers are NOT as just described. They don't know owning points is a game, a competition, with rules closely guarded by those who created the game (e.g., Wyndham, Spinnaker, etc.) and shared with the suckers -- er, owners -- only reluctantly. So are points a scam, a swindle, a flim-flam? Probably not, IF and only IF you learn to play the game by yourself. Never, never believe the Flim-Flam Man.