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A very tough market encourages scammers and empty promises... (by KC):

katew65 wrote:

Thanks so much for your response. I do have this actively for sale, but when True Vacations contacted me they didn't seem to know this. I was told that they had a "corporate" buyer with a certain price, I was told at that time that I'd need to pay certain fees (title search, deed transfer, etc.), so I told them that I would need more $$ than their buyer was offering. They came back a few days later and miraculously had another buyer that was willing to pay above what I had told them my minimum was. At this time I began checking our True Vacation to see if they were legit. I found some bad BBB reviews out of New Hampshire, but all the calls I've been getting were based out of Orlando. Relunctantly I agreed to start the title closing process and talked to the title company, Timeshare Title Services. When I got the letter of intent from them it came from a very strange email address and the payment schedule only added up to 98% and the terms of the timeshare were inaccurate. I emailed them back, and True Vacations called me back, which I thought was strange. The letter also had an incorrect phone number, which makes me believe that they are making up these letters on the fly and not a standard form letter. The letter also states, which I had been told throughout, that if the buyer backs out, I'm entitled to the 22% they have deposited in escrow.

I really want to be done with the timeshare business, so really want this to work, but don't want to be scammed.

If you have any suggestions on how to sell this correctly, please advise.

Thanks again

The timeshare resale market is currently bottomed out in our weak and uncertain economy. On eBay alone, there are over a thousand timeshare weeks listed every day --- some offered for FREE still go unclaimed by anyone.

In my opinion, unless your week is one at a high demand location and / or in a high demand season, your odds of selling in this market are pretty slim. The one and only POSSIBLE chance you have at selling a "weak week" is to invest the time and effort to advertise on your own at a rock bottom selling price. I suggest using BOTH RedWeek and MyResortNetwork (both of which have reasonable ad fees) and Bidshares (free, but much less effective). I personally recommend staying away from BOTH eBay (where there is already a massive glut of $1.00 timeshares ) and Craigslist (where there are FAR too many scammers and spammers).

Good luck.