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Donate for a cause (by R P.):

virginiab134 wrote:

My name is Virginia I am the President of Donate for a Cause. I would like to clarify exactly what is going on here. We have a couple of options for some timeshare owners that have properties that might still have some resale value. These properties change on a daily basis because as you know, the resale market changes on a daily basis. We recently took your ownership in for donation for free of charge based off our previous sales experience with that particular resort. Once it was listed for sale we could not even secure an owner that was willing to pay the closing costs in addition to a very small sales price of $100. There was not a single buyer that inquired about the property. When this is the case, we have to look at the timeshare we are marketing for sale and see if it is worth it to us to keep trying to sell it. In this situation it was not.

At that point the donor has an option: pay to complete the donation since we cannot find a buyer willing to do so or keep the timeshare. If the donor chooses to pay the fee and sign the contract to get everything completed (which you did), the deed will then be recorded into our non profit (removing the donor from title) until we can secure a new owner. The donor must pay the fees to the escrow company before the deed will be recorded to us since we are taking over the liability with a legal title transfer. You chose to continue with our Guaranteed Program in November (signed contract on November 5th) at which point you were invoiced. After several calls from both your Donation Specialist and the closing agent we were informed you no longer wished to continue.

The escrow company worked on your donation for several months beginning back in August and finally ending in January when you informed us you no longer wanted to donate. You were then invoiced for all of the work done since you decided to back out of the contract. Not only did the escrow company draft the deed, complete a title search, and contact the resort for all of the information regarding your ownership, but the brokers tried to sell it for six weeks to no avail. Per your contract, you are responsible for these fees. We understand that things sometimes come up and donors are not able to complete the process, but please understand at the same time that if you do not pay the invoice that was sent to you our charity will have to.

I was under the impression that Donate For A Cause would take no timeshare that they couldn't turn around and sell .... then why did you take his timeshare?

Also, another question that's been on my mind concerning Donate For A Cause ..... why do you charge such a large upfront fee before even trying to sell a timeshare? Wouldn't it be better to charge the fee after the timeshare is sold rather than before .... I do understand that there are listing fees on Ebay that you could charge the donor before posting it, but I don't understand the other large upfront fees when the timeshare hasn't yet been sold?