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Re: Remembering why you bought your timeshare! (by James P.):

First let me say that I have owned a red week time share at Vail for 20 years. We go to Vail every year and I have never exchanged. The maintenance fees are high but not more than renting a condo or a stay in a hotel. The major disadvantage is that it it use or lose. Sometimes it has been inconvenient to go during our period but we juggle priorities an go anyway.

That said I think some of you are a bit harsh in saying that the purchase is totally "buyer beware". I agree that in the end that this is the case but --- the industry must bear some responsibility for their actions and the actions of their so called representatives better known a used car sales men.

First the industry reaps huge profits from the initial sales. In doing so they encourage their reps to pull out all the stops to make a sale to unsuspecting people. Their tactics are unscrupulous at best and approach fraud.

It is all well and good to put the blame on the public for every aspect of the timeshare purchase but in most other business there are codes of conduct designed to protect the customers who in general are not as astute as perhaps many of the posters here are. For instance in most states there are disclosure laws governing real estate sales and the mortgage industry has just recently been required to tighten up their responsibility to their customers.

In the end I suspect that most of the dissatisfied owners would, in quiet moments, would agree that they should have been more careful. However the required extreme caution goes against human nature. You want to trust people and what they say. People generally do not go into a "conversation" expecting to be lied to and to be subjected to the pressure that is applied during the "presentations" which approaches excessive coercion.

For most people purchasing a timeshare in any form is a major financial commitment. I believe we as a people have a right to expect good behavior on the part of those who are offering us goods and services and that it is incumbent on the industry to clean up their act. Otherwise your and my timeshare will continue to be looked on with suspicion, our investment will continue to be questioned and at some point the timeshare industry will be compared unfavorably with Bernie Madoff.