Original Message:
Wyndham's new "Ovation" program offers exit solutions for their owners... interested? (by KC):
markl18 wrote:I can't help but think that the continual advertising on the radio by the likes of Timeshare Exit Team and even Dave Ramsey have a very negative effect on efforts by current owners to sell their timeshares through ads in Redweek, TUG, My Resort Network, TimeSharing Today and the like.Furthermore, I have to believe those ads help poison the sales process for developers in what my wife and I have come to refer to as their Dreaded Sales Centers.
Why isn't the timeshare industry "fighting back" with advertising playing up the real benefits of timeshares? Many of us are, in fact, getting rid of our timeshares because of age, family changes, health, etc. Nevertheless, many -- maybe most -- of us have truly enjoyed visiting our home resorts and/or trading through RCI, II, GPX, etc., for resorts all over the United States and the world. If they -- developers like Marriott and Wyndham, and the exchange companies -- would defend themselves they might benefit in Dreaded sales Center results, and we, who are anxious to bail out, might benefit, too.
Interesting thoughts. I personally don't believe that the nationwide bombardment of Timeshare Exit Team ads impacts developer sales, so it's hard to see why developers would "fight back" against an entity not hurting their own bottom line at all. On the other hand, it's hard to know how much impact the "escape artist" advertising has on the secondary (resale) market. I am inclined to believe that it's "not much". In my own selling off (6) separate timeshare weeks (none of them within "corporate chains", all of them at various independent resorts) over the past 7 or 8 years, I've witnessed no perceptible negative influence or effects from the emergence (and proliferation) of all these "escape / relief / exit / release" entities. Admittedly however, none of my weeks were dog weeks in Timbuktu, but neither were any of them "top shelf". I suspect that the "escape artists" appeal more to owners of weeks of no resale value or interest whatsoever, unfortunately having a near-zero chance of attracting a willing new legitimate recipient, even if / when offered for free.
How those alleged "escape artist" parasites manage to thrive without actually producing ANY results is a mystery to me. I guess desperate people will do desperate things, but the indisputable fact and truth is that merely writing a big check to an impotent, obscure "escape artist" operation has absolutely no impact or influence whatsoever upon the legally binding nature of a contractual obligation willingly and voluntarily taken on. There are no magic beans and there is no fairy dust that will somehow achieve a magical escape from such a legal obligation, but it seems clear that desperate people must be ponying up serious money to the alleged "exit artists" anyhow; all that advertising certainly isn't free.