"The Villa Trader" is a timeshare related scam company and not affiliated in any way with Villa Trader - http://villatrader.com

DO NOT DEAL W/ VILLA TRADERS!!!! Just like you, I thought it was too good to be true...and it was. They needed $2,000 to guarantee the sale but said they would not process the fee until after the contract was signed. After thinking it over, we decided it sounded too shady. The contract said we had 7 days to cancel or the fee would apply. Before signing the contract, I called the credit card company only to find out that the $2,000 had already been processed. Called Villa Traders and told them I was not interested, sent back the contract with the words 'NOT INTERESTED' written across it. My husband argued with them over the phone, they told him the timeshare was already sold. How can it be sold when no contract was ever signed. Finally they ended the conversation with "FINE!!!" and hung up on us. To this day, we are still dealing with the credit card company to retrieve our $2,000 for services that were never rendered. I wish we had NEVER answered the phone!!!! Do not deal with them EVER!!!!!

Well, it confirm our perception of this company. They are all racketeers. Thanks God I refused to make any transaction with them, because in this moment, I would be in the same place that you. I am very sorry that you now have to deal with this problem. It is good that people tell the story in this forum, in order to help others not to believe in the "excellent deals" that Villa Traders offers. I had a narrow escape, thanks of this forum.

The likelyhood is that it IS a scam. There have been a lot of people caught by this (including me). Go to http://www.thevillatrader.info and add your experiences there please.

I call upfront fee resale companies 'bottom feeder scums' on the food chain and the biggest 'rip-off artists' of the entire timeshare industry. They prey on desperate people needing to sell their timeshare and they will tell YOU ANYTHING to get that upfront fee .... that's all they want.

Do NOT deal with Villa Traders!!! My husband & I were both cheated out of $2,000 by Villa Traders. Same deal, received phone call from Villa Traders informing me that they had a buyer for my Westin Regina Timeshare in Cabo for $27,500. Was told that they needed a $2,000 fee to guarantee the sale but would not process the money until the contract was signed. After looking over the contract, realized it was a contract for advsmt not a contract of sales so I canceled the deal and informed Villa Traders. They were angry and told me that my time share was already sold. Knowing that it would be impossible to sell without a contract, I called the credit card co and was informed that they had already processed the $2,000 fee without me signing any contract. The contract states that the deal can be canceled within 7 days but apparently that was not honored as I am still fighting with my credit card co to retrieve my $2,000 transaction fee for services that were never rendered. Do NOT deal with them. They are now refusing to answer my phone calls nor return any calls. BIGGEST SCAM ARTIST EVER!!!

We too have had a less than desirable experience with villa trader. My wife recieved a call from them saying that they were responding to our request for information. We had never contacted them. we went back and forth for a few days on the phone and then they said they had a buyerat $59K for our Mayan Palace time share, but we needed to put up $1000 for the deal to go through. They wanted to put the money in their escro company , emerald seas title. We said we wanted to use a diferent title company ,First American but they refused. They came up with a lot of excuses why we should use there title co but none of them held water. We also refused to do the deal. The villa trader bbb rating = F. The emerald seas title co was not even listed with the Orlando BBB. Bottom line SCAM.

This is a scam and here is why:

We received a call from Villa Traders to sell our timeshare since we were not using it. They said that Club Regina in Mexico wants them to sell it to someone who will use it and spend money at their resorts. In one of the worst global economies, they sold it to a buyer within 24 hours, and for more money than what we paid. Once the buyer put down the deposit, they would call me back for the "guaranteed sale" and all we had to do was give them our address and visa card to pay for the title search for $2,000. Then we would receive the contract. I asked for documentation prior to the visa transaction. The agent tried to compare this to a home closing and a car sale. Does he think I'm an idiot? When I asked what recourse I would have should something go wrong, he said our conversation was recorded - that would be evidence of this transaction. I don't think so. No documentation, so no deal. NEVER GIVE OUT YOUR CREDIT CARD NUMBER WITHOUT FULLY UNDERSTANDING AND SEEING WHAT YOU ARE PAYING FOR UPFRONT.

judys57 wrote:

Do NOT deal with Villa Traders!!! My husband & I were both cheated out of $2,000 by Villa Traders. Same deal, received phone call from Villa Traders informing me that they had a buyer for my Westin Regina Timeshare in Cabo for $27,500. Was told that they needed a $2,000 fee to guarantee the sale but would not process the money until the contract was signed. After looking over the contract, realized it was a contract for advsmt not a contract of sales so I canceled the deal and informed Villa Traders. They were angry and told me that my time share was already sold. Knowing that it would be impossible to sell without a contract, I called the credit card co and was informed that they had already processed the $2,000 fee without me signing any contract. The contract states that the deal can be canceled within 7 days but apparently that was not honored as I am still fighting with my credit card co to retrieve my $2,000 transaction fee for services that were never rendered. Do NOT deal with them. They are now refusing to answer my phone calls nor return any calls. BIGGEST SCAM ARTIST EVER!!!

You need to get in touch with Profeco .... they are the consumer advocate agency in Mexico. You can do a search here (search forums) to find out how to get in touch with them.

Kelly44, I am an ISP in the UK, along with some of my clients we are trying to notify/help as many people avoid the scams such as "The Villa Trader" and hopefully put a stop to some of them. Quite a number of the scams originate in the US. We have just set up a new web site www.scamaware.net, www.scamaware.co.uk. Maybe we could help each other across the 'pond'. You can e-mail me at admin@scamaware.co.uk.

Steve Mosley

PS any other users of this board are quite welcome to join us.

I am in the same boat. Thought I would give it a try even though it sounded to good to be true. Luckily I only gave them $1,000. which is currently trying to be recovered by my credit card company.

Lovely website but my timeshare never appeared on it.

Don't deal with these people!

Thank you, thank you for this forum. I have talked to Villa Trader for the last couple of days, yes it sounded too good to be true, but I was tempted. They said they'd call back tomorrow, and you can be assured that will be the last I'll talk to them

I received a call today from Todays Mexico Rentals, offering the same thing. When I went to their site, I dug deeper and found Villa Trader. When I called back, the sales manager (Tim Johnson) said they bought Villa Trader. Gave me the same run a round, needed to have the legal fees up front, $1500.00 I told him it sounds like a scam, he said sorry for wasting my time and hung up.

Jim R

I filed a complaint to the Better Business Bureau (www.bbb.org) a couple of months ago regarding Villa Trader. I received a reply from them today stating:- "re: The Villa Trader inc., case #9A57-C71% Dear Mr X: We are closing your complaint filed against the company due to its failure to provide the BBB with a response. As a result, we are unable to assist further at this time."

So basically, if you are a company and you get a communication from the BBB regarding a complaint against you, 'Don't answer', they will go away. It does appear that the BBB are next to useless. We have the FSA (Financial Services Authority) in the UK, they are pretty much a lion with no teeth too.

I feel that organizations that are established to give support to these kind of complaints are part of the problem, because they are not interested in doing anything. In this moment the next phrase gain value "bad things happen when good people don´t do anything".

celestej4 wrote:

I feel that organizations that are established to give support to these kind of complaints are part of the problem, because they are not interested in doing anything. In this moment the next phrase gain value "bad things happen when good people don´t do anything".

celestj4, You are absolutely correct, I think the only way we are going to get anything done about TVT (and similar) is to get enough names of people that have been scammed and go directly to trading standards or the Attorney Generals. If you and others go to http://www.scamaware.net and register your name on the forum, we will try our best to get something resolved.

james1930 wrote:

I received a call today from Todays Mexico Rentals, offering the same thing. When I went to their site, I dug deeper and found Villa Trader. When I called back, the sales manager (Tim Johnson) said they bought Villa Trader. Gave me the same run a round, needed to have the legal fees up front, $1500.00 I told him it sounds like a scam, he said sorry for wasting my time and hung up.

Jim R

Both Todays Mexico Rentals and The Villa Trader have Emeral Seas Title LLC as the title company! If you look at the homepage of each of their web sites (www.todaysmexicorentals.com & www.thevillatrader.com) notice any similarities? OK, different colour (sorry I'm English) schemes, but basically the same site. Also I did a lookup on the IP address their web sites sit on, and guess what? They both have the same IP (69.89.31.75) coincidence, I think not. Both domain names have hidden registrants and todaysmexicorentals.com has only been registered for 1 year from April 2009. So only registered this month and just for a year. Personally wouldn't touch this company with a barge pole.

Someone just called me from "Todays Mexico Rentals.com" and said that they had a buyer for our timeshare. They offered us a very generous sum but asked for $2000.00 to pay the cost of search and transfer of deed and verification of ownership. This sounded fishy to me. Has anyone heard of this company or has done business with them?

kathyt148 wrote:

Someone just called me from "Todays Mexico Rentals.com" and said that they had a buyer for our timeshare. They offered us a very generous sum but asked for $2000.00 to pay the cost of search and transfer of deed and verification of ownership. This sounded fishy to me. Has anyone heard of this company or has done business with them?

PLEASE go back and read all previous posts AND threads on the various companies who purports to have buyers.

All these companies operate the same, only the names change. They state they have a buyer and ask for larges sums of money upfront. After they have your money the buyer decides he is no longer interested and "backs out" of the deal.

Even if a the deal is legit, $2000 is way to much money to perform what basically is a title search. This could be done for less than $500. That's not even mentioning that the BUYER usually covers the closing costs.

Offer to go ahead with the deal, but you will use a closing company of YOUR choice. The $2000 will go in an escrow company that YOU choose and it will be released when the transaction has completed.

WE DO NOT HAVE OUR TIMESHARE LISTED. IT WAS STRICKLY A COLD CALL. THEY SAID THAT WE WERE THE NEXT NAME ON THEIR LIST OF TS OWNERS.

SAME DEAL, THEY ARE A SCAM!!!, DO NOT DEAL WITH THEM!!! CALL BBB OR ATTERNEY GENERALS OFFICE IF THJEY CALL YOU.