WeCollectTimeshares.com being investigated ...

WeCollectTimeshares.com is a company that charges $3000+ to take your timeshare off your hands. They are referred to as a postcard company, since they send out postcards to prospective clients informing them they will be in their area holding a meeting, but they do not tell prospective clients that they will be charging $3000+ to take their timeshare. Many of their clients are elderly.

At the meetings, they go into a long sales spiel explaning that the prospective clients timeshares are worthless (one of the timeshares the elderly couple owned was in Vegas .... hardly worthless.)

This company is being investigated by Washington State authorities where their home office is located. Kudos to the elderly couple that came forward to a TV station in the Bay area of California with their grievances concerning wecollecttimeshares.com.

This is exactly what those that have been ripped off by upfront fee resale companies should do .... get a TV station involved.

Story here: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?sec...ide&id=5475716

I think my husband and I have been had too. We live in Florida and was talked into a deal that cost us $1,797. Please keep me posted as to the outcome of this investigation.

Edith L. Sanders

ediths15 wrote:

I think my husband and I have been had too. We live in Florida and was talked into a deal that cost us $1,797. Please keep me posted as to the outcome of this investigation.

Edith L. Sanders

This is great news that some of these companies finally are being investigated!

Hope it happens to all of them and maybe it started on all these forums.

Most of us owners warn people everyday about up front companies and have for years now! Maybe the word is finally being spread enough to get picked up by the news and TV stations and this will get the ball rolling in the right direction!

phill12 wrote:

ediths15 wrote:

I think my husband and I have been had too. We live in Florida and was talked into a deal that cost us $1,797. Please keep me posted as to the outcome of this investigation.

Edith L. Sanders

This is great news that some of these companies finally are being investigated!

Hope it happens to all of them and maybe it started on all these forums.

Most of us owners warn people everyday about up front companies and have for years now! Maybe the word is finally being spread enough to get picked up by the news and TV stations and this will get the ball rolling in the right direction!

Not to rain on the parade here folks, but it's not an "upfront fee" practice which has gotten this particular PostCard company into trouble with the licensing authorities in Washington state.

Company principals Jonathan and Christine Gibbs are charged with violating state real estate laws, since they resold timeshares without putting the deeds in their own names first (an additional expense and effort they apparently chose to just "skip" entirely before reselling). These particular PostCard Company players also operate under the name of Timeshare Collectors.

By negotiating with potential buyers while the weeks involved were still in the names of the previous owners, the Gibbses engaged in activity that requires a state license as a Real Estate broker or Salesperson --- and the Gibbses have no such licenses, as alleged by the Department of Licensing in Washington state.

Personally, I'd like to see ALL Postcard companies and ALL upfront fee resellers driven out of business forever. However, this particular matter is really little more than a relatively minor procedural violation of state licensing requirements, in the final analysis. When the PCC took possession of the weeks (by first getting someone to pay them $3.5k to "take the timeshare off their hands"), they should then have next put the deeds in their own names before reselling. They didn't do so. They might get slapped on the wrist for this procedural violation, maybe fined, but they certainly won't be put out of business. They will simply be forced in the future to undertake the additional (and minor) expense and effort of preparing and recording deeds in their own name (after they get someone to pay them $3.5k to "take" the timeshare) before next reselling those weeks for a dollar or so on eBay. They will emerge chastened and more careful, but make no mistake about it --- their business will continue alive and well.

I'd love to see ALL opportunistic parasites drummed out of the timeshare business forever. Unfortunately, however, minor procedural violations of real estate license laws in one little state just "ain't gonna make that happen". A MUCH bigger legislative fix is required to effectively and permanently deal with these assorted parasites, once and for all.