[brezelgoring]

I’m not American, nor do I own a timeshare, but weren’t timeshares scams in and of themselves? I remember reading about them about 15~20 years ago.

Targeting victims of previous scams is common in crypto and MLM circles. The trick is almost always promising them an out of their previous losses with a new venture and this venture is sold to them on the basis of them being ‘experienced’ or ‘knowledgeable’ about the previous venture.

[jimt1234]

My friend's wife attended a timeshare presentation and, unfortunately, she ended up signing. She thought she got a great deal - "We can go to Hawaii twice-per-year, and pay far less than staying at a hotel!" Well, almost immediately, they started receiving invoices with outrageous charges, like "maintenance fees" and dubious property taxes. The original contract was for $200/month, but all the additional charges brought the cost to around $2000/month. They tried to get out of the contract. The timeshare company wouldn't return their calls. Finally, after a few months they talked to someone who told them there was no getting out of the contract - basically, "Sorry, you signed a contract." My friend and his wife ended up declaring bankruptcy, just to get out of the timeshare contract. They never even went to the timeshare. Not once.

[nradov]

That story seems to be missing some pieces. Most people would just refuse to pay the invoices and wait for the timeshare company to sue. I suspect your friends might have had other financial problems beyond just the timeshare.

[jncfhnb]

Seems quite nutty to think you’d find yourself flying to Hawaii twice per year even if the housing was free

[beAbU]

Isn't there usually some cooldown period for contracts like these? Or is that not a US thing? Any sales contract that I have signed in the past came with a 15-30 day cooldown period, where if I change my mind I can cancel no matter what.

I had to do it once where I caved under the pressure of a particularly aggressive "life insurance" salesperson, only realized my mistake a day after signing, so I called them up and exercised my right to "cool down".

[saalweachter]

The most important part of any contract is the termination clause.

[ecshafer]

Timeshares / Vacation Clubs (they are basically the same thing) are massive scams. They use tricky math, high pressure sales tactics, etc. to push people who can't afford it into taking out massive loans to pay into contracts they can basically never get out of.

I went to a vacation club presentation for a bunch of free stuff once, it wasn't worth it. But its crazy the things they push onto you. They make up numbers on how expensive vacations are to pressure people into thinking they have a deal. Then they try and sell a huge package ($50k+) and to push people into a 20%+ APR loan. Then if you do sign, they stick monthly fees on top of it in perpetuity.

Its a bad idea, but I could see how people that don't have a sharp eye and a mathematical maturity might fall for it.

[salad-tycoon]

Went to one once, one of the kids pooped. It was a bad one. The sales team wanted to keep going even as they enveloped by an incredibly thick stinky pungent hazardous stench. Real focus, reminded me of the movie quote “ABC always be closing.” Was interesting to be on the receiving end, a lot to study and not just the offers of “amazing places” but more so in terms of presentation and tactics. Leave your pocket book at home but everyone should experience one. (Oh yeah, didn’t sign of course, the rental locations were all on air bnb but cheaper and with none of the extra fees that they would have charged forever. Ha. Woops.)

[anthomtb]

> I went to a vacation club presentation for a bunch of free stuff once, it wasn't worth it.

My wife and I signed up for a snorkel tour a few years ago, one of those "attend this 45 minute presentation and get your tour for half price!" deals.

We skipped the presentation and ended up being charged the full tour cost plus something extra, I think $25/person on a $200/person tour.

That has to be close to the best 50 bucks I ever spent.

[nunez]

I haven't tried this (yet), but I read that pointing out how much more cheaply one could get a timeshare on eBay gets you an immediate out from the negotiation process.

Timeshares on eBay are crazy cheap by comparison. A timeshare in Hawaii during prime season can be had for $50k or something like that, which sounds like a lot until you realize that the vacation clubs will sell that timeshare for, like, $500k.

[jandrese]

I went to one of those timeshare presentations before just because the free prize for sitting through it was especially desirable.

My impression is that they were heavily targeting people who were bad at math. Every time I ran the numbers (I had a lot of opportunities while trapped in the room waiting for the prize counter to open) it just made no sense whatsoever. Beyond the amount you were overpaying for the apartment, the fees we so expensive that you could vacation on what you would have been paying in fees for a long time. The fees didn't even get you much, you still had to do all of the cleaning and a lot of the maintenance as they were not included. The fees only really covered exterior maintenance and mowing the lawns, and were about two or three orders of magnitude higher than they should be for those services if you assumed every unit in the complex was paying them 52 times a year.

Timeshares as a concept could in theory work, but the entire industry consists of grifters far more focused on getting rich than providing a service to their customers. It is ironic that the primary focus of the presentations is how expensive it would be to take a beach vacation every year, which is true, and how timeshares in concept could make this much more affordable, which is also true, but then they show you the numbers and the reality is completely opposite.

[patwolf]

I don't think scam is the right word. Timeshare sales may be predatory, but they're not fraudulent.

[UniverseHacker]

They’re certainly scammy and overpriced, but probably still a better deal than owning a full vacation home that sits empty most of the year….

[Johnny555]

They aren't all scams, but they are not an "investment". As long as you understand the program terms and restrictions and you buy your timeshare in a place you'd go anyway, you can get good value out of the money.

But few people do that much research and find out that they don't use it as much as they thought they would either because they don't like the place enough to keep going back, or they didn't account for blackout dates, floating weeks, etc and can't find a time when they can go.

But if you do buy a timeshare, by on the secondary market, don't buy a new one, they quickly drop in value on resale.

[vkou]

They are all scams, because they all lock you into a single-vendor maintenance contract that can charge you anything they want, that you can never get out of.

Theoretically you can run a non-scammy timeshare, but why would you, when running a scam is the same work but so much more lucrative? The lemons push out the good ones in this market.

[hn_throwaway_99]

Kind of. Timeshare sales are famous for their high-pressure sales tactics (see the famous South Park episode), so there would be an assumption that these people are susceptible to these tactics.

The issue is less that timeshares are outright scams (though some are), but it's that buyers are locked into a very long term contract that is difficult and expensive to get out off. What may have seemed like a great idea to take the kids on an annual beach vacation now becomes a PITA when those kids are teenagers and now don't want to go on trips with their parents.

So with timeshare owners you have (a) people likely susceptible to high pressure sales tactics who (b) are likely highly motivated to get out of their contract. So a perfect target for scammers.

[thebruce87m]

My parents had various timeshares and got good holidays from them and were generally happy, so I don’t think they are by default a scam.

We still go to one 30 years later, and the maintenance is about 1/3 of what you’d pay for an equivalent hotel room (€1,000 vs €3,000) so I think overall they are “up”.

[rty32]

Sounds like your family is much, much richer than the general population, so your experience probably isn't super meaningful to other people.

[nordsieck]

> weren’t timeshares scams in and of themselves?

They're not technically scams. Just generally not good things to own for most people.

If you use your vacation time every year for the rest of your life, they can be decent.

It's just that most people don't want to vacation to the same place, the same week every year. And they're notoriously difficult to get out of.

[RaftPeople]

My parents bought into Worldmark by Wyndham and they or us kids used it a ton, and the facilities were all pretty nice, so there are some that work out well.

[hosh]

Timeshares are very much scammy. What sucks is that it's all legal. If anything, the law -- the ones that protect the interests of real estate owners and lenders -- is used to lock people into making payments that are very difficult to get out of.

[vundercind]

They’re notorious and have been featured in tons of episodes of TV shows (including a particularly good early-ish episode of South Park, among more-ordinary sitcoms and such) since at least the 90s. They’re a punch line.

My parents nonetheless fell for one in the early 20-teens. How they had missed this particular bit of common wisdom, I have no idea.

[VTimofeenko]

Everything happens at least twice. There actually is an established industry to supposedly help folks get out of timeshares.

[eric-hu]

When you say "to supposedly help", do you mean they actually help, or this industry is also scammers?

Asking because someone in my extended family owns a timeshare and got scammed with an exit offer. It sounded similar to the timeshare pitch itself.

[fmobus]

Also, there are plenty of scams in that same industry.

Timeshares: not even once.

[ztetranz]

John Oliver on timeshares:

https://youtu.be/Bd2bbHoVQSM?si=Gci5R5xrHs_ff-kw