For many years now, the timeshare industry has been corrupted by scammers, schemers and fraudsters who work as individuals, teams or part of large organisations to con innocent people out of their hard-earned savings.
Nowadays, consumers are a lot wiser when it comes to timeshare scams and even the word timeshare is often enough to have people making a very swift exit or refusing to continue a call or conversation. However, this has given rise to what are known as timeshare cancellation or timeshare exit scams which target existing timeshare owners who are eager to rid themselves of their unwanted financial burden.
We spoke to an experienced, qualified and knowledgeable timeshare solicitor for some professional and reliable advice on how timeshare owners can identify and avoid such scams and help them separate fact from fiction.
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How Do Timeshare Exit Scams Work?
Initial contact can be made a number of different ways, usually by telephone, email or post by someone claiming to be a timeshare exit or cancellation specialist. They might offer a range of services including things like legal representation, contract disputes, getting you out of your timeshare contract and they may even claim to be able to get you compensation.
Whilst a lot of people like to believe that nowadays they are far too aware or savvy to fall for a timeshare exit scam, these immoral companies and organisations have evolved to be more sophisticated than ever, conning people out of their hard-earned money.
Once they have the timeshare owner believing who they are, they will make grand claims of being able to get them out of or cancel their contract, but there will be an upfront fee. They are very good at rationalising this and laying out why it is such a small cost for how much the consumer will save and pray on the vulnerable and desperate who want so badly for it to be real. Once they have the money for whatever it is, they will disappear without a trace.
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How To Recognise a Timeshare Exit Scam?
Whilst there are reputable and genuine companies out there dedicated to helping timeshare owners, it can be difficult to tell them apart at times. Here are some of the ways to identify scammers and how to ensure you protect yourself;
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Cold Calling
The first and most important sign is very simple – they contact you. No reputable business, timeshare solicitor or company will cold call timeshare owners. It’s as simple as that. If you are contacted out of the blue, do not give out even the smallest bit of information, simply hang up the phone and block the number because no good can come from speaking to them.
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Do Your Due Diligence
These types of scammers often state they work for a company that can look very official, complete with a logo, website, social media pages and telephone numbers to contact, all of which are actually very cheap and easy to create or fake. Sometimes they even pretend to be from a legitimate organisation, so that if people do check out the business name, then everything seems believable, but, in fact, they don’t even work there.
Be sure to only deal with registered and regulated law firms who are regulated by the SRA (UK Solicitors Regulation Authority) or equivalent for the relevant country. Check companies house to see who is behind the business and the names of those involved. How long have they been established? Do the contact details on their website work? Do they have an address? All questions that you need answers for and to be satisfied with, without any red flags.
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Too Good to Be True
If someone is offering something that sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Claims like money-back guarantees, low fees and promises of quick resolution and 100% success rates are clear signs that something is amiss, and they are simply trying to hook you in.
