Many timeshare cancellation companies are fraudulent and unsafe. Take it as a red signal if an attorney encourages you to cease paying your maintenance fees or mortgage. These fees and dues are legally enforceable.

You may have encountered timeshare cancellation businesses in your attempt to get out of your timeshare. These companies are often made up of attorneys who will try to discover a way to contact you out of your contract. 

We don’t advocate taking this method since many canceling businesses charge significant sums of money up ahead and have loopholes in their contracts that allow them to keep your money even if they fail.

What Exactly is a Timeshare Scam?

Unfortunately, there are many types of timeshare frauds, including timeshare cancellation firms. Cancellation firms are frequently connected with timeshare resale schemes. The most prevalent resale scams are callers who claim to have located someone willing to pay a significant sum for your timeshare. 

Unfortunately, most timeshares are only resale for a different price than they were acquired. You should be careful about such calls. The promise of terminating your contract is another frequent timeshare scam. 

Timeshare cancellation businesses seldom cancel owner contracts. Typically, the attorneys at those businesses will charge you a significant upfront fee and then send a letter to the resort requesting that they cease contacting you. 

When this happens, most owners believe their timeshare is terminated, but it isn’t. They also frequently advise owners to refrain from paying timeshare maintenance costs. You should continue to pay your maintenance costs until you no longer own your timeshare. 

Stopping payments might harm your credit. If you’re ready to sell your timeshare, we recommend first contacting your developer. Some developers provide in-house exit strategies.

Warning Signs of a Timeshare Exit Scam

Exit businesses know all the unscrupulous techniques used by timeshare developers to deceive you into purchasing. They’ll learn about the complimentary breakfasts, seductive sales assistants, and lengthy sales presentations you’ve undergone to get you to the point of requesting cancellation. 

As a result, you’d expect that exit companies are usually absolutely moralistic. Unfortunately, exit companies are not in this category. Exit companies, like timeshare developers, routinely exploit and defraud vulnerable timeshare owners. 

They pose as helpful departure choices and legitimate opportunities for timeshare cancellation when, in reality, they are a complete timeshare exit scam. Here are four warning signals that the timeshare exit companies you’re dealing with isn’t authentic.

You’re Getting Unwanted Calls

Unwanted phone calls from a timeshare exit business are a red sign. This is especially true if the caller knows specifics such as the date of your first timeshare purchase, the location of your timeshare resort, or other personal information such as your phone number, email address, or home address. 

Unless you’ve already contacted them or connected to your timeshare developer, they’ve most certainly obtained this information through real estate public databases and other data warehouses.

You Are Given Dubious Legal Advice

Every timeshare exit business likes to think of itself as an industry authority. So much so that some profess to provide professional legal advice when, in reality, they are con artists. It is vital to be skeptical of any advice an exit company gives, especially if it appears extreme or too good to be true. 

Do not, for example, listen if the exit services you’ve sought urge you to cease paying your annual maintenance fees, timeshare mortgage, or any other payments to your developer. This might damage your credit and result in many collection calls. You may face further fines from your timeshare business due to this.

Paying Excessive Upfront Fees

While an exit company charging you an upfront fee is reasonable (timeshare exits are expensive when there is an actual process), this sum should be good. Suppose a corporation demands tens of thousands of dollars from the start. 

This indicates a timeshare exit scam, especially if they must be more honest about their techniques and processes. This should raise a warning signal if you’re already concerned about timeshare costs. 

Why should you pay them so much to get out of a position already costing you money? An intelligent timeshare business should provide long-term financing or escrow alternatives to reduce initial expenses.

You’re Withheld From the Exit Process

When you spend money and effort hiring a timeshare exit provider, you should expect them to communicate with you at every stage of the process. So, if a corporation claims to have a specific mechanism for settling timeshare contracts, it should be open about it. 

Many exit companies will keep you in the dark about this information, claiming that you don’t need to understand the legal jargon of real estate and timeshare legislation. However, this is them attempting to conceal unethical activities or nonexistent processes.

Ways to Avoid Timeshare Exit Scams

Timeshare “exit businesses” take advantage of property owners by making fraudulent promises to sell the timeshare for a price up ahead. These businesses squander people’s time and money, causing more difficulties than they solve for timeshare owners. Here are some signs of a timeshare exit companies scam.

Avoid Paying Any Fees Upfront

A typical con involves a timeshare reseller making the false promise to put you in touch with a buyer while demanding that you pay them an up-front charge. 

Swindlers in the timeshare industry frequently persuade owners to pay substantial up-front fees by claiming that they have an eager buyer to purchase the property or that the timeshares will be sold within a predetermined time. 

As soon as the timeshare owner pays the fees, the con artists either vanish or claim that all they were doing was offering to market the timeshare unit, even if there is never a buyer who ends up purchasing it.

Avoid Paying Any Mysterious Fees.

A possible “buyer” phones you and offers to acquire your timeshare for double what you paid. This is an example of another prevalent scam. The apparent buyer (or the buyer’s representative) won’t ask for a charge upfront. 

Still, sometime in the transaction, you’ll be required to pay a “tax fee,” “insurance premium,” or something similar. 

The con artist will continue to charge you fees, and as long as you continue to pay them, they will continue to delay you by maybe promising that you will be refunded. However, there is no buyer, so you will not get any of your money back.

At the Meeting, You Should Not Sign Anything

Only sign a contract with the resale firm when you first meet with the company, even if you decide to employ a resale company. When you leave the meeting, make sure to take all of the paperwork that was provided to you by the organization with you so that you may spend some time reading the small print. 

Ensure that the contract includes all of the promises made about the sale of the timeshare. There may have been several. In addition, you want to have an attorney go through the contract and the documentation. 

And a word of caution if there isn’t going to be a meeting: If a reseller firm insists on conducting the entire transaction over the phone, is hesitant to see you in person, or does not offer the address of a virtual business office, this is an unmistakable indication that the company is not operating legally.

Conclusion

If you want to cancel a timeshare arrangement, don’t pay any money up ahead to a corporation or a lawyer that promises to help you. A scammer’s money-back guarantee is meaningless because timeshare exit firms are unregulated.