Do you own a time-share unit?
We bought ours back in the early 80’s when we still had some money and the price of a week at a fancy holiday resort on the Sea of Galilee was really cheap. We then waited a couple of years for it to be built and then we started using our investment. And we enjoyed it.
Over the years we found a quiet nook at the pool where the noise level of the children was low and where few guests feared to tread. We went armed with a stack of the latest books which we bought with Quick Payday Loans the day before we travelled. We kept our shirts, hats and sunglasses on in the strong sunshine and we simply rested. No phones, no radios, no newspapers (except the crossword page) and no TV news. It’s called pigging out.
The days
We lunched up in our apartment, and took an hour’s nap. Then we would walk, explore the different surroundings, do a little shopping and then look for afternoon tea or coffee. A rest before dinner and then the search was on for a good restaurant. What a rough day. And we did it year in and year out.
We aged
After 25 years of this once a year enforced holiday that we loved we decided that maybe it was time to sell the time-share and then we discovered that all is not as we thought. Perhaps it is possible to sell a time share but it is probably very complicated and the only evidence of “sales” that we ever saw were “for sale” notices in the papers. We never met anyone who had sold their timeshare.
One day we received a phone call asking if we were interested in selling our week at the resort. I said yes and tried to ask what the caller was offering. She was evasive and invited us to an evening in the city. I went unwillingly. There must have been almost 20 couples there that evening.
The hard sell
These are hard-selling salespeople using high-pressure tactics. I thought that they lied too and were completely immoral. The main salesman of the evening was an Englishman from Yorkshire with an accent and speed of speech that made him difficult to understand. He didn’t let up on his pitch for a second and stormed around the room slapping table tops and stamping his feet. A full-scale heat merchant – and an outright liar to boot.
In the end it turns out that they were not offering money for your timeshare unit. What they offer is membership in a holiday club in exchange for ‘taking your unsalable’ timeshare week off your hands for you. What you gain is that “the subscription to the holiday club is vastly reduced”!
My lost work time
I am self-employed and I only earn when I am sitting in front of my computer. This won’t take long, they said at the reception when we arrived. “The sales presentation will only last about 90 minutes.” I lost something like 6 hours working time what with traffic, parking and watching the super salesman answering and stretching out stupid questions. They know that the longer the pitch lasts, the more likely you are to break down and open up your checkbook.
Oh, talk about pressure sales! Time share salesmen can be lethal, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. There are travel deals where you can get a few hundred bucks off of your trip if you listen to a few time share spiels, and the best thing to do is to tell them you love outdoor vacations. Hunting, camping, fishing, hiking, that sort of stuff. Shuts them down right away. Can’t camp in an urban resort!