9 ms·

What the scam? "Free flight" if you buy the timeshare or something?

by quickthrower2 8y ago

skate22 8y ago
They make it seem like they want to give you something free, but their only intention is to get money from you i guess
- stronglikedan 8y ago
  They do give you stuff for free. I got two free tickets to Disney. I just had to convince them that I was interested in buying a timeshare for 90 minutes. Once I got past that mark, they were obligated to give me the tickets - a fact that I promptly reminded them about. Two aggressive sales people and one super pissed off sales manager later, and I was off to Disney. I would never do it again - it was sheer agony.
abrookewood 8y ago
These are all through Bali. The scam is that you appear to win something, but really it is just to get you into a high pressure sales environment. So you go back to their office (where everyone is amazed that you won!) and then realise the prize is a tour of some holiday destination they want you to invest in etc.
pwg 8y ago
Roping the unsuspecting into an incredibly expensive time-share using hard-sell boiler-room tactics without ever being up-front about the true costs. I sat through one of these once, curious about how it was going to go, and with the intent going in of not ever buying anything anyway. They present the timeshare as if it costs only pennies a day, and never admit to the true cost unless pressed very hard (and even then they never quote a final figure). What they are really selling is a loan package for the purchase of the timeshare (where the timeshare company is themselves loan originator) with an attached interest rate of something like 12 or 13% APR (bank mortgages at the time I sat through the one I sat through were running about 3.5-4% APR). The timeshare, if you can squeeze a dollar figure out of them comes out to be about $40,000 for which they finance it for you at their 12-13% APR (so a gold mine for them, but bad for you). I ended up getting the double-team effort (two trying to convince me to jump in) to try to sell me on the value of the scam before I had finally had enough and cut off the sales pitch. Meanwhile, all around me (they did the pitch in a large room with small tables where everyone was in view of everyone else) I was watching the gullible filling out their "loan applications" and setting themselves up for $500/month for the next ten to twenty years before they could pay off the 'loan'. The cost, plus the interest, was setup such that one would be hard put to actually be able to go on enough vacations at the timeshare to actually make the timeshare profitable for the new owner. If one went on the number of vacations that are typical, one was setting oneself up for each vacation ultimately costing $25K+ (for what should have cost only about $2-3K). This, of course, was the intent of the group running the timeshare, hide the true cost enough that the gullible don't realize they are paying $25K for what should have cost them $3K, and pocket the difference as pure profit.
- Angostura 8y ago
  > I was watching the gullible filling out their "loan applications" and setting themselves up for $500/month for the next ten to twenty years before they could pay off the 'loan'. I presume that quite a few of these are actually timeshare employees playing the role of "conspicuously convinced punter"
  - ngvrnd 8y ago
    let's hope.
  - pwg 8y ago
    That is quite possible. I presumed the 'open plan sales room' was exactly to play on 'follow the herd' mentality. These guys were slick enough that they very well may have filled half or more of the room with plants to further fuel 'herd' mentality.
    - Bartweiss 8y ago
      Interesting - the presentation I saw was careful to pitch each family separately and not even walk them past one another. I assume it was partly for the feeling of exclusivity, and partly to avoid letting any awkward questions like "don't those fees turn this into a total ripoff?" pollute multiple buyers. I wonder which approach works best? (Though I guess if there are enough plants, you could get both effects going at once.)
      - s73v3r_ 8y ago
        Perhaps they were A/B testing the approaches?
- justinclift 8y ago
  As a thought, you might find Robert Cialdini's book "Influence" useful: https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Robert-Cialdini/dp/006124189X https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Rober... He gave a talk covering the same subject matter too, which is faster to grok if that's your kind of thing. After reading/watching this stuff, these kind of scams become incredibly transparent. And it's fairly ugh to see fellow humans subsequently get sucked in by them.

What the scam? "Free flight" if you buy the timeshare or something?

skate22 8y ago

They make it seem like they want to give you something free, but their only intention is to get money from you i guess

stronglikedan 8y ago
They do give you stuff for free. I got two free tickets to Disney. I just had to convince them that I was interested in buying a timeshare for 90 minutes. Once I got past that mark, they were obligated to give me the tickets - a fact that I promptly reminded them about. Two aggressive sales people and one super pissed off sales manager later, and I was off to Disney. I would never do it again - it was sheer agony.

abrookewood 8y ago

These are all through Bali. The scam is that you appear to win something, but really it is just to get you into a high pressure sales environment. So you go back to their office (where everyone is amazed that you won!) and then realise the prize is a tour of some holiday destination they want you to invest in etc.

pwg 8y ago

Roping the unsuspecting into an incredibly expensive time-share using hard-sell boiler-room tactics without ever being up-front about the true costs. I sat through one of these once, curious about how it was going to go, and with the intent going in of not ever buying anything anyway. They present the timeshare as if it costs only pennies a day, and never admit to the true cost unless pressed very hard (and even then they never quote a final figure). What they are really selling is a loan package for the purchase of the timeshare (where the timeshare company is themselves loan originator) with an attached interest rate of something like 12 or 13% APR (bank mortgages at the time I sat through the one I sat through were running about 3.5-4% APR). The timeshare, if you can squeeze a dollar figure out of them comes out to be about $40,000 for which they finance it for you at their 12-13% APR (so a gold mine for them, but bad for you). I ended up getting the double-team effort (two trying to convince me to jump in) to try to sell me on the value of the scam before I had finally had enough and cut off the sales pitch. Meanwhile, all around me (they did the pitch in a large room with small tables where everyone was in view of everyone else) I was watching the gullible filling out their "loan applications" and setting themselves up for $500/month for the next ten to twenty years before they could pay off the 'loan'. The cost, plus the interest, was setup such that one would be hard put to actually be able to go on enough vacations at the timeshare to actually make the timeshare profitable for the new owner. If one went on the number of vacations that are typical, one was setting oneself up for each vacation ultimately costing $25K+ (for what should have cost only about $2-3K). This, of course, was the intent of the group running the timeshare, hide the true cost enough that the gullible don't realize they are paying $25K for what should have cost them $3K, and pocket the difference as pure profit.

Angostura 8y ago
> I was watching the gullible filling out their "loan applications" and setting themselves up for $500/month for the next ten to twenty years before they could pay off the 'loan'. I presume that quite a few of these are actually timeshare employees playing the role of "conspicuously convinced punter"
- ngvrnd 8y ago
  let's hope.
- pwg 8y ago
  That is quite possible. I presumed the 'open plan sales room' was exactly to play on 'follow the herd' mentality. These guys were slick enough that they very well may have filled half or more of the room with plants to further fuel 'herd' mentality.
  - Bartweiss 8y ago
    Interesting - the presentation I saw was careful to pitch each family separately and not even walk them past one another. I assume it was partly for the feeling of exclusivity, and partly to avoid letting any awkward questions like "don't those fees turn this into a total ripoff?" pollute multiple buyers. I wonder which approach works best? (Though I guess if there are enough plants, you could get both effects going at once.)
    - s73v3r_ 8y ago
      Perhaps they were A/B testing the approaches?
justinclift 8y ago
As a thought, you might find Robert Cialdini's book "Influence" useful: https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Robert-Cialdini/dp/006124189X https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Rober... He gave a talk covering the same subject matter too, which is faster to grok if that's your kind of thing. After reading/watching this stuff, these kind of scams become incredibly transparent. And it's fairly ugh to see fellow humans subsequently get sucked in by them.