At some point in school, we all learned the tale of the Trojan horse.  But to recap:
 
After unsuccessfully attacking the city of Troy for ten years, the invading Greeks came up with a secret plan to take the city. They built a giant wooden horse, hid warriors inside, left the horse outside of city’s gates as a parting “gift” and then pretended to sail away. 
 
As the Trojans debated what to do with the monumental peace offering, a priest named Laocoon warned, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts!” 
 
His fellow citizens ignored his advice and brought the horse inside the city walls to celebrate.  When night fell, the Greek warriors climbed out of the horse, took their enemies by surprise and captured the city.
 
The Concerned Owners Group at the Causeway on Gull timeshare property in Minnesota can relate to old Laocoon. 
 
They are trying to warn their fellow owners about the ruse Capital Vacations is engaged in to take over their timeshare development. And, just like the Trojan horse, their concerns involve a suspect gift.
 
Like many independent timeshare properties, Causeway on Gull is facing some challenges. So, the property’s board signed a 10-year management agreement with Capital Vacations to manage the property in hopes of turning things around.
 
The contract included what the board described as a “major initial contribution” of $348,000 from Capital Vacations.
 
A gift, as it were.
 
Now why would the ancient Greeks, er…Capital Vacations do that?
 
Because the contract required Causeway on Gull to hand over control of 50 interval weeks to Capital Vacations and gave the timeshare company rights of first refusal to purchase any other available weeks. In just two years, Capital Vacations has already doubled its holdings.
 
And this worries the Concerned Owners Group, because unlike the ancient Greeks, Capital Vacations hasn’t hidden its ultimate intentions at all.
 
According to sworn affidavits from owners who attended Capital Vacations sales presentations, agents claimed maintenance fees “will have to quadruple to make it feasible to improve Causeway.”
 
A 400% increase!
 
The astronomical increases are all part of a ploy to get owners to “deed their Interval Weeks to Capital and pay Capital tens of thousands of dollars to exit Causeway and get into the Capital points-based vacation club in order to avoid inevitable increases in Causeway’s maintenance fees.”
 
Why?
 
Agents told owners, “We [Capital] want 51% of the ownership so we could have a seat at the table” and “We [Capital] can make whatever changes we want.”
 
With 51% ownership in hand, Capital Vacations can just keep raising fees any time it wants.
 
So, the $348,000 looks less like a gift and more like part of a plan to capture control of the whole place!
 
The ancient Greeks would be proud.
 
We suspect Travis Bary, the co-president of Capital Vacations, is too. Let’s email him at tbary@capitalvacations.comand ask how many other Trojan horse takeovers Capital Vacations is currently planning.
 
And let’s see if getting timeshare owners to fall for the deceptions big timeshare companies like Capital Vacations construct is tactic that Jason Gamel, the President and CEO of American Resort Development Association (ARDA), the trade association for the timeshare industry, endorses. Email him at jgamel@arda.org.
 
Gotten any offers from your timeshare company with an unwelcome surprise inside? Use this list of ARDA VIPs to contact your company’s leaders to tell them to stop.
 
Experienced a classic case of timeshare takeover? Tell us about it at info@timesharefacts.com. 
 
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