| “Is a timeshare a good investment or a bad investment?” How many people have asked this question! But it’s really the wrong question. In fact, it’s a trick question. Why? Because a timeshare isn’t actually a personal investment at all! A real investment increases value over time to the benefit of the investor. But most timeshares have no market value – let’s repeat that… no market value – as we’ve discovered in the more than 2,170 pages of complaints about Diamond Resorts made to the Florida Attorney General’s office. After dealing with Diamond, William and Kiana of Granbury, Texas found this out the hard way – and they wanted the attorney general to know. “Diamond and its ‘affiliates’ or ‘sales team’ knowingly misled us during multiple meetings…” “It was emphasized that the value of Diamond properties is always going up and that it is an investment.” “Diamond told us we could refinance with our bank to secure a better interest rate, however, after much research and disappointment, this is also false as no banking institution loans against timeshares as they stated they would.” And why is that? “Banking institutions told me that they do not loan against timeshares because they hold no value and have no collateral.” But the Diamond agents didn’t let that stop them. “This is completely opposite from what Diamond told us. During the presentations the staff showed us graphs and potential rental and resale values, vacation bookings, etc.” “The rental idea was also a BIG selling point and it was discussed more than anything else during the presentations. The idea that we could simply rent the weeks and that the income from this would cover our costs seemed all too easy.” And was it? “When we then inquired about doing this we then learned there were fees to rent your timeshare that had to be paid up front and Diamond wasn’t even renting them for us! We had to contact a rental company and pay fees for them to rent our points.” More expenses? That’s the opposite of increased value. “This was never discussed and had we known there were fees and outside companies we would not have done any of this.” “We have determined [Diamond’s] actions are unjust and, furthermore, fraudulent.” For William and Kiana, a timeshare was not an investment – just a fraud! Mark Wang is the CEO of Hilton Grand Vacations, which purchased Diamond Resorts in 2021. Let’s email him at mark.wang@hgv.com and ask about the investment value of his company’s properties. Jason Gamel is the President and CEO of the American Resort Development Association (ARDA). He represents timeshare companies in Washington, DC. Let’s email him at jgamel@arda.org to see how the returns on other timeshare purchases are going. Is your timeshare providing happy returns? If not, use this list of ARDA VIPs to contact its leaders and ask why. Let us know if you’ve come across any other timeshare trick questions at info@timesharefacts.com. PS: Follow us on social media. Twitter Facebook Instagram |
