If you own a timeshare that you want to get rid of, you will likely be contacted by a lot of reseller companies. These companies will say that you can get top price and even tell you that they have a buyer that is anxiously waiting to buy your unit The only thing that you have to do to sell your resort property is pay an upfront fee. It’s important to note that it will never be called an “upfront fee” by the person who contacts you. It will be something that needs to be paid so that the sale can go through and it can’t go through until this fee is paid.
The upfront fees can range widely in price. They can be anywhere form a few hundred dollars to well over $1000. The one point that you should remember is that no matter what the promise is or the price they say that they can sell your unit for, never pay an upfront fee to sell your timeshare. if at any point you are told that you need to pay money for the sale to go through, walk away.
Once you have paid an upfront fee, the reseller has absolutely no incentive to sell your unit because they already have their money. If the company said that they had a buyer that was ready to purchase, something will happen so that he backs out at the last minute. Resale companies asking for upfront fees is one of the most common scams out there that target desperate owners who simply want to get out of their ongoing monetary obligations.
There is a simple way to test to see if the reseller is legit. When the reseller asks for an upfront fee, say that you are willing to pay three times their upfront fee when the sale closes at the price they promised they could get for your property, and will place it in an escrow account. If they really have a buyer that wants your unit, they will jump at this opportunity to earn a lot more money. What will happen in all likelihood, however, is that they will refuse the offer because they know they can’t sell your unit and never had any intention of doing so.
The truth is that if someone says that they can sell your resort property, but requires an upfront fee to do so, then it’s a scam and any money that you pay will be lost forever. While there is a tendency for desperate owners to want to believe that they can get out of their obligations this way, resist the urge and keep your hard earned money. As the old saying goes, if the offer sounds too good to be true (you have been trying to get rid of your unit with no interest even at a greatly reduced price and them someone magically appears that wants to buy it for far more), it probably is.