In Oct I was contacted by Charlene Banks of Elite Travel Services; she said I had contacted their company in July and they had a renter for my time share. I couldn't remember if I had contacted them or not - I contacted so many people to get rid of it. She said they had a renter. She called back repeatedly over the next few weeks unitl I finally said ok, send me the contract.
I read the contract and that was when I found out about the $2250 fee. They said I didn't pay it in July but would have to pay it before they would send the contract to the renter. I thought about it for a while - still getting almost daily calls from Charlene. I also received calls from Randy Johnson, their legal guy to answer any questions I had about the contract.
I signed the contract and paid the fee in November in the hopes of receiving the $37,220 in rental fees before Christmas (they said it would only take 30 days to receive the funds). That should have been a clue to the scam. Mid November I did hear back from Randy who said that the renter was sent the contract on 9 November and everything was ready just as soon as the renter returned the contract; after that I heard nothing through the rest of November.
In December I started calling them almost everyday - no one ever answered; I always had to leave a message. About mid-December I was able to reach Dan Lawson (he was the one who emailed me the contract in the beginning) who said they still hadn't heard from the renter and if they don't hear anything by 19 December - they will refund my money.
Around the 20th, I started calling back, using three different numbers I had received calls from them and the email address. I left so many messages that the answering machine didn't accept them anymore.
Contracted ended 27 Feb - I am now officially authorized my refund - tried every number - they were all disconnected and the email I sent was returned undeliverable. I got screwed!!!
Moral of the story - don't buy a time share in the first place! But if you do - be ready for a life long committment because trying to sell or rent it through a company is useless.
P.S. - stupid me has been scammed by this before but through a different company - timesharerentorsell.com LLC - they offered the same thing but said if it doesn't sell they'll buy it for fair market value - what they don't tell you is a ball park figure for fair market value. I assumed that it would be close to the list price. They list your property for about 1000 times what it is worth: list price $32,000 their offer to buy $32 and I had to pay all closing costs of about 1800 and time share maintenance fees for the next year, about 1000.
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