> Roping the unsuspecting into an incredibly expensive time-share using hard-sell boiler-room tactics without ever being up-front about the true costs.
The hack is to attend, tell them you go once a year, sometimes twice, to some ethnic ancestral home town, and you'll buy on the spot if they have a timeshare there. Pick out some two-stop-light town in some out of the way country, that doesn't even have AirBnB rooms, and you can see the sales people visibly deflate as they vainly look for a listing in Borat-istan. Put on a show of being all sad, and explain that you can't imagine paying for their fantastic deal for only 15% of your annual travel budget, but to put you down in the wait list as the first to buy when they expand to your home town.
You are in-and-out in the allotted time, with the freebies, usually three hours max. I actually like inspecting the actual buildings to try to spot whether or not they took shortcuts, as how these scams work fascinates me, and some of these places have genuinely good ideas I scrapbook for my homebuilding notes, so I don't mind the lead up to the real sales pitch where I deflate them, but I'm sure you can modify the hack so you open with your counter-pitch and are in and out in minutes. I've seen people report they tell the salespeople up front they only came for the freebies, they're never buying, and if both sides agree to discreetly walk early so the sales manager doesn't notice, they'll rate the sales effort A++++ (there are always surveys afterwards), and are out in minutes.
I'm curious with groups like 419 Eaters why there aren't more organized scambaiters for timeshare scams. The freebies are legit, and if you're planning to be in a particular area anyways, three hours for a 1-2 day stay, especially if you like seeing how others solve various housing-related challenges, is a good trade.
The hack is to attend, tell them you go once a year, sometimes twice, to some ethnic ancestral home town, and you'll buy on the spot if they have a timeshare there. Pick out some two-stop-light town in some out of the way country, that doesn't even have AirBnB rooms, and you can see the sales people visibly deflate as they vainly look for a listing in Borat-istan. Put on a show of being all sad, and explain that you can't imagine paying for their fantastic deal for only 15% of your annual travel budget, but to put you down in the wait list as the first to buy when they expand to your home town.
You are in-and-out in the allotted time, with the freebies, usually three hours max. I actually like inspecting the actual buildings to try to spot whether or not they took shortcuts, as how these scams work fascinates me, and some of these places have genuinely good ideas I scrapbook for my homebuilding notes, so I don't mind the lead up to the real sales pitch where I deflate them, but I'm sure you can modify the hack so you open with your counter-pitch and are in and out in minutes. I've seen people report they tell the salespeople up front they only came for the freebies, they're never buying, and if both sides agree to discreetly walk early so the sales manager doesn't notice, they'll rate the sales effort A++++ (there are always surveys afterwards), and are out in minutes.
I'm curious with groups like 419 Eaters why there aren't more organized scambaiters for timeshare scams. The freebies are legit, and if you're planning to be in a particular area anyways, three hours for a 1-2 day stay, especially if you like seeing how others solve various housing-related challenges, is a good trade.