Here’s the catch: Timeshare Relief Now promises timeshare owners a way to unload their traditionally unloadable timeshares, avoid the recurring maintenance fees and taxes, help a charity, and maybe get a tax write-off as well. Those who believe TRN and anticipate relief from their timeshare headaches instead find themselves still pained by delayed action or no action on TRN’s part at all. Years later, in many cases, their timeshare is still their burden and their fees and taxes still their responsibility. They’ve swallowed a bitter, ineffective pill and paid dearly to do it. Now, with temperatures rising, most wish only for a permanent vacation from TRN.
Timeshare Relief Now, which also does business as Timeshare Relief, Inc. and Timeshare Cure, promotes its services on its website and, according to some complainants, at free seminars. It describes itself as “a company committed to helping timeshare owners get out of timeshare contracts using a ‘proprietary’ method . . . the one and only Guaranteed Timeshare Relief Solution.” After spelling out some reasons for wanting to get out of your timeshare, it concludes that “Timeshare Relief can help!” And if you’re wondering how it can help, the answer is that it “just helps timeshare owners get out of timeshare contracts and is all about providing you with RELIEF.”
If you haven’t learned much so far about just what that “proprietary method” is or exactly what they’re going to do for you, don’t worry–more inexplicit information is still to come. The company, it says, is not a listing service or timeshare resale company and DOES NOT charge listing, advertising, or appraisal fees “nor make any false promises to sell your timeshare to an unknown and mysterious buyer.” It “DOES provide its clients with a valuable service . . .” and it will “only request payment for the services provided.”
And whatever those services are, each of TRN’s advisors is “committed to providing our clients with a 100 Guaranteed Timeshare Relief Solution.” Again, if you want details, all you get is that TRN will work with “professionally licensed, bonded and insured title agencies to remove your name from your timeshare.”
What about timeshare maintenance fees, special assessments and property taxes? “From the moment you decide to use Timeshare Relief as your intelligent timeshare exit solution (again, whatever that may be), Timeshare Relief will take instant responsibility.”
Timeshare owners who’ve used TRN’s services might not agree that the company lives up to its promises. An Illinois complainant, for example, who says TRN arranges for timeshares to be donated to charities, paid the company just under $7,000 to donate his timeshare to an Idaho charity. TRN told him he’d get a tax write-off for the donation.
Although that was back in September 2011, the transfer still has not been completed. Rather than risk damage to his credit, he’s still paying the maintenance fees and taxes TRN was supposed to pay.
A Nebraska complainant signed an agreement with TRN to transfer his timeshare, also in September 2011, and paid them some $3,600. He then worked with Donate Timeshares and later Property Relief, paying the maintenance fees during the process. More than a year later, TRN moved his account to Pacific Transfer and told him they would contact him. So far, all he’s gotten are assurances that Pacific Transfer is working on his case.
Similarly, a Minnesota complainant was told that her timeshare transfer could take from four to six months but that she was immediately relieved of responsibility for maintenance fees, taxes, and any special assessments. Eleven months later, she learned not only that the transfer had not been completed, but that she had to start over with another transfer company, presumably allowing another four to six months.
TRN does eventually pay some of the fees they promise to pay, but often not before late fees have been added and not without a great deal of prodding by the timeshare owners.
The company has answered most, but not all complaints, often by putting the blame on its “subcontractors,” the transfer companies, for failing to complete the transfer.
The Nebraska complainant, though, believes that the three transfer companies he was passed along to, failures though they may be in their duties to TRN, are all connected. Indeed, according to our records, except for different suite numbers, Donate Timeshares, Pacific Property Transfer, and Transfer Smart all have the same Torrance street address. Next door on one side is TRN, and close by on the other is Timeshare Cure (which, according to that company, replaced TRN in January 2012).
What about that guarantee TRN promised? In the contract we have on file for The Cure Company (also located in that cozy block of companies I mentioned earlier), you’re guaranteed a refund of your fee, “without deduction for any and all fees or Timeshare expenses paid by TCC,” if TCC determines that it cannot implement it’s Guaranteed Timeshare Solution with respect to your timeshare.
So far it doesn’t seem to have made any such determinations, though those whose timeshare transfers have been plodding on for a year or two may have wished so.
Timeshare Relief, Inc., entered into an agreement with the Vermont attorney general back in June 2010 to pay consumer refunds and a fine because of its sales practices. Specifically, the company led timeshare owners to believe it would pay them for their timeshares, not the other way around. They were also led to believe they might be eligible for a tax deduction, even though that deduction is available only where the timeshare was purchased primarily for an investment. And finally, those who attended seminars before entering into the company’s agreement had not been informed of their right to cancel. (California law also requires that those who attend seminar sales at hotels and other such transient locations be advised of their right to cancel.)
What these companies have in common, besides their proximity to each other, are their numerous complaints and their Business Consumer Alliance “F” rating.
Kim’s advice: Don’t get caught. Timeshare relief companies can perform a valuable service, but you need to know what to look for and look out for. Here are a few tips:
- First, realize that it’s not likely that you’re going to be able to sell your timeshare. Still, you might want to see if you can rent it or if your resort homeowners association can give you any resale help before you deal with a timeshare relief company that will require you to pay to give it away.
- If you use a timeshare relief company, check it out with Business Consumer Alliance first. The fees you will have to pay will likely be substantial, so it’s worth your time and effort to do some homework. An “F” rating alone tells you a lot, and so will other information in our report.You may also want to visit the American Resort Development Association Resort Owners Coalition (ARDA-ROC) website to learn what experience they may have had with the company.
- Realize that the taxing agency is going to continue to send tax bills to you, not the timeshare relief company. You can’t just ignore them and assume that the company will take care of them. You’ll have to present them to the company for payment or reimbursement.As to maintenance fees, the company from which you purchased your timeshare or its homeowners association is also going to deal with you, not the timeshare relief company. Again, you’ll have to make sure the timeshare relief company gets the bill and that the bill gets paid.Although a timeshare relief company should explain these things to you, they may not. And what you don’t know can cost you.
If the company guarantees that they’ll take your timeshare off your hands, read the guarantee carefully–and realize that it may not really guarantee anything and that enforcing whatever it promises will likely add much more to your costs, if enforcing it is even feasible at all.
- Finally, remember that you should apply these cautions to any timeshare relief company, not just those I’ve mentioned here.
Kim Burge is Business Consumer Alliance’s Vice President of Business Practice.