5/20/2010 3:00 PM (PST)

Royce,

This one's no different than the other timeshare scams! As you can see from the attached BBB report, they have an F rating and a plethora of negative reviews about "having a buyer on the line", using high pressure sales practices enticed to mislead them into participating and give them money. The reality is, there is no market for timeshares; no one wants to buy them, especially in an economy like we’re in.

5/20/2010 5:11 PM (PST)

Hi Mari!

Thanks for your helpful feedback. I really appreciate you taking the time to answer and offer your perspective.

Royce

5/20/2010 5:20 PM (PST)

I received a call from Century Timeshare Group located in Hollendale, Florida. The second call after three days, told me that I had an offer on my timeshare. It sounded great until I was asked to give my credit card number to cover the cost of title search, deed, etc. I told the individual that I would have to think about this one, but frankly I really have reservations about this. Anyone heard of the company or what course to take?? Thanks, Dan

5/21/2010 9:08 AM (PST)

James,

Here's the link to Century Timeshare Group:
http://www.seflorida.bbb.org/Business-Report/Century-Time-Share-Group-92019531

Their C- rating is in part due to lack of information on the company however their nature of business remains the same, problematic. Since there is really not a market for timeshares and they are promising a "buyer on the line" offer, this sounds more like the typical timeshare scam.

Over the years, there have been a lot of companies that came to life with the promise of helping people sell their timeshares. Most of these companies are located in areas where there are a lot of timeshares, like Florida and California.

Typically, they make a lot of promises about their abilities and claim that there is an army of people dying to purchase timeshares, and all of this will be available to you if you pay them the requested fee.

Reality is completely different. The truth is that timeshares are next to impossible to sell. There's almost no secondary market for timeshares, especially given the current economy and all of the problems in the housing market. Furthermore, if there really was a strong secondary market, these companies wouldn't have to charge a fee, they could make more money charging commissions on sales. The bottom line is that you should not pay any upfront fees to sell your timeshare to somebody else. Check out the Florida AG's website also:

http://myfloridalegal.com/pages.nsf/main/9161973ee14fdb1a85256cc900600947!OpenDocument

There are legitimate title transfer companies that will actually purchase a timeshare, and the benefit to the timeshare owner is that when closed, it gets them out from under the continuing obligations for common area fees. But the whole industry is hot with scams and fraud.

Be aware of a sequence of slick sales tricks - here are some scenarios:

1) The timeshare company offers to list your timeshare and you pay them a marketing fee, but after a few months when it doesn't sell they try to upsell you into an upgraded marketing package of some sort for more exposure (and more money) with so called guaranteed results.

2) After a few months of it still not selling they then offer to do you a favor and take it off of your hands for free so that you don't have to pay the monthly maintenence fees. The monthly expenses are a cost burden to many people who become desperate to get out from under these. These companies know that and use it against you.

3) They try to convince you to turn over the timeshare and "take it off of your hands" for free - now they really start marketing your timeshare, which they now own, and they sell it at a profit. The point is that the only timeshares they are actually selling are the ones that they themselves own through their process of psychologically wearing down so many timeshare owners and convincing them to give up their timeshare properties.

6/16/2010 1:19 PM (PST)

Continental Vacation Services is exactly like any other time share scam. You must put $1,000.00 up front with their promise that they have a buyer right at that moment ready to close. After a few months when calling to talk with the sales representative you originally made the deal with, a receptionist answers your call and after checking you ID number always states that they are waiting for the credit clearance of the phantom buyer! Ha Ha!!

6/17/2010 8:43 PM (PST)

In my opinion Century Timeshare Group is simply another scam outfit attempting to take advantage of timeshare owners who are desperate to get out from under ever increasing annual maintenance fees. My recent personal experience with Century Timeshare Group is provided below in support of this opinion. I was contacted by Century Timeshare Group (I have no idea how they got my telephone number) less than two weeks ago. The nice gentleman simply wanted to know if I still wanted to sell my timeshare. At this point I suspected that perhaps they simply purchased a listing of timeshare owners looking to sell from someone. I had briefly flirted with 1-800-Timeshares.com, but they wanted a sizable upfront fee to simply list my timeshare on the web. That definitely qualified as a way to "pour good money after bad." Anyhow, after the nice gent simply confirmed some basic information about my timeshare, he made no promises that it would sell. He did mention that if they received an offer for my timeshare that I would be contacted by another group within Century Timeshare Group. Again, he emphasized that this could happen in a week, a month, or never. The call ended and I simply filed the entire event in the "not worthy to remember" area of my brain. You can imagine my surprise when two days ago (on June 15, 2010, a little over a week from the first contact with Century Timeshare Group) Luke Harris of Century Timeshare Group called me to inform me that they had received a "qualified offer" (his words) for my timeshare! Not only that, but the offer was for $10,295, considerably more than my minimum asking price of $3,000. WOW! This is amazing! Century Timeshare Group had listed and secured a "qualified offer" for my timeshare in a little over a week! Luke Harris provided me with the following telephone numbers: Direct Line: (954) 391-7791; Customer Service: (866) 423-6887; and Fax: (888) 900-8143 Now normally I wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but we're talking timeshare sales here so... I decided to check out Century Timeshare Group's web site (www.centurytimesharegroup.com/index.php). I wanted to see if my timeshare was even listed. I selected the tab labeled "Buy Click Here" and searched for my listing. After scrolling through ALL of the available pages of listings (more than 50), I must sadly report that not only didn't I see a listing for my timeshare, but I could not find a listing for any timeshare at my resort, heck, my resort isn't even listed on Century Timeshare Group's web site. Now in my opinion this is extremely odd since my timeshare is at a very large Marriott timeshare resort in Orlando, FL with so many timeshares for sale that current owners (like myself) are on a waiting list just to get on Marriott's re-sale listing! On other web sites such as Timeshares Only (http://www.timesharesonly.com/) I found 106 timeshares for sale at my Marriott resort ranging in price from $3,900 to $19,000 today (June 17).