Complaint Review: First Step Funding

Out of the blue, I was contacted by John Dolan of First Step Funding, who stated he had a customer who was interested in purchasing my timeshare. I didn't have my timeshare listed for sale anywhere, so this shot a red flag up right away. But I decided to listen to see if this was indeed legit. He said he would have the customer call me to negotiate the deal. Shortly thereafter I got a call from Larry McDaniels, who offered to pay $13,500 for my timeshare near Disney. The red flag here was that he stated that he and his wife were finally in a position to purchase a "luxury" property. It was an unusual phrase, so it stuck out. (Hopefully I am not giving the perps hints...)

Anyway, I agreed to the purchase since the buyers were paying all the closing costs and was sent a Purchase Agreement to sign. I'm a real estate broker so I could see that it looked legal. The one thing holding up the sale was the fact that I owed back maintenance fees so there was a hold on any transfer of my unit. Here is the clincher: I was told by John Dolan that I had to pay the outstanding fees up to date in order to have the sale go through. However, instead of sending the money to the resort, I was to send it to the Transfer and Holding company. Firstly, I couldn't understand why the unpaid maintenance fees could not be taken from the proceeds of the sale, and Secondly, I didn't like the fact that I was to send the money to the Transfer company, rather than to the resort directly.

I really, REALLY wanted this to be legit, however before sending several thousand dollars out I decided to do a few online searches, and am SO glad that I did. Thank you to all those who posted about your experiences. You proved to me that my suspicions were right and this was too good to be true. I did not send the money and I urge anyone dealing with these people to pull the plug immediately! These people are guilty of conspiracy to commit larceny and felony larceny and should be prosecuted.