I recieved a call from Corporate Getaways sales person Paul Sharp telling that he had a buyer for our time share. He claimed to have talked to my wife 9 months ago about selling it for us. They claimed that they had a buyer that had already put down $8500 and we needed to send them a check or bank draft for $2500 to process the sale. We asked for a letter on company to show that a buyer had put money down and that should he back out of the sale that the down payment would be ours to keep, as this is what the saleman stated.
The salesmen then got his manager Nick Russo on the line, Nick tried to tell me that "line 5 of the agreement says that there is a buyer" ( line 5 states the my deposit would be reimbursed by the buyer". Nick then got real pushy and said that he needed our money quickly to keep this deal going. He got real mad when I insisted on the letter and told me that he would find some other property to seel the person!
Here is the obvious inconsitonsies of this story:
1) how could he have recieved a down payment on a property that he wasn't sure was still for sale?
2) Paul stated that they recieved $8500 down, Nick claimed to have $18000 down on a $36000 sale?
3) paul claimed that the payment must be made by bank transfer, credit card was illegal to use for real estate sells. (it is done all the time, and credit cards have fraud protection)
There are a lot of scams on the timeshare resale market and the problem is growing. I have spoken to the resort transfer representive, and she told me she sees this all the time and many of these deals are a fraud.
If you get calls like this report them to your State Attorney General as soon as possible