Sunday, July 10, 2005
Time share, shmine share
Seems like the scourge of Timesharing will never cease in Singapore.
A few years ago, I got snared in one of these diabolical schemes, but luckily, was able to withstand the mental pressure and sales talk to avoid buying one of these accursed things.
It happened the time-honored way : a phone call from a cheerful sales person informing me that I've won a free trip, and if I would go down to their office at the Concourse to pick it up. Like a moron, I agreed, and what followed must be familiar to all who have taken the same bait : hours of sales talk and persuasion, starting with friendly chit chat about jobs and hobbies, and slowly but surely escalating into high pressured sales pitch. Throw in a domineering Ang Moh "company director" and many people will succumb.
And many do. Luckily, I did not, and finally got the hell out of there. The company, HMI ( Holiday Marketing International, I think ), has since been blacklisted and ceased operations, at least under that same name.
My brother-in-law fell for the same trick, and although he paid the deposit, he wised up and refused to pay another cent. After a big row with the time sharing company, they left him alone.
My girlfriend was another victim in the days before I met her. She was held in another time share company's ( IRN ? ) premises, and they pressured her till close to midnight ! She has the receipts from her NETS transactions to prove it. Piling on the pressure on a single, defenceless (and a little naive) woman, refusing to let her leave the premises until she signs on the dotted line, refusing even to let her leave for her dinner despite the fact that she's got gastric, and lying that she can cancel the agreement the next day and get her money back. How low can you get ? So, to get them off her back, she signed, and went back the next day to get her money back.
Haha. It turns out they were just kidding about getting the money back. Ha ha ha. Those jokers, always clowning around. No go. Poor lass. She was cheated of her hard earned money, and vowed not to pay another cent. They threatened to sue her, but never did. Sure, she was naive, being a small town girl from Sarawak. But even urbanites would be hard pressed ( ha ! ) to fend off these time share vultures.
Fast forward to July 2005. She gets a call from some company based in Park Mall. They offered to recover her money, for a small fee. We both figured its worth looking into. After all, the prospect of paying, say, a $500 fee to recover the rest of her deposit was quite attractive. And if it doesn't work out, we can just walk away. It is possible that this was some kind of class action thingie that goes on in US all the time.
So we paid them a little visit to find out more.
Big mistake. This was just YET another ploy to sucker gullible Singaporeans.
The session started well enough. A very well dressed and rather handsome young man called Alvin attended to us. But I began to get suspicious when he started taking notes in a somewhat "chin chye" manner. He didn't really seem interested in getting the fine details, which would be required if they were to act on our behalf. And what's with the loud booming pipe-in music ? It sounded more like a karaoke lounge.
My suspicious become stronger when they kept interrupting the session with phone calls on the speakerphone to other "more experienced" colleagues. Then different people, with varying degrees of seniority in the company, started interrupting our sessions. I recognized this as a distraction to confuse the prospects, and to apply pressure with the presence of "senior" salesmen or "directors" of the company.
This company has their own travel plan. Their offer : to exchange whatever stake you had in the time share for a "membership" in their own travel plan. Except that you had to pay up your timeshare BALANCE IN FULL and TOP UP another $15,000, and, (get ready for the punchline) remain a member for a LIFETIME.
That's right folks, to get back your $3000 deposit, you have to pay another $12000 to the timesharing company (to buy full ownership of the timeshare), and another $15000 to this company, and be BOUND to be a member of their travel program FOR LIFE ! Wait, there's more : on top of the total $27000 you have to pay, there's a YEARLY FEE, which will be waived ONLY IF YOU ACTUALLY TRAVEL WITH THEM that year. OK, but really, does everyone travel every year ? And if you do, do you really want to limit yourself to that ONE SINGLE travel agency ?
The good part, they promised, was that they will return the entire sum back to you after 8 years. I have serious doubts about that. If they are going to give you back your money, then why do they take it from you in the first place ? I'm sure the conditions are probably riddled with more hidden clauses than George Bush's Iraqi liberation plans.
Jeez, if you thought time share companies are low down, these guys are worse ! Preying on victims, to make them victims twice !
And to top it all off, the "director" (probably just one of the regular salesmen in a role-play) was extremely rude. We walked out when the director came in and tried to boss us around, as we should have when my suspicions were first arounsed. Good thing we didn't waste that much time there, and even more so, we didn't lose anymore money.
So, let this be a lesson to you all out there. If you are thinking of getting out of your time-share dilemma, this is NOT the way.
If you are interested in knowning the name of the company, just ask me.
A few years ago, I got snared in one of these diabolical schemes, but luckily, was able to withstand the mental pressure and sales talk to avoid buying one of these accursed things.
It happened the time-honored way : a phone call from a cheerful sales person informing me that I've won a free trip, and if I would go down to their office at the Concourse to pick it up. Like a moron, I agreed, and what followed must be familiar to all who have taken the same bait : hours of sales talk and persuasion, starting with friendly chit chat about jobs and hobbies, and slowly but surely escalating into high pressured sales pitch. Throw in a domineering Ang Moh "company director" and many people will succumb.
And many do. Luckily, I did not, and finally got the hell out of there. The company, HMI ( Holiday Marketing International, I think ), has since been blacklisted and ceased operations, at least under that same name.
My brother-in-law fell for the same trick, and although he paid the deposit, he wised up and refused to pay another cent. After a big row with the time sharing company, they left him alone.
My girlfriend was another victim in the days before I met her. She was held in another time share company's ( IRN ? ) premises, and they pressured her till close to midnight ! She has the receipts from her NETS transactions to prove it. Piling on the pressure on a single, defenceless (and a little naive) woman, refusing to let her leave the premises until she signs on the dotted line, refusing even to let her leave for her dinner despite the fact that she's got gastric, and lying that she can cancel the agreement the next day and get her money back. How low can you get ? So, to get them off her back, she signed, and went back the next day to get her money back.
Haha. It turns out they were just kidding about getting the money back. Ha ha ha. Those jokers, always clowning around. No go. Poor lass. She was cheated of her hard earned money, and vowed not to pay another cent. They threatened to sue her, but never did. Sure, she was naive, being a small town girl from Sarawak. But even urbanites would be hard pressed ( ha ! ) to fend off these time share vultures.
Fast forward to July 2005. She gets a call from some company based in Park Mall. They offered to recover her money, for a small fee. We both figured its worth looking into. After all, the prospect of paying, say, a $500 fee to recover the rest of her deposit was quite attractive. And if it doesn't work out, we can just walk away. It is possible that this was some kind of class action thingie that goes on in US all the time.
So we paid them a little visit to find out more.
Big mistake. This was just YET another ploy to sucker gullible Singaporeans.
The session started well enough. A very well dressed and rather handsome young man called Alvin attended to us. But I began to get suspicious when he started taking notes in a somewhat "chin chye" manner. He didn't really seem interested in getting the fine details, which would be required if they were to act on our behalf. And what's with the loud booming pipe-in music ? It sounded more like a karaoke lounge.
My suspicious become stronger when they kept interrupting the session with phone calls on the speakerphone to other "more experienced" colleagues. Then different people, with varying degrees of seniority in the company, started interrupting our sessions. I recognized this as a distraction to confuse the prospects, and to apply pressure with the presence of "senior" salesmen or "directors" of the company.
This company has their own travel plan. Their offer : to exchange whatever stake you had in the time share for a "membership" in their own travel plan. Except that you had to pay up your timeshare BALANCE IN FULL and TOP UP another $15,000, and, (get ready for the punchline) remain a member for a LIFETIME.
That's right folks, to get back your $3000 deposit, you have to pay another $12000 to the timesharing company (to buy full ownership of the timeshare), and another $15000 to this company, and be BOUND to be a member of their travel program FOR LIFE ! Wait, there's more : on top of the total $27000 you have to pay, there's a YEARLY FEE, which will be waived ONLY IF YOU ACTUALLY TRAVEL WITH THEM that year. OK, but really, does everyone travel every year ? And if you do, do you really want to limit yourself to that ONE SINGLE travel agency ?
The good part, they promised, was that they will return the entire sum back to you after 8 years. I have serious doubts about that. If they are going to give you back your money, then why do they take it from you in the first place ? I'm sure the conditions are probably riddled with more hidden clauses than George Bush's Iraqi liberation plans.
Jeez, if you thought time share companies are low down, these guys are worse ! Preying on victims, to make them victims twice !
And to top it all off, the "director" (probably just one of the regular salesmen in a role-play) was extremely rude. We walked out when the director came in and tried to boss us around, as we should have when my suspicions were first arounsed. Good thing we didn't waste that much time there, and even more so, we didn't lose anymore money.
So, let this be a lesson to you all out there. If you are thinking of getting out of your time-share dilemma, this is NOT the way.
If you are interested in knowning the name of the company, just ask me.
