The Timeshare Trap

A few years ago I received a telephone call from a telemarketer who said that I could get four free tickets to Disney World in Orlando, Florida and a week's stay at a five-star resort for only $250.00. I was skeptical, but still interested. We had wanted to go to Disney, and our daughters were getting old enough to handle a trip like that. I told the person to call back after I had discussed the idea with my husband. We checked out the company and looked at what they had offered. It all seemed okay except that we have six in our family, not four, but we thought we could still afford it since the price was so low, we could buy two other tickets for Disney World at the regular price. We waited for the call back from the company, and sure enough, they called. We said we were interested; they said all we would have to do is go to a "presentation" about their resort. Both our parents had done the free trip from a timeshare when we were kids, and they didn't seem harmed by it, so we thought: "How bad can it be?" We took the trip 2 1/2 years ago at Christmas time. We had a nice condo that had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a family room and a small kitchen. It was as nice as those things tend to be. We went to Disney a few times, and then we went to the dreaded "presentation" It consisted of separating us from our three youngest children, and having us sit through a high pressure sales pitch about how we need to take more vacations, and how we "deserve" to take trips, and "don't you love your family enough to take them to new places?" It was awful! The thing lasted six (yes six!) hours. We were so exhausted and upset that we finally agreed to plan another trip to be taken at a later date to "try the product" again. They promised us that we would not have to go through the "presentation" again, and if we changed our minds, we could purchase a condo at the prices we were quoted on that day. Okay. . . Fast-forward to this year. . . please see next post for the conclusion.