Apex Professional Services LLC BEWARE THEY CLAIM THEY WILL BUY YOUR TIMESHARE ON THE SPOT.. ITS A RIPOFF! Houston Texas

This company sends out postcards to timeshare owners stating that they are making immediate offers on timeshares.. they will put your timeshare into closing immediately ON THE SPOT if it is paid off and all maintenance fees up to date.

They hold "meetings" at a local hotel for several days. You must have an appt. after they screen you to make sure you "meet their criteria". At the meeting they have several owners, about 6 at a time, and they have a low-key guy doing an AV presentation about why timeshares are such a ripoff and how much money you will lose if you don't get rid of it immediately. They make it sound like they are going to "save you".

In the presentation they go through how much it would cost you if you were even able to sell it yourself, which they claim only less than 3% of people are able to do. As the presentation unfolded I had the feeling that there was going to be some kind of sales pitch because of the way they were emphasizing "you must get rid of your timeshare now, no matter what the cost". They say they will put it into escrow on the spot but they don't tell you how much they will pay you for it.

At the end of the presentation each seller goes into a 1 on 1 meeting with their "counselor". I asked the counselor, so what is the offer? After a lot of beating around the bush, he throws around a number of 7 times the annual maintenance fee, up to a maximum of $3500, which I took to mean that's what they are paying the owner. Then, as we were going through the paperwork, he asks me how do I want to pay. I said pay? Pay for what?

It turns out that the 7 times the maintenance fee is what THEY ARE GOING TO CHARGE YOU TO "TAKE THE TIMESHARE OFF YOUR HANDS"! I said so what do you pay the seller and he said "its a ZERO SUM" transaction. So, bottom line, not only do they NOT pay you, they expect YOU to pay THEM. My maintenance fee was $404/yr and he wanted me to pay him $2828 on the spot to "buy" my timeshare! Once I completely understood what he was saying I said I'm not doing it. He then started to pour on the exact same strongarm tactics that the timeshare people utilize when they sell them to you in the first place! I told him I needed to make a phone call and I didn't go back.

BEWARE OF THIS COMPANY! They act like they are trying to help you and they're going to save your credit rating. This fee that they charge you is supposedly their fees to close the transaction. In my case, because my TS is in Mexico, they claimed that my resort charges a "transaction processing fee" of 10% of the original price (which would have been around $1500 in my case).

In fact I called my resort the next day and they told me the transfer fee was 1 maintenance fee, which was $404. They claim you need a 3rd party lawyer to process the sale, etc. My resort said they would email me the papers to transfer ownershiip. It was a matter of filling out the papers and sending them back with $404 to get the ownership transferred (assuming you find someone to buy it yourself for whatever price).

The sad part is, they get people to go along with this! People were paying them thousands of dollars to "take the timeshares off their hands". Its bad enough to get roped into a timeshare in the first place. These people take complete advantage of that and make you think you have no other alternative but to pay them to take it. In fact when I called some of my friends and family members and asked if anyone wanted to buy my timeshare for $2800 plus the $404 transfer fee, I had 2 takers! Instead of paying them over $2800 to get rid of it, I'm getting $2800.

BOTTOM LINE: WATCH OUT! YOU WILL GO TO THE MEETING THINKING YOU WILL BE WALKING OUT WITH A CHECK.. IN FACT THEY WILL BE CHARGING YOU! KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT IF YOU GO.

Nancy
Chicago, Illinois
U.S.A.