I did one of these also, and I absolutely don't regret it. I think I learned more about (ruthless) sales tactics in two hours than I ever have from books or classes.
It was a timeshare tied to a big-name hotel chain, and as far as I could tell they were selling some hotel rooms as timeshare units to finance construction and maintenance. So the deal wasn't good, but it was substantially less of a scam than the stereotype because they had a non-scam business to protect. That, or the guy was so sharp that he really did persuade me quite effectively, and I was only saved by having a a prior of "this is the worst deal imaginable". (Well, that and the Odysseus bit - I decided in advance to refuse no matter how good the offer looked.)
The funniest part of the slightly-less-bad scam was that it enabled them to spend a while talking about how it's "not your parent's timeshare" and "not like those shady offers from the 80s". Which was true I guess, you got nice rooms in many places instead of one rundown house - they were just charging rates that were steep even before the multi-thousand-dollar "maintenance fees" kicked it.
Oh well, the free travel and event tickets were actually a great dollars-per-hour value - as long as you said no.
It's always intriguing to see these things, and how some prey on basic math skills.
My girlfriend's mother dragged us to see a presentation associated with one of the "Flipping" TV shows.
They, of course, wanted to invite you into their program. It was "hugely successful". How successful?
"We've funded $100MM of house purchases for our members! We have nearly 8,000 members across the country!"
Well, $100MM in support sounds awesome for most things. Then you think about it more. And let's be generous to them, say the average house they buy costs $100K. That's 1,000 homes they've funded.
But hang on, they have 8,000 members. And they boast that some of those members have flipped 20+ homes each! That means, wait, less than 1 in 10 of the people who "joined their ($4,995) program" ever flipped a house through them...
That's not the kind of math they like you breaking down at those seminars for the other members during the meal break...
Maybe a little hyperbolic, but I noticed a couple of people talking with the staff, and I got a dirty look or two from them, and then, apparently (since I'd left), they "wanted to address concerns", and that those people were only suffering "insufficient motivation".
I don't know, selling 8,000 people $5,000 weekend seminars seems a better way to make $40M than trying to flip $100M of houses...
It was a timeshare tied to a big-name hotel chain, and as far as I could tell they were selling some hotel rooms as timeshare units to finance construction and maintenance. So the deal wasn't good, but it was substantially less of a scam than the stereotype because they had a non-scam business to protect. That, or the guy was so sharp that he really did persuade me quite effectively, and I was only saved by having a a prior of "this is the worst deal imaginable". (Well, that and the Odysseus bit - I decided in advance to refuse no matter how good the offer looked.)
The funniest part of the slightly-less-bad scam was that it enabled them to spend a while talking about how it's "not your parent's timeshare" and "not like those shady offers from the 80s". Which was true I guess, you got nice rooms in many places instead of one rundown house - they were just charging rates that were steep even before the multi-thousand-dollar "maintenance fees" kicked it.
Oh well, the free travel and event tickets were actually a great dollars-per-hour value - as long as you said no.