The Jordan Harbinger Show - 962: Timeshares | Skeptical Sunday

Episode Date: March 10, 2024

Are timeshares ever not a scam? Kevin Rapp joins us for Skeptical Sunday to delve into their pros and cons without the high-pressure sales gauntlet! On This Week's Skeptical Sunday, We Discuss: The hidden costs of timeshares. The unconsidered benefits of timeshares. The unexpected demographics of today's timeshare owners. The trials and tribulations you'll probably face if you try to exit your timeshare investment. Weighing the pros and cons — and reading the fine print — to decide if a timeshare might be right for you. Connect with Jordan on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at [e-mail] and let him know! Connect with Kevin Rapp at his website or Twitter, and be sure to subscribe to his newsletter at Substack! Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/962 This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is sponsored in part by Conspiruality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling new age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy med yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspiruality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies.

An interesting episode to check out is called Speaking Truth to Goop, where Jen Gunter breaks down the pseudoscience behind the wellness industry in a way that is super entertaining and eye-opening. It's sharp, funny, and makes you a lot harder to fool, which, if you listen to this show, you know I'm all about that. From exploring cults to analyzing our cultural and political landscape, the Conspiratuality Podcast will help you stay informed against misinformation and resist fear tactics.

Find Conspirality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you do. get your podcasts. Welcome to Sceptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co-host Kevin Rapp. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. And during the week, we have long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers. On Sundays, though, we got skeptical Sunday.

We're a rotating guest co-host and I break down a topic you may have never thought about and debunk common misconceptions about that topic, such as, why tipping makes no sense, circumcision, sovereign citizens, e-commerce scams, the lottery, toothpaste, crystal healing, diet pills, and more. If you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs.

These are collections of our favorite episodes on persuasion, negotiation, psychology, disinformation, cyber warfare, crime, cults, and more. That'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show, just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today, timeshares. They're a huge scam. Everybody knows it. Therefore, nobody buys them, right? But wait, hold on. Time shares are apparently a $10.5 billion industry. That's more than the $10.3 billion in revenue for Major League Baseball. There are more

than 1,500 timeshare resorts making up around 200,000 units in the U.S. and roughly 10 million U.S. households that own one or more types of timeshare product. Imagine owning more than one. So is everybody just getting legally ripped off? And are we just okay with that? Is this multi-billion dollar industry all actually a scam? Or is there something deeper going on? Kevin Rapp spent some time relaxing on a weathered deck chair, six blocks from the beach in Sarasota, Florida, investigating timeshares. And it's here to tell you if you and Aunt Edna are really getting a deal. Hey, Jordan. So I got a question for you here. Have you ever dreamt of having a vacation home in a

stunning location, without the hassle of year-round maintenance and expenses? I mean, when you say it like that, yes, of course, who hasn't dreamed of something like that? But I own a home and I know it requires way more work and expense than you're letting on. Well, I mean, like, let's just suspend our disbelief for a minute, right? And like, imagine with me for a moment, having a week or more each year in a luxury resort, just fully furnished with all the amenities you could wish for. Jim, pickleball court, a lightly urinated in pool. How does that sound?

I mean, it depends on the urine levels, but appealing. Tell me more. Okay, well, so you sound like someone who would love a timeshare. You could actually own a slice of paradise without the worries of full home ownership. Right. Unfortunately, one of my issues is that while I was born on a Tuesday, it wasn't last Tuesday, so I know timeshares are a big rip-off. Okay, so we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Maybe let's just kind of take a beat, let's just define for the audience kind of. What is a timeshare, right? Yeah, what do we mean when we say timeshare? I'm thinking condo in Florida. I know it sort of varies. I don't know the deets. Yeah, definitely. So a timeshare is basically like owning a vacation, right?

So you're making this commitment to paying for annual trips at a same resort for the rest of your life. You know, there's obviously like kind of these different ways to own a vacation. Oh yeah, like some people have the same week everywhere, every year, and others go to a bunch of different places depending on what kind of thing they invested in, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So like, kind of like three models, right? So there's the fixed term, there's floating term, and there's point-based. So I'll start with the fixed term because it's kind of like the most straightforward. Imagine a vacation home in a desirable place like the Ozarks.

And people take turns using the house for their vacations, like one family gets a certain week, uses that week to launder money for a drug cartel. And then when they're weeks over, another family takes over. So yeah, you're basically buying the right to exclusively use a property for a specific week or multiple weeks each year. You know, same place every year on the same weeks. Just super simple. Right.

So this is one I grew up with where your friends would go to their parents' time shares in like Hilton Head, South Carolina. And afterwards, you had to pretend like you knew what that was and or actually carried even a tiny bit. And I went once with my friends. And I was like, this place, you know, when you're 14, you don't golf. Like, this is the most overrated boring place in America. There's nothing going on.

Exactly. And, you know, people weirdly kind of like that model, even though, you know, You know, say you're at Hilton Head, South Carolina, or wherever. It's just, it's a set routine, right? I do the exact same thing every year. It's even like, I might think of it as my family's home. And there are other families who are doing this at the same time, right? You're sort of building a community with other people.

You have these, like, quote unquote, neighbors. Yeah, that makes sense. But it's got to be tough to sign yourself up for a single week for the rest of your life. I can imagine you're getting mad at your knees for getting married during your single week of vacation. Or you have to have a medical procedure. and it's like, oh, should I punt on that? That's my week in Fort Lauderdale. And suddenly you just can't cash in that year and or get a prostate surgery. Yeah, and I think that's exactly right. And this is one of the other arrangements that kind of comes up is the floating timeshare.

Now imagine that kind of same vacation home in the Ozarks and the beginning of each year, all of the other families who own it. You guys figure out together, who gets which of these weeks. Yeah, that all sounds good. In theory, you get flexibility. But I'm going to imagine that everybody wants that place for Christmas or Thanksgiving or New Year or just during the best weather period. So unless you get lucky, you end up with some non-desirable week. Like, you bought the timeshare thinking, all right, fun in the sun, but now you're like nips deep in hurricane season in the Florida Keys. No thanks. Yeah, right.

So, you know, everybody wants the exact same weeks, right? That you absolutely end up with this availability problem. And that's kind of where this last form of ownership comes in. You have this points-based ownership. It's like you need more homes to fit the demand, right? So imagine rather than just owning a week in a single house, you owned a week, but you could do it in one of a whole like smorgasbord of vacation homes in that area or even like around the world. Awesome. Variety. Take me to Aruba or Des Moines, Iowa in the middle of winter. Yeah, exactly. And the issue with different locations, it's kind of clear immediately, right?

So like one house, it's not equal to another. And even the experience at one house might be completely different than another. Like you remember when you would go over your friend's houses when you were a kid when you went to like Mike's house. His mom would serve a three-course dinner and you'd watch the director's cut of the last samurai and you'd go to sleep at 10. But, you know, then when you'd go to like Frank's house, you drank Colt 45s in the basement, even though, you know, you were only like 13 years old. And you're like pretty sure it gave you some mild brain damage. It's just like why you maybe you struggled in law school and you ended up becoming a podcast. Yeah, exactly. Totally.

different experiences. Yeah, I follow along all too well. Frank's house really did get quite wild. Guy had a hell of an illegal fireworks collection, though. All right. So with timeshares, they set up a point system so that they can price all the properties differently. Is that kind of how that goes? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And like, highly desirable places get these high scores. So it'll be like, you know, a thousand points for the Bahamas, a hundred points for Des Moines and 10 points for Gryffindor. Right. Okay, make sense. Nerd alert. So now that we are aligned on the types of timeshares and all that jazz, but one thing I'm not getting at all is why would people choose to do this instead of just going on vacation wherever they want, whenever they want? Why sign up for this when like hotels exist? That's what I don't get.

Yeah, so I'm going to have to give you the math here that the timeshare developers would give you to answer that question. So mine with me for a minute here while I take you into my timeshare presentation. But, you know, before I do, I kind of want to call something out here. Do I get free tickets to a mid-range amusement park for my kids? You know, we'll definitely look into that. I think I'll have to check with my manager in the back here. Yeah. But before I do, I just want to kind of call something out here.

I'm going to cite a lot of statistics today. And there's kind of no getting around it. You sort of only sources for data on timeshares. It's either timeshare developers or kind of companies that are selling services to get you out of a time share. Okay. That makes sense. They're biased sources, you know. It's like asking for statistics.

about lung cancer from like Marlboro or the lawyers paid to sue Marlboro. So, you know, there's just an agenda. So basically you're saying don't blame me if the news is fake. We did the best we could in this episode. And I get that. That's every skeptical Sunday, by the way. But yeah. Exactly. And you know, just like speaking of fake, you know, like let's just kind of get back to the time for your math, you know. So let's say you vacation like two weeks a year and your family spends $300 a night for a hotel. So that's going to end up costing around like $4,200 annually. on hotels. Let's assume you'll spend the next 25 years vacationing and hotel prices increase 3% each year. So that's actually ends up being around $153,000 over the next 255 years. Now, that doesn't

really feel that good, does it, Jordan? No, it sounds like I need to vacation quite a bit less. I mean, I've got bills to pay. Yeah, I mean, sure, you could definitely stop vacationing or you could buy a timeshare. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You see, according to the American Resort Development Association, or ARDA. Official sounding. Exactly. The average cost here of a week of timeshare is about $24,000. Uh-huh.

So let's double that. We cover the two weeks of your yearly vacation. And now you spent $48,000. And you have this for the rest of your life, right? Wow. So just spent $48,000 now plus a small annual maintenance fee. And you can vacation here for the rest of your life. That's a savings of $105,000.

Okay. So $105,000 savings automatically seems too good to be true. And, yeah, it is too good to be true. Okay. Because I'm going to get now into sort of the real ugly part of timeshares. And that's that they use this math that's kind of akin to paper towel math. What's paper towel math? Yeah.

So, you know, like bounty paper towels. They'll print like absurd claims on their products. Like two mega rolls equals four regular rolls. It's kind of the same exact thing with timeshares. They'll say something like, buy two weeks of vacation today for the rest of your life and it'll cut your costs by 75%. But, you know, honestly, in reality, they're just not being upfront with you about the entire cost. Right. You mentioned the small maintenance fee. I'm guessing that like, what, that scales up over time or it's not so small. I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, it doesn't even start small. You know, they think according to ARTA, the average maintenance fee is $1,000 on average. Ooh, okay. And like, depending on which source you consult, these costs can actually go up like 2 to 5% yearly. which kind of sounds reasonable at first. A little, I guess. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, we here at the Jordan Harpenter show, we understand the power of compounding interest.

Yeah, so that's really good when it works for you, right? Your money grows like magic and you're just like, oh my gosh, there's twice as much as I put in it. It's only been a decade and a half or whatever. That's great when it works for you, but it's really bad when it works against you. Bingo. And that's exactly right. So if you start out today and you're paying an $1,000 maintenance fee and they

raise it by 4% every year. Yeah. And 25 years, now you're paying a maintenance fee of $2,700. Right. And, you know, this is 25 years from now. Like, you might not be working anymore. Like, are you ready to take on that type of recurring payment in perpetuity and the twilight years of your life?

These are the types of conversations that timeshare salespeople just don't have with you, right? And that's kind of the problem. Yeah, that is bad. That could blindside you real fast, I think. And also, like, what if in 25 years that part of the country is underwater or, I mean, more likely, I can't go anywhere because I'm old now. And I've got to, I've got to schlep to this random place that doesn't have accessibility. 100%. And honestly, I'd love to say that that's where it gets its worst, but honestly,

it gets worse. Because as you can imagine, most people don't have the $24,000 to pay for the timeshare up front. Okay. Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah. So they will actually get a loan for the timeshare. Oh, man. From the timeshare. developer, and the interest rate on that loan can range anywhere from 6 to 17%. Holy mackerel. Wow, 17% is kind of like getting a cash advance in your credit card. Maybe it's slightly better. I don't know.

Maybe it's 21% if you do that on your card. But the moral is, I don't know, because you should never do this. 100% never be in a situation where you have to even look at these interest rates. You should 100% never take a 17% loan. Just do some quick math on it, right? like assume you took out a $24,000 loan to cover your time share. Now, you're going to finance that over 10 years at an interest rate of 12 percent. And that means you're going to end up paying this monthly payment of $350 for the next 10 years. And over the lifetime that loan, now you're paying

$41,000 or $17,000 more than you originally anticipated. So it's the opposite of paper towel math, right? It's inverted. You're buying one week of time share, but you're paying for two. Instead of getting two rolls of the price of one, and you're getting one week for the I said, dude, that's crazy. Exactly, exactly. And, you know, according to law firms who specialize and actually getting people out of timeshairs. Of course. Yeah, that's a total other industry we'll talk about. But they agreeing to buy this $20,000 timeshare with their financing will typically cost you $45,000. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So with the loan fees, you get interest and maintenance fees on the timeshare and those are all going up, I would imagine that more than eclipses all the savings that they were claiming you

were going to get from this over time. Oh, totally. And, you know, if you, you know, if you just quickly go back to like the example that I tried to use to sell you the timeshare in the first place. Like we were saying you would spend around $153,000 over the next 25 years on hotels. To do that same thing in a timeshare, it'd be $48,000 for the two weeks plus $2,000 a year in maintenance fees, which increase around 4% each year. And like assuming you took out that $48,000 loan at 12%. Now all of a sudden you're spending $166,000 over the next 25 years, which is you know, 12,000 more than simply paying for hotels. Right.

And hotels can be in any location you want. They actually have to earn your business so they care about your experience there. The service levels higher because it's not a timeshare. And timeshares don't have that pressure to make the experience that nice because you, theoretically, if you're unhappy with it, it's like, well, sorry, you own this. Totally. And then again, just kind of back at the end of it, it's just you're not even getting a deal. Right.

Right. And so, like, some of the assumptions I made for the calculations could fluctuate wildly, right? You have like, time share could be even more expensive. Like, you could get a worse interest rate. So, yeah, I mean, like, this coming back to it is just, it's the ugly truth of timeshares, right? Like, many of these corporations, they're taking advantage of less financially sophisticated people, appealing to their emotions, selling them a dream of owning something. Honestly, if people were upfront with them about the long-term ownership costs, they probably realized that they couldn't afford it. That seems like a bad sales

strategy for selling time shares though you know what's better than a can margarita the fine products and services that support this show we'll be right back if you're wondering how i managed to book all these great authors thinkers and creators every single week it is because of my network the circle of people that i know like and trust and i'm teaching you how to build your network for free over at six minute networking dot com this is all done in a super easy non-cringe down to earthway it's not going to be awkward it's not going to make you look like a wanker it's not going to make anybody you talk to look like a jerk It's just practical exercises that are going to make you a better connector, a better colleague, a better friend, a better peer.

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Often, I think they're selling you these things while you're on vacation. Isn't that sort of the tempting thing? It's always like, I used to get those calls. I don't answer my phone at all anymore unless it's my wife or like you. But I used to get these calls and it would be like, you've won a free Disney World vacation, just come down and view our properties. And it's like they make it sound like you're just going to be chilling somewhere. But you're on vacation.

You think you're going to go to Disneyland. You're not crunching the numbers. You're sipping a canned margarita in a free presentation about timeshares while Jimmy Buffett plays quietly in the background. Yeah, I mean, it's just you're like wasting away your life savings in margarita. Right. Precisely. And, you know, like, honestly, plenty of these developers, they've read, you know, Dr. Robert

Childini's book, Influencer, listen to this podcast. So they hit you over the head with reciprocity by offering you free Disneyland tickets, three-night getaways, all you can eat buffets. Let me get you into these multi-hour presentations and their high-pressure sales tactics, like expiring deals. Oh, everyone's buying these. Or you got to buy this, Jordan. Think of your wife.

Happy wife, happy life, man. It's gross, man. This is just gross, because after two plates of just about any buffet, I'm done. And also those high pressure sales tactics don't sound so nice either. That's right. And we haven't even talked about in some of these point-based timeshare systems, like the value erodes over time. Sure.

You know, you can see this in like a lot of the online forums where people are talking about how their points are being devalued. Like, they can't get the same week in the same resort like they used to. You know, it's just difficult for them to even find a booking which fits their needs. And I mean, that really all comes down to this fact that the corporations continue to sell these timeshare products to other people like, oh, keep buying my points-based timeshare to just shift around the point valuation. They could keep moving more product.

It's just really not great. Ah, okay, I see. So they sell a ton of these things, and theoretically they need more supply. In the way to get that supply is they need to buy new units or build a new apartment building high-rise full of these timeshares. or they can take your points, squeeze them down, and make them worth less, which is free for them instead of like tens of millions of dollars. Exactly.

And accomplish the exact same thing. Yeah, you're right on with that. You can imagine this kind of leads to these nightmare stories of people trying to use their timeshares. I feel like I've heard this through the grapevine, but nothing specific or juicy. You have a good example for us? Oh, I sure do. I really, really do. You know, before doing that, I'd like to kind of say that these horror stories really appear to be

tied to like the legacy timeshare brands, as I'll call them. Westgate resorts, Wyndham resorts, diamond resorts. But like some timeshare brands actually seem to be pretty honorable and like people have kind of nice things to say about them. So just they don't really have these people who are talking about what an awful service they are. Here's the problem, Kevin. Nuance.

We don't want that on this show at all. Just tell us the gory details of how bad timeshares are and of someone's terrible experience. All right, fine, fine. So I watched a story, which we can link in the show notes, about how one couple spent $11,000 plus a yearly maintenance fee of $800 on a Westgate Resorts timeshare. And they did that for six years, right?

They were never able to use their time share, not even once. How is that possible? I mean, well, first, they actually ask you to book it on the phone. That's so annoying already. Absolutely, like clearly despicable, right? The ability to talk to other people using my voice, by far my least favorite feature of my phone. Exactly. But like honestly, somehow it gets worse. Year one, this couple kind of calls a month in advance, and they're told they called too late. Sure. Year two comes around,

and they're like calling six months in advance, and they're told they're too early. So now year three's rolling around, and they're kind of feeling like they're in that Goldie lock zone, you know? They're calling three months in advance. Guess what they're told here? Too late again? You aren't really giving us too much time. Yeah, basically that. Yeah, to accommodate you here. So, but listen, You know, we'll let you stay here. You're just going to have to pay a regular price, like a regular hotel guest. Right. So basically, you could have just gotten the hotel anyway.

But, oh, that's absurd. I'd be so angry that I would do nothing because these timeshares probably have ironclad contracts. A hundred percent. They really, really do. And honestly, even that story gets, like, more comical somehow. Like, they complain about this whole thing. And instead of refunding them, Westgate's trying to upsell them into paying another $15,000 so they can use their time share.

It's delusional. Hey, we didn't deliver on your first six years, but if you give us twice as much money, the next six years, they're going to be great. Just look at that shimmering swimming pool, lightly urinated in swimming pool. A hundred percent, you know, and you just got to trust them, right?

You're trying to get out of this, like, ironclad contract, right? And they always kind of sell you this idea that you can always get out of it just by selling your time share. Right. But again, with this story of this couple, they go to do that, and guess what? But nobody wants it. Right.

Nobody wants my maintenance fee, my yearly maintenance fee that I can't use. Right. Oof. Exactly. And so they couldn't sell it. They end up actually hiring this investigative reporter team. And they kind of really go into how absurd some of this stuff can get because their contract says they own a specific week of a specific address. And then, you know, these reporters end up going to this address.

And the address doesn't even exist. Crazy. So the whole property was a sham. And by extension, there is. ability to use it. And the plan ostensibly was, oh, just offer them something else, but that something else is never available. Yeah. And like, so for like what I can tell from my research here, like these legacy timeshare companies, which again, I'm clarifying are these like Westgate and Diamond resorts. They're kind of the ones that truly have these horror stories that kind of make your

skin crawl. You know, it's stuff like preying on immigrants by selling them on the idea of owning a vacation being the American dream or, you know, actually my personal favorite is forcing people into financially awkward situations like borrowing from their 401k to pay off a $42,000 loan at 15%. Oh my gosh. So you not only ruin people's time off while they're in their working years, but then you are actively extending their working years by soaking up their retirement funds. That's super despicable. And look, I know that like no one's forcing you to empty your 401k, but if that's your only option because you were kind of lied to slash duped into this purchase that ended up being way more expensive.

I don't know. It kind of sounds like college. Totally. You know, just like college, you know, I don't want to paint with this kind of broad brush. It's kind of like, it's not everybody. It's not all the people doing wrong things. It's, there's these timeshare properties that actually are honorable.

Not every single one of them is looking to take you for a ride. Really? Because everything you've said so far, it kind of makes me feel like they're all pretty freaking corrupt and scatmy. That's fair. I'll give you that. But honestly, it really does vary between these brands. like Westgate, Wyndham, Diamond, yeah, consensus online, these are terrible, terrible companies.

You should never go get a timeshare with them. But, you know, if you're looking to buy from someone like Disney or Hilton or Marriott, those companies are more brand conscious, so they just don't want people talking shit on the internet, you know, meaning they will go to greater lengths to make sure people are happy. Now's a great time to mention that this podcast is sponsored by Hilton Timeshares. Your perfect vacation awaits, and we promise the condo definitely exists. Anyway, Kevin, if they figure out, I can't believe the address didn't even exist, that's next level lazy scamming where they're just like, eh, what's Google Maps? If they can figure out how to get people to stop talking shit on the internet, though, I feel like that's just a whole new business unit for Disney to start selling.

Oh, totally. And, you know, maybe they could start bundling it together with a timeshare and a Disney Plus subscription. Yeah, timeshare, internet shit-talkage removal passes to Disney World, $170,000, mostly for the passes to Disney World. Right, right. You get access to Disney World and that gets you access to Peacock and that gets you access to the Pentagon and all of a sudden you can see the ability to see who killed JFK or something. Right, yeah. The bundling stuff's out of control except for podcast one, of course, which works tirelessly to bring you the best content like this podcast for free in the podcast one app. Absolutely shameless, Jordan. But, you know, not as shameless as some of these timeshare developers. Amen, man. Now, okay, what is this that I've heard about there actually being like the whole industry getting people out of timeshares? You kind of mentioned that at the top of the show.

Right, right. So let's say you want out. You realize that this isn't what I signed up for. I can't even use my points. I don't want to pay the maintenance fees. I really need to get out of this. Well, like, good luck, honestly, because oftentimes the contracts, they're complex.

They make them deliberately difficult to break. So to basically address this problem, you have the rise of law firms, which specialize in getting you out of time shares. That is crazy. So there's this entire army of lawyers standing at the ready to specifically, specifically get you out of a predatory timeshare contract. Wow. My fellow attorneys have gone

from chasing ambulances to chasing faceless corporations, shilling condos in Aruba that may or may not exist. Gosh. Well, seriously, so you're telling me that if I want to get out of a timeshare contract, I got to hire some lawyer at like $200 plus dollars an hour to get me out of my $20,000 loan that I already can't afford. Yeah. I mean, most likely yes. And, you know, honestly, unfortunately, some of these are also scams. Dang, that is a double whammy. But you know what? that's also not surprising. A lot of scam remediation companies are themselves scams. Like, if you lose Bitcoin online or cryptocurrency or you get, I don't know, whatever, there's some sort of extortion, you will almost all, and you post about it on Reddit, for example, you'll almost always

get a DM that's like, hey, we can help you with this. And there's even warnings that are like, hey, don't fall for these DMs. Because I guess the psychology is, if you fell for a scam, you're desperate and you're kind of the type of guy that falls for scams. So if I can hit you at this vulnerable moment in your life where you're not thinking clearly and you are already predisposed to fall for scams, you're exactly the type of guy that I'm looking for if I'm a scammer. So it's not surprising that some of these get out of this desperate contract

is also just, you know, fork over money and then have no recourse. Yeah, exactly. And the law firms that do these timeshare businesses, they're exactly like the timeshares themselves, right? there's like these good actors, bad actors, and the good actors, they really do want to help you get out of this, right? But like the bad actors, they just kick you all your down. So what does a scam such as this look like exactly? Yeah, I mean, great question. So like essentially they'll accept your money as a flat fee and then you'll go to them and you'll be like, hey, I want to get out of my

timeshare. So they'll give you the advice to default on paying the company back and roll the dice as to whether that company sends a notice which ruins your credit. That's insane. So how do they reason that to work. I mean, you're going to take a major hit to your credit score. Sure. You know, this argument basically, it goes like, it's uncommon for a timeshare agency is to kind of come after you for defaulted maintenance fees. So just stop paying them, but, you know, pay me on your credit card. Right. Jesus. So get out of your 17% loan by taking out another 17% loan or 21% depending on your credit card terms. Classic scammers. But then what do the good guys do? How do they get you out of the contract, actual legal work? Definitely. Yeah, like they'll look at the whole body of work and, you know,

they went to a real law school. So they'll like say some way you can get out of it. So like some common legal grounds that I've seen, you know, they'll be the case about how you were as misrepresentation or fraud during the timeshare sales process. You got like violation of consumer protection laws or failure of the timeshare company to fulfill contractual obligations, you know, stuff like that. Right.

So good old fashioned contract law. I can't believe, I guess I can, but it's hard to believe that there's enough demand. There's a whole industry propped up by what is scam, another industry is. Again, I can believe it, but it's just sad. So like I thought going into this, timeshares are bad. I won't be buying one, especially from those aforementioned disastrous companies. Yeah. Honestly, I think this is kind of where it gets a little bit interesting for me, is that I'm not actually sure if it's right that you just unilaterally shouldn't buy a time share. Really? I'm surprised. Yeah, totally. When you, and obviously, again, if you believe the statistics from the timeshare developers,

Sure. Most timeshare owners love their timeshare. I somehow find that hard to believe. But again, first of all, I know people own timeshares. Every single one of them loves it, goes there every year, talks about it nonstop, tries to convince us to like buy one next to them in Florida. And also, my family went to a boring-ass lakehouse every weekend to eat Cheetos and stare out the window.

And so a timeshare doesn't sound that bad if that's the competition. Definitely. And like I was saying, the custodied by artists as it like eight and ten timeshare owners said they would happily buy their timeshare again. And honestly, I found that surprising. Like, I only ever hear bad things about timeshares. And, you know, I'm like, what kind of Stockholm syndrome do these people have, right? That was my first reaction.

I mean, there is something to be said. People paid big bucks for these. They probably have a hard time admitting that they're wrong or that they got hosed. They got ripped off. So there's some rationalization there. Also, the study was commissioned, like you said, by the timeshare industry group. So maybe we take this info with the lost shaker of salt that Jimmy Buffett left on the sticky can margarita coated floor earlier.

in the episode. Yeah, I mean, I totally get that sentiment, but like, honestly, it seems like people actually use the thing they paid for. And, like, they're claiming that they derive a lot of value out of it. So, like, I'll give you some more stats here. Like, nearly 60% of timeshare owners either use their timeshare or banked it. Huh. Yeah.

And 77% of timeshare owners took a vacation at a timeshare resort last year. I need a time share where you can bank it. Like, I'll pay for it and then not use it for 20 years. and then I will just be in there for three more years until I die in the property. You think they allow that? I think so. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure.

It's interesting, though. I'd always peg this as something people buy and then immediately regret and spend the next decade desperately trying to get out of the deal and use those forums and those lawyers and whatnot. Definitely. And I mean, honestly, I also thought that going into this and that take does get supported by studies out of the University of Central Florida. There, they claim that 85% of timeshare owners regretted their purchase.

But again, those are stats that get thrown out by timeshare law firms. So it's kind of hard to suss out. Like, is this just cherry picking in the opposite direction? Like I said, it's just very murky. Like the developers say everyone loves it. Law firms say everyone hates it. Okay, so maybe all of these stats, let's assume they're all BS. And it's just somewhere in the middle, maybe.

Yeah, and that's where I was at, too. You know, so to suss out whether or not I was just kind of consuming propaganda here, I actually conducted some field research. Well, you took a crappy overpriced vacation? That's right, Jordan. You know, as part of my painstaking research process for this podcast, I went to the white sand beaches of Aruba, and I stayed in a hotel while my parents stayed in their timeshare. Wow, you're so committed to skeptical Sunday, man. I love it. I appreciate that. Yeah, I'm as brave as a war reporter, you know, just selflessly sitting on a beach in perfect weather,

just trying to get close enough to that raucous bingo scene. So courageous. You know, but honestly, like, what I'll say are two huge positives about timeshares that I saw coming out of that. One was like the cost of my parents' stay was actually stable. You know, like the cheapest hotel in Aruba was $500 a night. Oof. Like, honestly, let me tell you, it didn't feel great as we were trying to book the trip and, like, we were just staring down the barrel of spending $500 a night to stay in the holiday in.

Oh, yeah. Oof. So there's something to be said about how, like, a timeshare is a stable price and it's robust to insane price hikes, like, when your area becomes more popular. When you said $500 a night, I was like, yeah, stayed at the four seasons, got a pretty decent deal. No, stayed at a holiday. It sure sucks that you spend $500. But then when you save a man's life on the beach as he's choking on as a salleable and you say, I'm not a doctor, but I did stay at a holiday and express hotel for $500 plus tax plus resort fees last night. I mean, that's got to kind of make up for something, doesn't it?

I don't even know if I can laugh at that. That'd just be like dating ourselves even further than you just did. Oh, is that ad for, is that campaign over? They don't run those commercials anymore. Let's just segue back to timeshairs that as if I said nothing. Totally. I'll try. And a second huge positive, though, about the timeshare is honestly this community aspect. Like, my parents have been going to the same time share, same week for the last 20 years. Wow. Yeah, and they have this community of people who are there at the same time each year. And actually, it was pretty cool to see them, like, it's their neighbors. Like, every year for one week, it is their neighbors. And it just kind of felt a bit more permanent than sort of the transient feel of some vacations.

You know, it's cooler than a week in Des Moines in the middle of October because that's the only week you could get. The fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. Thank you for listening to and supporting the show. Your support of our sponsors does keep the lights on around here. And it pays for my monthly maintenance fees. To learn more and get links to all the deals you hear on the show so you can check out the sponsors for yourself.

They're all searchable and clickable at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday. I can get behind that, right? You know, like, oh, Martha and Tom are going to be there. I wonder if something, something catch up. Oh, they last emailed me six months ago. Yeah, shout out Bob and his great performance of the karaoke that one night. That's right.

That's right. Like, I wonder if John's going to come with his mistress or his wife this time. You know, there's going to be some juicy drama. I can see why that would be appealing. And it helps me understand a bit more why these have even a shred of popularity. Totally. And again, like the popularity is just staggering. Like in 2022, the average timeshare occupancy was 78%.

Compare that to hotel inventory. And that was a 62%. Crazy. I just can't believe there. are this popular. I know a couple old folks that have a time share, but that's literally it. Yeah. And there's obviously another wrinkle here too, which is that like people have this tough time going on vacation. Well, Americans, yeah. Yeah, totally. There's just like a lot of work associated with it, right? Like you got to request the time off and you got to find a place to go. You got to

book your tickets. Find a hotel. Create this tour of sites you want to see. Yeah. It's always way more work than you think it should be. Planning vacations can be exhausting. And I'm lucky enough to be like, Jen, plan this vacation to Japan, right? I don't like. And even that's tiring for me. And at times share, like, kind of takes care of a lot of that for you, right? Like, there's just a few places that you can go. Sure.

Yeah, your options are super limited. You basically show up and you hope your condo is still there. Exactly. I really feel that. I love vacationing, of course, but now I've got two kids and it feels like there's so much crap you need to figure out before you get your tickets plugged. Where are we going to eat? What are the kids going to do?

How far is everything from the hotel? Can we get the kids there? Is it worth going there if they're going to cry halfway through the ride, all that stuff? Totally. Totally. And an all-inclusive resort that you go to every year, it solves a lot of that. And this pressure to kind of like use it or lose it actually seems to get people to take vacations. There's a study out of the timeshare users group.

And that found that 79% of owners indicated they go on more vacations than they would have taken without their time. I suppose, because you already paid for it, right? So it's like, are you just not going to take it? Because, again, for me, I need a time share that I can just not use for 20 years in bank all the days. And that is honestly good for most of us Americans who work through our time off if we're just not forced to do something with it. And that's kind of a sad indictment of our work culture, I suppose. Like, I'm only going to take a vacation if I'm literally going to lose

thousands of dollars by not taking a vacation. Totally. And like, you know, again, this art of research found that timeshare owners took an average of four vacations. Like, and you know, I can't, I don't know what the average American takes, but far. Not four. Yeah, totally. I feel like it's less than four. For a year, right? Yeah. Exactly, exactly. And like all of this needs to be balanced with like, but are these people really able to afford this? Assuming they can, they're having a blast with it. Yeah, cool.

So now it's just me, Jen, our two kids and 50, 80 year olds jazercising in the Orlando Dream Vacations Pool. Sound lightly urinated pool. Sounds like a ride. And honestly, like I thought that too, right? Like I have this vision of a timeshare and it's exactly that. It's like cocoon. You ever see that movie? They're all, don't worry about it.

It's another reference that no one will understand. Perfect. Perfect. Holiday Express, cocoon. We're crushing it today. Like, exactly like you were just saying, I thought the average person who uses these is old. Yeah. Guess what?

They're actually surprisingly popular with the youths. I kind of can't believe that that's the case. How is that possible? Totally. Like, today, like over half of timeshare owners are Gen Z or millennials. And the average age of that timeshare owner is 39 years old. That's a good 30 years. what I actually had in mind.

I really thought everybody would be over 60, possibly over 70 years old. Are these just young people who are ending up with dearly departed granny's time share? Are they inheriting this stuff? Like maybe some of them, you know, but like actually not all of these owners are inheriting. Millennials and Gen Z account for 53% of new sales purchases. Wow. Yeah, like the Marriott Vacation Clubs, over 66% of first-time buyers are under the age of 42. I did not see that coming at all.

I guess having a time share, and this is a little depressing, might be the closest that the younger generation will ever get to homeownership, at least in the next few decades. And that is, again, sad. But I suppose I understand the appeal here. You're renting, you're living with your parents, or you're renting like a studio apartment. You're like, but I have a condo in Florida. A hundred percent. You know, these young Gen Zs, they're just kind of quiet quitting right into that hepatitis A at a Sandals resort and like Fort Lauderdale. Conveniently located behind a strip mall with access to Chinese food. karate mattress store and an ethnic market that sells exotic life animals that apparently you're

supposed to cook and eat. I got it. Yeah, but you're saying there's this emotional piece here, right? Like, people love the feeling of being an owner and they can just say they own something when they might not own anything else they, where they spend time, you know? And that's really not a knock on timeshare owners. That's actually just a knock on late stage capitalism. Sure. Yeah, the housing prices. It's also a little bit of a knock on timeshare owners. You know, like, again, like I feel the media portrays these timeshare owners as like these old dumb hillbillies. But in reality, they're like these young, educated, middle class people. Yeah, surprising.

Totally. And it's like, you know, 63% of timeshare owners have a four-year college degree. And, you know, compare that to like the 38% of Americans as a whole, right? And the median household income for timeshare owners, that's actually larger than the median household income for the U.S. Yeah, people certainly do paint timeshare owners as like the people who voted Terry Cruz's character into power in the movie Idiocracy, when it's really just a normal, educated young person who realizes that the American dream of homeownership is actually a total farce for them and

way out of reach. Oh, totally. And, you know, just to kind of go back to Idiocracy, I think we all still get chills when we think about President Camacho's State of the Union address. You know, there will be a time where you make a reference to idiocracy and you will feel old and no one else will get it. And then you'll know what my entire life is like, yeah, this is all super fascinating. Okay, so give it to me straight.

what do you personally, after doing all the research, what do you think about time shares, you plowed through all this data, are you getting one or now? Yeah, definitely. I mean, like, you know, I think it's popular to say that timeshares are a scam. And I would say that timeshares are a scam if you don't run the numbers. Like, if you can afford it, though, it can actually be a pretty perfect option for some people. So which kind of people? Because for me, getting stuck going to the same place every year, it sounds in many ways

worse than just staying at home. You know, I think that's just because you're like a hopeless workaholic, you know? just find it impossible to relax. Well, tushay, yeah. But, you know, yeah, like the kind of people this is perfect for, they like going to the same place over and over again. They like a very standard, expected experience when they travel. The person might even have, like, trouble taking a vacation

and need a forcing function to do it. A timeshare removes so much complexity. And now they're just this list of places they can go and here are the places you can stay. Yeah, I mean, it's perfect for that person, right? obviously provided that person has the money up front to pay for it, and they can pay an ever increasing maintenance fee in perpetuity. Right, but they don't need that original loan at 17% or whatever that washes away all the savings. Yeah, that sounds like quite a specific person,

but of course there's plenty of those people. Totally. And honestly, if that specific person is out there, I'd give you two more pieces of advice. First, I'd look to buy a timeshare on the resale market, like we talked about with that couple's nightmare story, a ton of people try to offload it when they realize that they can't pay the maintenance fee in perpetuity. So you can really find a deal out there. Obviously, be wary of fake sales. Again, this is another area where there's a ton of scammers out there. Right. Like, you should be suspicious of any Nigerian princes unloading their week in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Yeah, exactly. And that's just a fact of life. You should probably generally. Yeah, exactly. No one stays in Grand Rapids. You should buy us. Yeah. If you need to send

money for something, then also don't do that. My second piece of advice is, that if you're going to buy one, buy through one of these bigger brands like Disney, Hilton, Marriott, they're just invested in their brand. And they don't want to see it devalued by people having bad experiences. You know, even you could go through a timeshare ownership group that's kind of known and vetted. Like, you know, your friends use it. They talk really highly about it. I would just say, know what you're buying, know who you're buying from.

Once again, the perfect time to shout out our fake sponsor, Hilton Timeshares. For real, a lot of qualifying statements here. and none of them really says, hey, this makes financial sense. Oh, totally. And I don't think everything needs to make absolute financial sense. I really just think it needs to not bankrupt you and you need to get enjoyment from it. Yeah, that makes sense. I can kind of get behind that, right?

It doesn't have to be like a good investment. If this is you and you feel like you're going to enjoy this and actually take vacations, go ahead, do it. Yeah, exactly. And just kind of like, undoubtedly there are these non-financially sophisticated people just being taking advantage of. people just don't know what they're getting into. But there's this other group of people who love it, they can afford it, and the ownership

model fits them perfectly. It sounds like we have the lame answer of it depends on this episode of Skepical Sunday, but, you know, what else is that? You know me, Jordan. Just a big nuance guy. It's just so educated. Nope, never taken a stand. Exactly.

You just never be wrong if you play both sides. Such a politician. But for me, personally, this phase of my life, I'd just, I wouldn't buy a timeshare. And it really comes down to two reasons. First is cost. I just find the true ownership of the timeshare with the cost and the maintenance fee. It's just not enough of a deal versus just buying the individual vacations to be particularly

compelling. The second reason is just vacation selection. You know, like you're limited to where the timeshares have resorts and hotels. And I like to travel to different places and I don't always want to stay in a resort. I maybe want the ability to pick a place right in the premier part of the city I'm staying in or change hotels. to be closer to a different part of the city that I want, you know, to follow along with on my trip. But, you know, if you can pay for the timeshare and you have your spot that you go to,

timeshare might be exactly what you want. So just know the numbers and know yourself. It sounds right. For me, this is obviously not my jam, right? Because sometimes, at least in the past, pre-kids, I would go to places like North Korea. I'm going to bet the listings over there are pretty sparse. I don't know. I bet you could get any week a year in Pyongyang.

Yeah, man. Pick of the litter. Thanks, Kevin. And special thanks to our fake sponsor Hilton Timeshers. They actually, they should sponsor this show. I'm going to go after Disney and what was the other one, Hilton Time Shares. And I can't remember the other one, but that'll be the one that signs with us. No freebies. Thanks, y'all for listening.

Topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday to Jordan atjurbaner.com, show notes at at Jordan Harbinger.com. Transcripts are in the show notes, advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show, all at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. I am at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. Instagram or just hit me on LinkedIn. You can find Kevin Rapp at full of crap. com.

That's KRAP. This show is created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogart, Ian Baird, Millio Campo, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own. And I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. And I'm sure not a timeshare lawyer. So do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show.

Also, we may get a few things wrong here and there, especially on Skeptical Sunday. I know, I know. you love your time share, but if you really think we drop the ball on something, let us know. We're usually pretty receptive to that. Y'all know how to reach me, Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com. And remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. And if you've found this episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use a good

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