The Ramsey Show - App - Don't Fall for a "Crime" Share! (Hour 1)

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. George Campbell, Ramsey personality and host of The Fine Print, podcast on Ramsey Networks, is my co-host today

as we take your questions about your life and your money. This hour is devoted to the timeshare industry. My contention is timeshares suck. You should never buy one. It's a complete ripoff. If you sell them, you're ripping people off, and you should be ashamed of yourselves. Most of you that run the businesses know that you're scummy, and most of you that make billions of dollars off of the American public screwing them

ought to really be ashamed of yourself. Hope I wasn't unclear to kick it off, George. That's a good contention. I'm going to go with your thesis on that one, that it is true. It is definitely true. Ding, ding, ding. So Georgia hosts the Fine Print, and the Fine Print podcast is all about money traps, like we're talking about today. Timeshares is a great example of these.

People are falling for this stuff across the board. And you know this from car leases to student loan crisis. And Timeshares is just one of these behemoths in the industry that have been around forever. And so I'm excited to go after this with you today. Yeah, and we're going to have to devote a fine print podcast episode to this eventually. There's so much to dig into. It's not on the list yet, but beware, it's coming. It sucks so bad I don't even know where to start.

That's the problem. It might take more than one episode. It's a series. It's a series. We could just do a whole series of the double fine print oh my goodness yeah so uh we had the uh i had read a piece of research advertised by the timeshare industry that they had a 97 customer satisfaction to which i called bs wow because anybody was walking around since know that 97 of people do not love their timeshares. That's absolute horse crap.

And so, of course, it's put out by the industry, which they kind of lie for a living, so it makes sense. I was going to say, you've got to look at who's actually putting the study on. Yeah, we're talking about Diamond and Marriott and Wyndham and Westgate, and these companies are just laughably horrible. And then there was a piece of research done by the university of central florida which said 97 of the people hate their timeshare which is that one i kind of believed but then i got to thinking i wonder what is real and so i thought let's just do not me doing it because my research would be biased because i start with a hypothesis of you

people are crooks. But I didn't start that. I got the Ramsey research team, which are very nerdy, highbrow, very concerned about truth and ethics, not Dave's exaggerations and drama. So they don't let me play in their space much. But I can give them direction to do a piece of research. And I said, hey, reach out to people that are inside the Ramsey tribe, people that know Ramsey, and people who've never heard of Ramsey, and let's do some research and do a good survey from the public on what they really think of their timeshares.

And so, not surprising to anyone, 97 percent dislike or 97 percent like we're both wrong oh okay where'd we land it's it's it's still horrible but uh buyer's remorse here it is this is detailed in-depth research large sample size took several weeks to pull it together we actually spent some money on this which is bothersome in a way. But we did. 57% of timeshare owners say that if they could go back, they would not buy a timeshare again. That's 6 out of 10. So let me translate that for you.

If 57% of the Ford truck buyers said they would never buy a Ford truck again, six out of ten of them, that kind of would say Ford trucks suck. Yeah. By the way, the research is actually quite the opposite for Ford trucks, just as an example. Not an advertisement for Ford trucks, by the way. The research is quite the opposite for Chevy trucks. Chevy truck people love their Chevy truck.

They'll go back again and again and again. Ford people love their Ford trucks. They'll go back again and again and again and again people love their Ford trucks, they'll go back again and again and again and again. And these statistics just go on. Oh yeah, and what you're talking about here with how many people are happy about this, like you're saying, 6 out of 10 people saying, I would not

do this again, makes me go, I'm going to do my research, because apparently there's a lot of unhappy people there. And if you look at the next stat here, 51% say that I don't use my timeshare as much as I thought I would. So half of the people aren't even using the thing that they overpaid for. There we go. Check. One in three timeshare owners agree that timeshares are not easy

to use. If you currently own a timeshare, one third of them say they're hard to use. If you currently own a timeshare, one-third of them say they're hard to use. If I have an app on my phone that is hard to use, do you know what I do with it? Delete. There you go. Bad purchase. A little shaky thing. Bad download.

Yeah, that thing. Oh, my goodness. Gone. That's bad. Just like that. These stats just go on and on and on. 44% of former owners say they were satisfied with their timeshare experience. Satisfied.

That's not saying they loved it, just they were satisfied. Man, a lot of regret here. That's the theme I'm getting, regret. Here's the one you've got to love, though. Only 48% of timeshare owners say they had. These are current timeshare owners owners not somebody that just didn't buy walked out of the meeting because it was high pressure and scummy and all that but 48 percent of timeshare owners say they have a great deal of trust in the company who holds their timeshare

wow almost half of them trust their timeshare company that's good that's good it's better than i would have thought honestly the industry is that's like saying, I mean, you know, they're in the same categories like payday lenders, right? You know, and payday lenders we pretty much all know are scum. They rip people off, charge 800% interest. And so, I mean, I don't think you could get 48% of them to say they have a great deal of trust in their payday lender. No. So that's pretty good for the timeshare guys.

And here's the thing. When you're looking at people who own timeshares, you're probably going to justify the decision a little bit in your head. Even as you're taking the survey, you're going to go, well, you know, it wasn't that bad of a deal because you're trying to emotionally, you know, cope with the fact that you made a dumb decision. So I think a lot of these people are probably answering even with a little more positivity than they should be. It does change when you go to ramsey tribe though one percent yes one percent of ramsey timeshare owners say they have a great deal of trust in the ramsey in the timeshare industry so that could be my fault yeah you because if i get on here pretty regularly and yell that this is these people are scum then people believe it and they

should believe it because that way they won't go in the tiger cage. Because, you know, the tiger cage is, in case you're new to this story, you're walking along the sidewalk, and the director of the zoo runs up and says, I will give you a free one-year pass to the zoo. All you have to do is go into the tiger cage and pet the tiger for an hour. However, remember that the tiger has not been fed in three weeks. Three weeks. And it's likely greedy, let's say. Yeah.

And so if you can get out alive, then you get your one-year pass to the zoo. Well, that's like saying you get a free vacation. You can stay in our place for free, but you have to spend two hours in the tiger cage petting the very hungry, greedy tiger. No, thank you. No, thank you. No, thank you. And try to get out alive. I've seen Tiger King. I know how this ends.

Not playing that game. Every episode. You saw every episode. Yeah, binge-watched it. Me too. I lost my common sense card. I have not returned it since I watched every episode of Tiger King. I blame COVID.

That's what it is. I think COVID caused our minds to be warped. A lot of bad decisions. Who else? Why otherwise would we have watched Tiger King? We're lacking in judgment, George. This is the Ramsey Show. Your number one wealth building tool is your income.

For business owners, this comes as no surprise. As you're used to putting in extra hours and watching your bottom line. That's why Christian Healthcare Ministries, or CHM, is a great option for those who are faith-focused and budget-conscious. CHM is not health insurance. Rather, it's a health cost-sharing program. It's not harder, but it is different. To learn if CHM is a fit for you or your business, visit chministries.org budget. George Camel Ramsey personality is my co-host today. He is the host of our Ramsey Network podcast.

The Fine Print just launched a couple of weeks ago and launched out at number one in the business section. Super positive. Dropping this week, How to Bulletproof Your Money for the Next Pandemic. That was released today. Earlier, How TurboTax is Screwing You and the True Cost of Credit Cards. This is a whole series of eight different, or ten episodes, rather. We may be adding another one to the episode list when it comes to timeshares, which is what we're talking about today. George is with me to do that.

We were noticing our research team, when they did the surveys, also noted that timeshares are an $11 billion industry, making it larger than Major League Baseball, which is $9 billion in revenue, larger than the entire music industry, which is $8 billion in revenue. And yet, 50 to 60 percent of their customers are, at a minimum, depending on which of the statistics we read and how we extrapolate them, are, shall we say, dissatisfied. If you are a timeshare customer currently and you want to tell us your story, good or bad, we're exposing both today. I'm willing to hear your good story, although I think they're kind of rare.

But if you want to come in and talk about the good things about your timeshare, that's cool. God did that last time I did one of these hours. Regardless of which company it is, jump in. We want to hear the company. We want to hear what happened. What's your timeshare experience? The phone number is 888-825-5225, 888-825-5225. Luann is in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Hi, Luann. Tell us your timeshare story. Hey, Dave. Hey, George. Good to talk with you. I'm almost embarrassed to say it, but my husband and I, it was back about 2013, 11 to 13 there. We were up in Branson, and we had taken a vacation, mini vacation, for my birthday, and we ran out of money. And they were advertising, as we walked along the sidewalk, for $100.

They'll give you $100 if you'll go for this 90 minute visit at the west gate west gate up there west gate for nine minutes or 90 minutes 90 okay nine nine zero so a buck a minute yeah all right yeah and um you know it's like oh we're not gonna buy one we're not doing we'll just go get the money and we're broke whatever you know yeah we're not going to buy one. We're not doing it. We'll just go get the money and drive, whatever, you know. Yeah, we're broke. Exactly. And granted, it's only four hours for us to drive, but gas was very low. And this was way before you, Dave.

Okay. Way before me. So just let me know. Okay. Right. I feel better. We were stuck in the sand. We were stupid.

Yeah. Way before. So we went and did the 90 minutes. It ended up being about five hours and yeah they roped us in because they start pulling heartstrings and talking about the grandkids and you know what you can do as a family and and you know you don't want to say no to this this is a good deal well we said yes and it was about the reason they gave to us that we could get it for this really cheap price was because it was repo, basically. So, yeah, they had a repo.

So you can repossess air. Yeah, right. Because there's no actual asset. No, no. Well, and see, that was one of the lies, too. They told us that if we ever wanted to sell and get out of it, we could resell it for $100,000. Oh, easy, yeah. Not!

Right! Not 100,000 seconds, yeah. Our question was, after we were stupid, and we ended up going about three or four times to the one in Orlando, because once you go to one, through them, you're stuck there. You cannot go to another say, Park City, Utah, or go back to Branson. We couldn't go because everybody was locked into just that one. So, yeah. So, you know, Orlando's not cheap. And so we ended up saving up what we could,

and we went to the timeshare. Well, every time we showed up, there was something wrong with the timeshare. The air conditioner wouldn't work. They were, you know, overcrowded in this section. You couldn't pick the section you wanted to be in, and so they had to put you in this section with the partiers and basically the ones that are stupid out there, too,

that are touring it while you're there. And you just want to yell at them. Please don't do it. Don't do it. Yeah, it's a trap. It's a trap, you know. So here we are spending the money on these. Don't you like to be a salesman walking along with a client?

You're trying to sell them this, and Luann runs up to them and drops down on her knees and goes, Don't do it! That would have been a great visual. That would have been awesome. I would do it now. What's the end of the story? Are you still in it, or did you get out? Oh, no, no, no, no.

We quit paying for it for two years. And in the meantime we had a filed bankruptcy okay and we quit paying for it for two years and uh you know my husband and i both i was like so what i worry about things like that i'm like but we we're going to be in trouble we're going to be in trouble. We're going to be in trouble. He said, let's just see. So he's very analytical and an IT guy. So we didn't pay for it for two years and we didn't get any kind of notice. We just kept getting the same amount, you know, all the time. Well, after that two years was up, we ended up, they did a, like a negotiation with us and they did a 1099 c and said they'd settle for this much and we would have to pay on the taxes on the ballot

why did you not bankrupt it well because we ended up not doing that. Well, I really don't know. My husband was the one that was doing it. Okay, that's fine. I'm just curious because it was a debt you could have put in the bankruptcy. But all right, next question. And I really appreciate you taking your time to come on the air and tell this. Because as you said, every time any of us do something dumb,

we're a little bit ashamed that we did it. And I appreciate you having the courage to say, because my whole show is about all the dumb things I've done, and I don't want you guys to do them anymore, okay? So I tell all my dirty laundry on here, but it's harder to tell yours, and I appreciate you doing that. So let me ask you this. I'm really curious, and I'm not trying to be smart aleck, okay? When you go in there and you say, I'm going to sit there for 90 minutes that's one hour and a half what advice would you give to someone that did that and then the second hour

and the third hour and the fourth hour roll around why did you stay in the room why did you not break the glass and run out into the street they kept leaving so because it was like i'm not rude or anything you know what i'm saying okay so they were playing social games on you to keep you make it weird for you to just walk out on them you would have had to have been a jerk in your mind just to walk out. Even though they were being jerks and holding you on. Oh, yeah. So they use a social mechanism to hold you. Right. Exactly. Interesting.

And so now I would say, no, don't even go. Don't even do the 90 minutes. Don't go in the tiger cage. And like I said, it was before Dave. And so we're thinking to ourselves, they said, leave it to your grandkids. Who wants to leave their grandkids with debt? Who wants to leave their grandkids with a curse? Right.

I curse you, my child. Exactly. I leave you with Westgate. I leave you with Westgate. The funniest part is it went from $100 for 90 minutes to $100 for five hours. You could have done better delivering pizzas. Right. And you got called a terrible grandma. And you got called a terrible grandma.

And you got called a terrible grandma. I mean, you can call me a lot of stuff. Don't question my Papa Dave. Don't call me a terrible grandpa. Poor Luann. They're preying on the nice people, Dave. That's what's happening here. That's why I would have left. I'm not

one of the nice people. They're not going after you, Dave. They're going after the Luanns of the world. I'm not one of the nice people. They're not going after you, Dave. They're going after the little ones in the world. I'm not one of the nice people. I have social boundaries. I would have said, I'm leaving. Thank you. I'm good. Or something to that effect. Yeah.

The tiger cage. Open the door. We're leaving. Oh, my goodness gracious. Time shares. Let's hear your story. 888-825-5225. One guy in the business calls them crime shares. I love that.

That's pretty good. It's clever. You could call them air shares because it's a share of air. We're selling little blocks of air that don't really exist because you don't really get a title when you buy a timeshare. You don't really have any ownership of anything. And when you go to use it, that proves it because you can't get your share of the air that you bought.

So it's air shares. I like that. That sounds like something Apple would release. You know, and they could probably get away with it. They could sell them. But apparently a bunch of people have gotten away with it. So one of the folks we've been talking to in the industry is a real activist. He's an attorney named Christian Waugh.

And what is happening is that several of the timeshare companies, an attorney gets a hold of a customer that has been screwed. They go to the timeshare company and says, you're going to release this customer because your presentation was fraudulent. You lied. And the timeshare industry lets them go. Exits them, is what it's called in the business, from the timeshare. And once that attorney does that two or three times, well, then the timeshare business gets pissed off and they sue that attorney.

And a lot of these attorneys are small operators. They're, you know, whatever town. And so a group of them have been sued out of business. The attorneys have been. These are attorneys that, you know, they just overrun them with these billions of dollars of revenue that they have in just asking them to do this stuff and taking control of them. So Christian has put, Christian Wallace put a bunch of them together and is countersuing on behalf of the attorneys that have gotten run out of business.

So we wanted to talk to him, talk to him once before on this subject, but that, is that a fair summary of what's going on, Christian? Yeah, it's a pretty good summary, Dave. How are you doing today? Great, man. How you doing? I'm living the dream. Just had a newborn and I'm not going to let her buy any timeshares a brand new baby congratulations

thank you very much that is awesome i'm happy for you okay so talk about this business you've had a lot of interaction with their legal teams uh with their leadership teams in deposition and in everything else? Yeah. I mean, they've got dozens of cases. They're against these exit companies. They're against the lawyers who work with the exit companies. You do appear on the radar if you start representing timeshare owners enough and if you start having some success. And it's because some of these developers, they're adopting what they call this zero tolerance policy. And they kind of make up this idea that the lawyers are just frivolously telling everyone to stop paying on their financing, as if every timeshare owner is deliriously happy with their timeshare, only when they meet this lawyer do they suddenly wake up and say, I've got a problem. You know, when it's really the complete reverse,

these people are desperately unhappy. They'll pay almost any amount of money to get out of these crazy, you call them crime shares. I mean, it's not a good product. And they're desperate to change the marketing on this. And in order to do that And they're desperate to change the marketing on this. And in order to do that, they're trying to push these lawyers out of business. Wow. And so how many of these attorneys have been hit so hard that they've come to you to represent them as a group? Well, I currently represent, you know, gosh, several. Two of the best ones are Scott Montgomery and Todd Newcomb in Missouri,

and their law firm, Montgomery and Newcomb. And I think you've talked to Scott before. Yeah, we had him on the phone last time we did the hour, yeah. Listen, he's got a class action lawsuit against Blue Green right now, and it represents between 12,000 and 25,000 class members. What a great target for Blue Green to aim at, right? This guy who's had some success certifying a class with a legitimate complaint against this big developer. 25,000? Up to 25,000. I think they're still figuring out the number.

But regardless, you know, if the minimum is 12,000, think about that. I mean, so of course he's a target. And so that lawsuit's still going. The class action is still going. We have to see how it shakes out. Wow. Absolutely amazing. So one of the things that you and I have talked about is that the attorney general down in Arizona went after Diamond Resorts

and hit them for, what was it, $800,000 penalty? Yeah. And really slapped them pretty hard for their misbehavior in the state of Arizona. Why aren't the Attorneys General going after the timeshares? As a matter of fact, one guy up in Washington is actually going after the timeshare exit guys like he's, I don't know, like maybe the attorney general got a bunch of donations for his campaign from the timeshare people. Why would you support the timeshare people and go after the exit guys?

But this Washington AG is doing that. He's going the opposite direction. I can't vouch for the Washington AG on that or any number of things that the Washington AG is doing. But I can tell you, heck, I've got in front of me, the Florida Attorney General went after Blue Green back in 2012 and actually ordered, as part of their little settlement, Blue Green had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, create a fund to help people who complained. So there's precedent for this, even in Florida, where my main office is.

And that's like timeshare heaven. It is. Well, think about that. Or hell, whichever. I'm not sure which. Right. If it can be done here in Florida, where these timeshare companies are super powerful, it can be done anywhere. Yeah, that's where the Queen of Versailles lives, right? Florida. You got it. David's wife. Did you see the movie? Oh, that's right. oh my goodness that was fascinating yeah david siegel right yeah well from a purely

political i mean forget the legalities of it we're obviously right on the law that consumers are getting you know really harmed by these developers but just from politics it's a it's a real wonder that the attorney generals aren't you know figuring out that they can get votes this way. Yeah, if you came out helping the consumer with the timeshare industry's misbehavior as an attorney general, that should be big political points as opposed to I'm going to support the timeshare industry and go after the exit companies. These are everyday folks, right? I mean, these are not the upper class who are buying these timeshare interests. These are the massive voters.

These are people with lower middle class incomes who work hard every day. And I think it would be a great political idea. But of course, you know, I'm not a politician. That's an interesting point. They don't prey on the rich. No. We just talked to Luann in Little Rock. and she was broke, and they went after her. Yeah, exactly.

It's the least educated. It's the formerly educated. I mean, you know, forget the least well-off that they prey on. And, you know, I'm reminded, if this was done in the 19—you know, you'll have to pardon the comparison. Back in the 1950s, 1960s, they went after the NAACP and all these states to try and kick out the lawyers. Why? Because they were helping the people who needed it the most. Now, what about these consumers? It's a different—you know, it's not about race, but it is about economics. It is about power.

And these consumers are getting just shafted. Yeah. And what's interesting, too, is I think the business is probably over the next 20 years will die off because the age of the user is dying off, and they're having a real problem getting the younger person to come in and fall for this. You're right about that. Yeah. is dying off, and they're having a real problem getting the younger person to come in and fall for this. You're right about that. Yeah.

Yeah, so, I mean, it's like the older, and they do prey on the elderly. They've always done that. Like, they'll take entire busloads. Diamonds is known for doing that. Entire busloads in from the nursing home to try to get people to buy from the retirement community. So, yeah, there you go. And then Wyndham. Wyndham used to be kind of like a high-notch. You thought of a windham hotel i thought that was a nice hotel but they've kind

of damaged their brand because they become more timeshare than they have uh hotel and so now they're changing their name huh they did i mean now they're trying to go by travel and leisure and i think the main reason being that this is my speculation, that Wyndham's brand is so damaged by what they're doing in timeshares. Yep. And I think Marriott may run into the same thing. Marriott has traditionally run some very nice hotel properties, and the staffing at those local hotels we've worked with all over the nation, excellent.

But the leadership team at the top of Marriott, oh, nasty bad people. We've had real problems with them. And now we're starting to see their timeshare stuff spike up as well. So that kind of explains that. Christian Waugh, thanks for hanging out with us for a segment here. Thanks so much. Christian Waugh, attorney from Florida,

representing attorneys who get sued by the timeshare business because they sued the timeshare people. Just in case you're wondering how circular this is. So bizarre. It's a time share theme hour, or as a friend of mine in the business calls it, crime shares. If I can figure out a way to call them air shares. It's like an air chair, though. Yeah. I don't know. It's not quite.

I like the crime chair. We'll workshop that. I wish I had said it. Yeah. Who invented it? This guy in the business. He's a big guy. He's one of the timeshare haters.

Oh, good. He's going after them, so he calls them crime shares. He says it's the largest. Actually, Christian Wallace said that in a different broadcast. He said it's the largest legalized fraud in America today. Online is Ben in Colorado Springs. Hey, Ben, tell us your story about crime shares. Absolutely.

They're horrible. Long before we met you, we learned the definition of gullible. So that was back in 2004. My wife and I actually were invited to Vail, Colorado, to a timeshare with Sheridan Mountain Vista, a Western vacation group which eventually got purchased by Marriott. Oh, Lord, you got Marriott. Yeah, but we didn't know that at the time.

Oh, Marriott. But they invited us to stay know that at the time oh Marriott but they invited us to stay at a nice hotel which was actually the Roach Motel we walked across the street the next day and it was just us it was just my wife and I we got to do an entire tour of the whole place it had a really nice chairlift for winter skiing and everything like that. I was sold. And, uh, we come to find out through this whole process, um, that it's going to be horrible. But of course we don't think about it until three days after we purchase. Um, in the process of this, I was thinking about this. I ended up getting the disclosure statement. I have it in front of me. This is, this is blowing my mind.

We thought we were only paying $1,000 for an every-other-year, even-year event. $1,000? $7,897. You thought you were paying $1,000? We thought we were paying $7,000. Oh, $7,000. Okay. All right.

It has a 16.75% APR. We were going to be paying $17,000. You financed air. Okay. I did. We did. We did. And we thought we were smart because we paid it off two years early.

Well, you were smart to do that in the sense that you got rid of 17%. my god and we hadn't we hadn't even learned about you guys yet wow but after day three after day three we tried calling back to sheridan and they said i'm sorry our buyback option is on three days not four you have to be you're stuck with it. Of course. We were horrified. We didn't know what the next two years were going to bring, let alone what the next 14 years that we actually owned it and never used it were going to bring. So what's the status with Marriott today? Well, we don't have any association with them anymore. We used the timeshare exit team style group we used a lone star transfer okay to get out and uh you used an exit team an exit team

called lone star that got you out yes okay and it worked but it was a lot longer than i wanted and it still cost a lot of money yeah it costs a costs a lot of money to get out once you're in. So it was pretty scary. But less than if you stay in. Yeah. So the Roach Motel, that should have been your first clue, right? And it wasn't. But it was a nice hotel.

Just going into the Sheridan Mountain Vista, it was even better at the Sheridan Mountain Vista. So they had connections. Yeah, okay. But we were smart enough to actually do our debt-free screen, though, with you guys in February of 2019. Yay! Yes. Congratulations. Yeah, we got out with a piece of paper saying, you know, we still have our skin.

Yeah. We got out in June of 2019. We already paid off everything in 2012. So that's when you got divorced from Marriott. Yes. I hated it because every year we had over $600 in fees. Yeah. And we never went.

Yeah. Wow. Great story, man. Thanks for sharing it. That is a typical timeshare story. This is why I don't understand why people would buy them at all. But, I mean, hey, I don't understand some of the dumb things I've done, too. So I'm not going to pick on you about the dumb things you guys have done.

I just want to celebrate them with you, and you and I together celebrating dumb things that we have done can keep other people from doing dumb things. Sounds like a plan. What do you think, George? Yeah. Have you ever bought a timeshare? No. I almost fell for the presentation because we got lured into the spa day on the honeymoon and I thought, no way.

Spending three hours with this woman? No, thank you. Not my wife. Let me make that clear. Let me make that very clear. It was the timeshare saleswoman. It kind of sounded like you were referring to Whitney. God bless.

She's working on floor five now going, oh my gosh, I'm going down there. Oh, that's hilarious. I'm going down there. That's hilarious. I'm going down there. But you know what made me think of? You know, it's easier to get a divorce than it is to get out of a timeshare. That's backwards. It's easy to get divorced in America than it is to get out of a timeshare. Think about that for a second.

And in most cases, less expensive. A hundred percent. At least the legal fees. Thomas, you don't have to split assets with marriott when you get rid of them but it costs you a lot more than the legal fees uh hypothetically tom's in dayton tom tell us your timeshare story guys i had uh i feel a lot better now because i paid them a thousand dollars take it back and they agreed that's a good deal i was so happy to pay that thousand dollars we had a place in maui okay now if you're going to have a timeshare That's a good deal. I was so happy to pay that $1,000. Absolutely. You got a bargain.

The good news was we had a place in Maui. Okay. Now, if you're going to have a timeshare, Maui sounds good. I hope it's in Maui. Yeah, amen. And I don't want to sound like a snob because I think you'll understand what I mean.

You can only go one place so many times. And I won't say we're tired of Maui, but we bought it 20 years ago. And I tried for the last 10 years to give it away, and I could not get anybody to take it from me for free. No one would take your air? No one would take it. They changed the rules on us. These people are good.

I mean, they're much better at their job. You don't mean morally. You mean slick. I mean, they're good at their job you don't mean you don't mean morally you mean slick i mean they're good at their job they're good at getting your signature on that dotted line screwing you yeah absolutely absolutely which company which company was your maui timeshare with i'd rather not say because they have not i sent them a thousand dollars but they haven't sent me back the letter that said you're clear oh okay they're listening right now they are listening i promise you i promise you they're listening so don't say yeah i i when i get my letter back yeah you can you can tell us another time

on the show earlier yeah tell us what it rhymes with no don't i'm just i'm telling you they're monitoring this broadcast i promise you one day we've already gotten feedback i promise you it's okay you just stay right where you are one day i was i was at the hotel my wife and i and we i was coming up from the pool in the elevator this i'm mentioning this because you suggested it to luann a little while ago i was coming up in the elevator and it was obvious I was in the elevator with a salesman and two prospects. And the prospective couple, the husband looked at me and said, are you an owner? And I said, yes, sir. And and said, run. The salesman's jaw hit his chest. And I just said, hey, he asked.

And the elevator door opened and I left. And here's my name. If you want to exit me for free, you can call me tonight. I'll never do this again. Otherwise, I'm coming back every year and ride the elevator. Right. Oh, believe me. I thought about putting cards through everybody's door saying, you know, don't buy.

I'll give it mine free. But they just, you know, it's so hard to exchange. They tell you how easy it is to exchange. Well, you can exchange it for a less desirable destination in the offseason anytime you want. Yeah. Well, Tom, I hope the $1,000 goes through for you because we won't reveal what your real name is, Bob. I mean, Henry. Secrets out.

I mean, George. I mean, no, you're George. Wait, I'm sorry. You're Dave. Wow. This is fun in the worst way. Yeah, it's a sick kind of fun that we have here on the Ramsey Show, but occasionally we have to do this just to let you guys know

there are things out there and people out there that are out to get you. Most people trying to screw you are just enthusiastic ignoramuses, but others are just straight-up crooks. They know what they're doing, and they're here to take you down. Payday lenders, they're here to take you down. Payday lenders, they're here to take you down. And crime shares, boxes of air, are right there with it. You really don't buy anything, people. It's not an asset.

It's just a liability. This is weird. Not a good investment. Well, that puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. Our thanks to Ben and Kelly in the booth taking care of business. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. That's George Camel over there. We'll be right back.

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