The timeshare industry is growing rapidly with more companies that prey on timeshare fraud victims. If you do a search online for timeshare scam assistance, you will find many companies that claim to help people get out of timeshares by taking them off their hands and donating them to charities or other organizations that can use the timeshare.When the client calls the timeshare scam relief company for a consultation, they normally charge an upfront free for things such as taxes, appraisals, or a change of title fee. Some of these companies charge several thousand dollars in upfront fees to people who are desperate to get out of their timeshare scam situation. The claim that this one-time fee will guarantee a quick transfer, or there is a 100% money back guarantee.

These timeshare relief companies often have partnerships with escrow companies that will allegedly hold the clients upfront fees until the transfer is completed. These companies normally have bank accounts in Mexico and the clients are asked to wire the money for the taxes, appraisal, or title change to the Mexican bank account. Escrow accounts do not exist in Mexico like they do in the US for property transfers. Unfortunately, these companies know that escrow is a common practice for US citizens, so they will trust that their money will be held safely until the transfer of title is completed. As escrow accounts do not exist in Mexico, when the client wires the money to the Mexican bank accounts, they are essentially just wiring money into the hands of another timeshare scam company.

Unfortunately, the idea of donating a timeshare to a charity is a noble one in principal; however, in practice most charities and non-profit organizations do not want to inherit timeshares due to the high cost of maintaining them, and the low value that they hold. It ends up costing the charities more time and money to try to rent or auction off the timeshare week, and then after incurring the cost of the maintenance fee, there is little to no profit remaining for the charity to benefit from owning the timeshare. The timeshare weeks are often listed online at cheaper prices than the cost of the maintenance fee for one week. In addition, the maintenance fees for timeshares continue to increase, despite the confusing language in the timeshare contracts that make it appear that they will remain constant. Also, many timeshare scam companies are charging special assessments equivalent to the value of the maintenance fee every 5 years. These increasing fees make the dream of profits from timeshare rentals even harder to achieve, and opportunities to donate to charities very few and far between.

If a company is willing to relieve you of your timeshare fraud or donate your timeshare, it is obvious that a fee will be involved for their services. In order to ensure that you do not get scammed again, ensure that you get a quote in writing of their fee, and do not pay anything upfront to their company or a third party escrow company until you have personally checked with the resort to make sure that the transfer has been completed.