{"id":581,"date":"2012-02-17T15:19:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T15:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog-1199783855.us-west-2.elb.amazonaws.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/17\/timeshare-scammers-impersonating-rci-warning-from-the-timeshare-crusader\/"},"modified":"2012-02-17T15:19:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-17T15:19:00","slug":"timeshare-scammers-impersonating-rci","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog-origin.redweek.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/17\/timeshare-scammers-impersonating-rci\/","title":{"rendered":"Timeshare Scammers Impersonating RCI \u2013 Warning from The Timeshare Crusader"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>From RedWeek\u2019s February Newsletter – February’s “Ask The Timeshare Crusader” question comes from Odin:<\/p>\n

I recently received a letter from the president of RCI warning me against attending an “RCI Update” meeting in my area. Apparently these meetings are not sanctioned by RCI, but are a scam. Have you heard about this?<\/span><\/p>\n

Lisa Ann Schreier’s Answer:<\/p>\n

This issue was brought to my attention last week by the Florida Timeshare Owners Group, and is quite scary in my opinion.<\/p>\n

For those of you who have not heard of this most recent scam, a third-party company contacted RCI members in Bradenton, Florida, inviting them to area to an ‘RCI update’ meeting at a local Perkins restaurant. Of course, the company is NOT RCI and the “update” is a sales pitch. A similar scam in 2009 netted a similar company more than a million, and none of that benefitted a single timeshare owner.<\/p>\n

So what’s a timeshare owner to do?<\/p>\n

Don’t take phone, e-mail, or postcard solicitations at face value. Research, research, research. We are in the Information Age, people! There is a plethora of information out there, and it only takes a few keystrokes to find it. If you’re not computer savvy, pick up the phone. In this case, I would have called RCI directly and asked if there is an update meeting scheduled for my area.<\/p>\n

Get mad and go viral! If you are contacted by one of these companies, let other timeshare owners know through the various timeshare forums pages<\/a>, blog sites, and timeshare-related Facebook and Twitter pages. Then, go a step further and let your home resort, your primary exchange company, and American Resort Development Association Resort Owners’ Coalition know about it.<\/p>\n

In closing, I ask that you use common sense. Don’t be a victim of timeshare fraud. Be smart and be alert.<\/p>\n

Read more advice and tips about timeshares by The Timeshare Crusader here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From RedWeek\u2019s February Newsletter – February’s “Ask The Timeshare Crusader” question comes from Odin: I recently received a letter from the president of RCI warning me against attending an “RCI Update” meeting in my area. Apparently these meetings are not sanctioned by RCI, but are a scam. Have you heard about this? Lisa Ann Schreier’s…","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog-origin.redweek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog-origin.redweek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog-origin.redweek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog-origin.redweek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog-origin.redweek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog-origin.redweek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog-origin.redweek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog-origin.redweek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog-origin.redweek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog-origin.redweek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}