TimeshareMLS.org resale scam

Here's my experience with Timeshare Resale Companies from a different perspective.

My experience is with TimeshareMLS.org. The parent company is CHL Marketing, Inc. and there are a few sister companies, TimeshareFSBO.com and TimeshareresalesUSA.com.

I'm writing because I have inside information on the workings and sales tactics of an industry that has apparently scammed hundreds of thousands of people across the country. This industry is well known around the country and after in depth research I am of the conclusion there is no real value in what the various companies in this industry offer to those who purchase the service. I have insight to how I got involved with this industry.

Around March of this year I came across an Ad in the USA Today Newspaper in the classified section. The ad was advertising for Individuals with Telemarketing Sales/Management Experience to open a Call Room representing this company and its service. I am a bit of an Entrepeneur and I'm always looking for a sound business endeavor. I contacted the company and spoke with the General Manager and was impressed with what he had to say. His sales pitch on opening a room was that this was a service that owners of a certain type of property were very interested in and wanted to hear from anyone marketing this service because it would be of great value to them. Another great selling point was that the sales were low pressure and usually took 3-5 calls before the customer purchased according to the General Manager. Thus allowing the customer to check out the company, talk it over with their spouse or just give them additional time if they needed it to think about the purchase.

After speaking with the GM I decided to let him send me some information on the business and service they offered. The information packet looked great, I checked out the company as best I could and talked to a room owner who was introduced to me as an Ex FBI agent. I couldn't find any bad reports on the company and got a glowing endorsment from the room owner I spoke to. As it turns out later I was looking for information on the company when I should have been searching for info on a different business name they use. My research should have gone much deeper on investigating the Owner and his parent company. It turns out that this company may change its name or at least ad another DBA name once too many complaints are lodged against it. I admit I could have done a better job in my research.

There was no real upfront investment for me to open up a marketing room other than a lease and furniture and supplies so after a few months I decided to give it a try. All this time I thought I would be marketing a service needed by a certain group of property owners as well as a low pressure sale. This was the impression given to me from the company representaives I had dealing with the whole time.

When it came time to open the room I had the GM, his dad who was a VP with another of the owner's businesses and a Sales Manager from the Corporate office fly up from Florida to Tennessee to set up the phone system and to do 2 days of training. The first day went well but on the second day the trainer went on the phones to show my sales reps how to present the service and make a sale. During this time I and some of my reps got an indication that this was not going to be a low pressure sales job. The trainer got an elderly lady on the line who may have been foreign as well and the trainer basically "slammed" this women into buying the product. I and my reps were able to listen in on the call. I was not comfortable with this type of sales and neither were my reps. Luckily the women's credit card was declined which was a relief since I thought she was :slammed" however, the trainer did manage to call her back twice and get 2 more credit cards from her which both delined as well. One of my reps told me she approached the trainer on a break and said she wasn't comfortable with how this was handled and the trainer said she did her job, she pitched the woman and she gave her the card so she didn't feel guilty. This was on the sat. before labor day. The trainers flew home that sunday and I opened for business on the following tuesday.

The first thing I addressed in my sales meeting that tuesday was that we would not make a sale to anyone who did not understand what was going on and we would not lie to make a sale. I told them we had to feel good about what we were doing and no amount of money could make up for being unethical. I had 5 reps and all of them were very releived that they would not be made to do that type of sales. At this point I would like to add that many of the sales reps in the 9 florida offices make extremely good money doing this as it relates to telemarketing. The best sales person for the company made over $100,000 last year and the avg. rep makes $40,000 in most cases. I do have a sales report that shows sales figures for the company for one week. I did have more reports but at the time I wasn't aware that the company wasn't ethical and I didn't keep those reports.

By the end of the first week of business my room had made no sales and I was getting very concerned about how the company operated. My concern was that many of the people who actually would speak with us had been burned by similiar types of companies in the past. Usually they had been burned 2-3 or 4 times. After a week of hearing this time and time again I had a very uneasy feeling in my stomach. Once that first week ended I knew I had made a bad business choice. I can not represent and put my effort into something I don't believe in and I asked myself if I would feel fine in selling this service to a friend a relative and my answer was no. I knew then that I couldn't keep doing this. However, once Sept 11th arrived I felt extremely guilty that I had hired 5 people who trusted my judgement and I had sold them on the idea that they were representing a good service and could make a good income in doing so. Although I didn't want to make any sales that day I did stay open for the 11th and for a couple of hours on the 12th. During this time though I did a lot of researching on the internet in the office with a friend who I had brung to the office the previous week to help me manage the operation. It took us a long time on the 11th and the first part of the 12th but we were able to track down info on the main corporate name and found information that sealed my closing the room immediately. After discussing this with my friend/manager we came up with how to break the news to the reps. About 2 hours into the shift we pulled them off the phones and explained to them that we no longer felt comfortable in representing the company or its service and we gave them what info we had discovered. I thanked them for their efforts and told them I would pay them for the rest of the week since this was no fault of theirs. I do take comfort that we made no sales during the week we were open.

As far as the company knew we were still open for the rest of the week. They were very concerned about no sales being made. I kept putting them off as to the fact I had shut the room down until I decided how to handle this situation. Then on Friday the 15th the GM programmed the phone system so that my reps could listen in to how the florida sales reps were pitching and making sales. I took full advantage of this by taping the pitches and high pressures sales tactics the reps were using. I was given the ability to monitor the 4 best sales people in the company and I have taped about 3 hours of their pitches and pressure tactics with their customers. This includes flat out lying about what the company can do. Basically, after hearing the 4 reps that night I know then beyond a shadow of a doubt that the only way this service can be sold is to pressure the client, and to make false claims and statments. Today, Sept. 18th. I called the GM of the company and told him I had some questions regarding the conversations and if it was ethical and needless to say he opened up and gave me the low down on how to sell this service and admitted that their reps do lie to make a sale and many times they do go into a "Gray Area" when talking to cusotmers. He also gave many other comments that puts the company in a bad light and he even said the industry as a whole is not a good one. I have this on tape as well.

I am ethical in my business practices and could not in good faith sell their service. However, I can not just walk away, knowing what I know and one way or another some light must be shed on this more than already is.

I do have recordings of the reps and the GM which are very incremidating to the company and I have the training manuals supplied by the company too. I may make one more call tomorrow before I let them know I'm closed down. I would like to get the Verification and Customer Service Supervisor on the line and have him reiterate some info he had told me last week which was actually my first sign of the true nature of the company. The day I opened I spoke to him and he said that when my reps upset customers called in and the reps didn't want to talk to them to give his dept. the customer's phone # and they would handle the call. He was pretty much saying that we will get angry customers because the service isn't a good one. He said this was important to give them the #'s since his customer service agents were trained to make sure the new customer's didn't cancel. He said they were very good and once a customer spoke to them they seldom canceled because the used every "trick" in the book to make sure they didn't.

So in short, I'm at fault for falling for the slick sales presentation on opening a room with this company and literally thousands of people have been conned into purchasing this service valuless product. I do think the company is just legal enough to get past the the state attorney general's offices and the fcc but more publicity needs to be given to this industry.

I know this company has sold at least 13,000 people on this service since about 1997. That's just the # I have been able to run down I'm sure there's more. The average price for the service is anywhere from $399 to $1,000 depending on what they think they can get the person for. However, it is the exact same service no matter the price.

I'm somewhat confused at what they are actually selling and how they go about selling their product? Please elaborate.

jayjay wrote:

I'm somewhat confused at what they are actually selling and how they go about selling their product? Please elaborate.

They are nothing more than a timeshare resale scam company.

Promise the world and deliver a charge of $600 to someone's credit card in return.

Same old, same old--we have buyers waiting or we are having a showcase this weekend and need your unit for our inventory or any of the other lies they use to make a sale.

All anyone ever gets from timesharemls.org for their money is a small generic listing on their website along with the other 9,000 listings that don't stand out just in case a buyer does happen to come along.

I am in contact with state agencies in florida in regards to this company and info I have on them.

This company timesharemls.org is owned by CHL Marketing and Howard Levene. They also operate timesharefsbo.com and timeshareresalesusa.com and Howard was once associated with timesharesbyowner.com until he and his partner turned on each other. I think they started to scam each other.

Anyway, Howard Levene also had and probably still does operate timesharesdirect.com. This was his first solo resale scam so it may have outlived its usefulness by now.

This company will also double and triple sale timeshare owners too. They sale an owner a resale package for timesharefsbo.com and will turn around and sell a timesharemls.org package to them.

When the sales rep is told, I have already bought a package from timesharefsbo and it has been useless the sales rep will tell them that yes that company is awful but we are nothing like them, we have a track record of getting result and so on and then sell another package to someone who is already a customer of theirs.

Proof of this...yes.

Hey Gary, or should we call you Don, could it be that you submitted your message because you are getting so much bad publicity on this site regarding your company Omega?

You should call me Gary.

What exactly is Omega and how does it apply to my posting. Are you an employee of timesharemls.org, timesharefsbo.com, timeshareresalesusa.com or any of the other scam they operate?

I'm just giving my experiences and opinions of this company, CHL Marketing, Inc. and the different names they do business under and the various other timehsare resale companies out there.

Okay Tom.

Being curious as to what you were talking about I read the info on Omega on this site.

I don't know if you didn't read everything I have written or what but you should have noticed I not only pointed out CHL Marketing, Inc. which does business as timesharemls.org among other names but I ALSO said not to trust ANY upfront timeshare resale companies either.

I'm fairly sure Omega falls under the upfront fee timeshare resale company category. Hence, although I did not mention them by name they and every other scam resale company out there is included in my warning not to trust any of them.

Next time should I list the thousands upon thousands of these scams by name to make sure I cover all the bases.

The reason I called timesharemls.org by name is because this is the company I have dealt with directly. To make you happy I will include Omega by name in any other posts I write.

But to be clear, any upfront resale company whether it be Omega or timesharemls.org or timesharesonly.com, or timesharefsbo.com or timesharebyowner.com or any other name they go by is not worth a dime when it comes to getting a timeshare unit sold.

tomn39 wrote:

Hey Gary, or should we call you Don, could it be that you submitted your message because you are getting so much bad publicity on this site regarding your company Omega?

Hey Tom.

Sorry if I got a little snippy with you above. I do now see why you made the comment.

I was reading the Omega complaints and see there is a post from a garym216 basically telling everyone who has been scammed by omega that they are cry babies.

That is not me, I am garym172. It's just unfortunate that my user id isn't more unique.

Just for the record, I'm garym172, I hate timeshare resale companies and garym216 is obviously an omega company man brainwashed by the lies his company spews. Or he has not conscience and doesn't mind ripping people off one.

Once again Tom, I apologize.

timeshareresalesusa.com is associated with GMAC Real Estate but don't let that fool you. Century 21 also alwowed some timeshare resale businesses to be affiliated with them as well until they caught too much heat from consumers that had been ripped off by the companies.

They associate themselves with these companies to get the credibility that goes along with a nationally known real estate entity but they are still lowly scam artists.

In the case of timeshareresalesusa.com it is owned by Carol Leven who is the wife of Howard Levene, the man that ownes CHL Marketing, Inc. dba as timesharemls.org timesharefsbo.com timesharesdirect.com.

He is as good as they come in the field of the up front fee timeshare resale scam.

The try and keep some distance between timeshareresalesusa.com that Carol owns (if she owns it so does Howard) and the other scams that Howard operates.

I think they actually believe there is a tab bit of legitimacy to timeshareresalesusa.com.

Jon Warren the General Manager of CHL Marketing, Inc. and who oversees the operations of timesharemls.org, timesharefsbo.com and the rest has actually taken the time to point out to me that timeshareresalesusa.com is actually different from the rest of the scams.

Sounds like he's admitting on a certain level that he does manage a bunch of scams himself.

I reckon they figure when the Feds finally do come down on them, if and when that happens, that mabe timeshareresalesusa.com may magically be spared and they'll still have a business.

Sadly though, once one operation is shut down they'll pop up with another and they'll keep doing this as long as the scam resale business in profitable to them.

After all, Howard came mighty close to some jail time a few years back.

timesharemls.org mow has over 10,000 listings on their website in just over a year of operating this one site.

That's approximately $6 million in sales or rip offs of timeshare owners which is a more appropriate description.

Why are these advance fee sales rips so good in most cases in convincing timeshare owners to pay $400 to $1,000 for their service..well, first they are skilled con men and women who are well versed in hitting the right hot buttons of timeshare owners who are desperate to to sell their property and second it's the money.

On average these reps make a minimum of 35% commission on each sale. The top couple of reps at timesharemls.org make around $100,000 a year. The company average per rep, $50,000 a year.

The company that owns timesharemls.org (CHL Marketing) has 4 other websites associated with it that I know of. The Owner, Howard Levene and General Manager, Jon Warren, are making a very nice living off of fleecing timeshare owners.

Keep in mind this is just one company in the advance fee resale business and not even the biggest. I'm fairly sure the biggest is timeshareonly.com who are just as much a scam job as the rest but are gaining credibility with their national ads and now they have managed to con an association with Disney.

Lets do our best to get the word out. Whether it's posting here or the rip off report or scam.com or other timeshare forums please post your experiences with these companies. Don't forget the proper state agencies either. The Attorney General's Office for example. The more these agencies here from ripped off consumers the more likely they are to act.

To address the "Discredit" of me from the owner of Timesharemls.org I submit the following:

I freely admit I was a sales manager for Vacation Break USA and APEX Marketing which were both eventually purchased by Fairfield Resorts which is now owned by Wyndham.

We did sell vacation packages to generate tours to timeshares. I have never had a problem per se with timeshares since there are very good ones out there and many timeshare owners are happy with their units. My problem is with the upfront fee resale companies of the world.

At Vacation Break we sold packages mostly in the $399 range but if a customer wanted a carnival cruise it would be $899.

At APEX and Fairfield we sold the 3 day 2 night get aways for a price of around $99 to $129.

These packages were for the purpose of generating tours for mostly Fairfield Resorts.

As for Caribe Marketing I never worked with that organization.

The reason his clients have never paid any money to me or as he put it "refused to pay me money" is because as I've mentioned before I never submitted any sales to "His" company..didn't have the stomach to rip these people off for a worthless up front fee timeshare resale package.

Back in my younger days I also managed a Burger King Restaurant which he didn't mention. I'm sure my restaurant had a complaint during the 4 years I was there but when my customers paid their money for a whopper fries and coke, well, that's exactly what they got!

Anything else anyone wants to know about me please ask and I'll be happy to answer.

Howard, I guess you must be losing some sales to get a feed back from you or whatever lacky you had post this. Thanks for that feedback. It's nice to know I am making a difference.

garym172 wrote:

I guess you must be losing some sales to get a feed back from you or whatever lacky you had post this. Thanks for that feedback. It's nice to know I am making a difference.

Yep, they must be losing sales due to the message that we've been putting out here on Redweek and that message is NEVER EVER PAY AN UPFRONT FEE TO A COMPANY TO SELL YOUR TIMESHARE. It's a total rip-off. WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE BY EDUCATING THE PUBLIC.

AAhhh, took me a couple of times to read the timesharemls.org discredit of me but I understand what they were trying to get across in one of their sentences now.

"To this date my clients have refused to pay any money to Gary Manning and they have not posted a single reply to his posts."

At first I thought they meant their timeshare resale customers which wouldn't be correct since I never submitted any sales to their offices due to my disgust with timehsaremls.org's tactics, however, now I know what this writer meant..

by the above statement he is implying I have constantly been asking the company for money, or possibly they are implying extortion on my part. This isn't true, once I closed my office I did ask for reimbursement of my expenses and the General Manager of timesharemls.org replied no and that was the last time the subject was mentioned. I urge timesharemls.org to provide proof as to this allegation if indeed this is the truth as they are implying. Talk about slander.

As far as this only being a recent concern on my part in regards to people having bad experiences with advance fee timeshare resale companies is another falsehood. My posts on various websites go back to sept. of last year. This is shortly after I ended my short association with timesharemls.org and chl marketing.

I'm fairly certain I either have on the way to me or will shortly have sent to me a certified letter telling me to stop my postings in regards to timesharemls.org or they will pursue legal actions. Basically an attempt to bully me into stopping.

I don't react to well to threats, especially from companies that skirts ethics in their business dealings.

CHL Marketing dba timesharemls.org is grasping at straws when it comes to trying their best to dig up info on me to as they put it "discredit" me.

They indicate in their "discredit post" that recently I have had an association with caribe marketing. This had me puzzled since I have never worked for this company. However, after doing some searching I have found that if you do an internet search using my personal email address, the one chl marketing has on file for me, caribe marketing will show up. This caribe marketing page also has emails of just about everyone that requested info from them on it so I guess we all are "associated" with them.This is about the only thing that shows online about me when you do a search with my name, email or anything else.

No I haven't worked for this company but about 7 years ago or so I came across their website. I filled out a form to receive information on their travel packages. I received the info via email and that was it.

What does this tell me, Chl Mareting is scrubbing the web the best they can to find anything at all they can on me. If requesting info from a company is a crime then I am guilty but come on guys, getting info about 7 years ago is a long cry from working with or for that company. I expect more from you guys.

about 4 posts directly above this one you will see a post that has been deleted by "Legald" which is suppose to be from the Legal Dept. of CHL Marketing which does business as the company this whole thread is about TimeshareMLS.org.

For some reason they deleted their post which was titled "Gary Manning Discredit Tn." (me) and they moved it to the "Get the Resale Scammers on T.V." thread.

My last 3 posts directly above this one will make better sense if their original post was still here. Not sure why they just didn't post the same thing on the other thread without deleting this on but they did.

Just in case you don't feel like going to the other thread to read what they have written I am pasting it below so my 3 previous posts above make better sense:

Their original post...........................

Gary Manning Discredit Tn.

PLEASE BE ADVISED.

Gary Manning is utilizing consumer reports and timeshare industry forums to share the slanted view of his experience with my clients. To this date my clients have refused to pay any money to Gary Manning and they have not posted a single reply to his posts. Unfortunately he has gone too far with his slander and libel. To discredit Gary Manning a history of his employment and career involvement is due. Gary Manning managed "Vacation Break USA" a vacation package company. He sold vacation packages up to $899 in up front fees. It was alleged that the "travel and timeshare marketer deceived consumers into thinking they won "free" vacations that ultimately cost them hundreds of dollars". A link to the report below. Gary also worked for "APEX Marketing" who had multiple investigations from multiple states Attorney Generals and an uproar of consumer complaints. Another link below shows the numerous consumer complaints. These are only some of Gary Manning's involvements and more recently he has been involved with Caribe Marketing, who is also under scrutiny. See below. Please be advised that Gary's comments are only a tactic of libel. He has only recently given the appearance of being generally concerned with the upfront fee timeshare resale market. My clients are in preparation of filing suit against Gary Manning for his slander and libel. Continued publication of his existing or responding posts might involve a cease and desist order to your internet service or hosting provider. This discredit of Gary Manning is being submitted to all websites and forums that Gary Manning is utilizing. All information is deemed to be true and has been collected by public sources.

PLEASE BE ADVISED.

Gary Manning at Vacation Break USA

http://www.ct.gov/ag/cwp/view.asp?A=1772&Q=282386

Gary Manning at APEX Marketing

http://www.ripoffreport.com/results.asp?q1=ALL&q5=Apex+Marketing&submit2=Search% 21&q4=&q6=&q3=&q2=&q7=&searchtype=0

Gary Manning and Caribe Marketing

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/179/ripoff0179345.htm

jayjay wrote:

garym172 wrote:

I guess you must be losing some sales to get a feed back from you or whatever lacky you had post this. Thanks for that feedback. It's nice to know I am making a difference.

Yep, they must be losing sales due to the message that we've been putting out here on Redweek and that message is NEVER EVER PAY AN UPFRONT FEE TO A COMPANY TO SELL YOUR TIMESHARE. It's a total rip-off. WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE BY EDUCATING THE PUBLIC.

So then what is the legitimate way of selling a timeshare. I haven't seen any services other than the upfront fee services

abdullahs wrote:

So then what is the legitimate way of selling a timeshare. I haven't seen any services other than the upfront fee services

I guess unless you want to lose thousands of dollars by giving your timeshare away there is not much. Some one has to come up with a way to sell timeshare in a similar fashion they do at the resorts in the resale market. Otherwise until the resorts stop hiring these slick high pressure vacation package sales reps to pitch come on down for a wonderful vacation with your free whatever, Americans will fall into the timeshare trap. It all starts from your dream vacation package that calls you one evening and sells you the world. I wonder if those people even realize what they are getting us into.

Then of course if everyone knew about the resale market, the developers would close up and the well kept grounds and amenities would suffer. The entire timeshare industry is a sales game, from the originator vacation package reps, to the resort sales presentation, and finally into the resale market. Where you can either give it away or pay some one to sell it for you. If it ever sells. I am sorry If I sound so bitter, but the numbers are astounding according to some research I found. 85% of timeshare owners either do not use there property or wish they could sell it.

There are companies that do list without upfront fees (they sell on commission) and those companies are listed in the Buying, Selling and Renting forum. I'll do some research later on, after our guests have left, to find other companies that DO NOT list with an upfront fee required.

I find this somewhat funny...

Someone i know that has had a bad experience with timesharemls.org told me that the General Manager of that company had registered the various domain versions of his name, .info, .biz,.us etc..

Just for the heck of it I decided to see if he had done that to my name and sure enough he has.

If you search godaddy for my name as avaiable domains you'll find they have all been registered by Jon Warren the General Manager of CHL Marketing the guy who runs timesharemls.org and timesharefsbo.com.

Looks like he's grasping at any way he can to try and get back at me for costing his organization money. However, if I had wanted the domains I would have had them registered already.

Makes me wonder if he isn't planning some site with my name to attack me.

Now that's what I would expect from CHL Marketing and the people who run it.

Straight from the WHOIS: Registrant: CHL Marketing Inc

984 Glenview Circle Winter Garden, Florida 34787 United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com) Domain Name: GARYMANNING.NET Created on: 30-Mar-07 Expires on: 31-Mar-09 Last Updated on:

Administrative Contact: Warren, Jonathon j.warren@chlcorp.com CHL Marketing Inc 984 Glenview Circle Winter Garden, Florida 34787 United States (407) 351-4341

This just represents 1 case where they have registered my name, they also have .org, .biz., .us registered as well as gary-manning in all of the previous domains