[obmelvin]

For anyone curious to hear more about how this happens, and a discussion with someone who was a former police officer (maybe even detective?) yet still fell victim, The Daily did an episode on this in April as well

In general, I've seen lots of 'victim blaming' with these sorts of scams. I mean, I do understand that it's easy to sit there and think 'I understand sending money the first time, but how do you still fall for it the 6th time they ask you to send more money?'. But I think it's important to remember that victims are often older or new to the country*. These scams are designed and refined to make you feel trapped.

* I'm aware the OP involves a Canadian couple and the NYT story involves an American couple. I don't think the direct country matters. Most of these scams are all about scaring and isolating someone.

NYT link - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/podcasts/the-daily/scam-c...

YT link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3biituRAiVg

[hosh]

Timeshares themselves are already shady, and there are many people desperate to offload them.

Also, there are psychological biases at play too, regardless of whether you are older or newer to the country. One of key bias in the engine that runs scams and cons is that, once you have done something for someone, you are more likely to keep doing things for them. Even knowing this does not really inoculate you to that effect.

[mythrwy]

Correct.

Ebay is full of timeshare listings for next to nothing (if you don't consider even paying the annual fees isn't worth it in most cases).

Years back my GF got roped into a timeshare presentation because she wanted free nights in a hotel room. After gently scolding her I printed off pages of Ebay timeshare listings and went to the presentation with her. What a high pressure scam. Anyway, we stayed the required time and when the guy took us off to "close the deal" I whipped the listings out of my pocket and said "Look at this! I can get a better deal on a better resort for $1!". The poor salesman just stood there with his mouth opened then finally said they would have our complimentary tickets at the desk thanks for attending.

[hosh]

My wife and I signed. It was exhausting. I did a token effort at looking at the contract and found the recension clause they had to include as required by law. When I asked about it, the way everyone else froze in that moment and then tried to downplay it stuck in my mind, but we were too exhausted and finished the paperwork.

Immediately upon walking out and got to a local restaurant, my wife and I looked at each other and knew we made a mistake. We ended up looking up how to give notice for the recension and was able to execute it (even though their office was closed for the weekend; it was a good thing I've written and executed business contracts before). (For those curious, you state that you are giving notice of recension for the new property; and then you send it in at least three different ways in accordance to the contract, and get paper trail for each of those ways to prove that you sent them).

It's how I knew about how people get trapped into this through property laws that normally protect property owners.

Since then, I've let myself get impolite at timeshare salesmen. The high pressure sales start at those tables, even before you get invited for the pitch. They abuse the tendency for civil people to be polite and redirect civility to continue the pitch. (And the slickest of them will guilt trip you on being nasty to explain yourself ... at which they can keep pitching ...)

[Loughla]

They use your good nature against you.

We get free vacations by sitting through timeshare presentations. The trick is to get the timeframe in writing before you go. And to only tell them your name, and repeating the phrase, "we will not sign any contract or agreement."

Literally say nothing else.

We've been to Cancun, Hawaii, Minnesota, and Colorado for weeks for free doing this.

[hattmall]

What would happen if you just don't go to the presentation? Do you get charged for the stay?

[Loughla]

Usually there's a penalty on top of the cost of the hotel.

You really have to be selective, and read the fine print, though. Often they try to make you pay fees for the free room, and the fees almost equal the cost of the room. Read everything, and be sure you can say no to people before you even think about doing this.

[ceejayoz]

Yes. At exorbitant rates.

[rdtsc]

I like toying with them as well. Got some tickets and tours from 30 min playing with those goofballs. But it’s not for the faint of heart. My wife plays the good cop and I am the bad cop. Even though I am soft spoken and kind of shy. They don’t know what to make of us and just throw the whatever they’ve promised at us look away in the end.

[bluGill]

I've been told the other trick is to turn to your spouse and say "I don't know honey, we would have to sell the RV". They know people never sell the RV and so they will let you out the door as it is a waste of their time. (You don't need an RV, you just need them to think you have an RV.)

Note if you are thinking about an RV, rent them. A timeshare is a better deal than buying an RV for most people, even though timeshares are scams and RVs are not.

[pyuser583]

I’ve seen the same “civility trap” with other salesmen. It’s truely dispicable.

[zo1]

Another example, although less palatable, is beggers. Not the obvious poor kind but the ones that approach you at a parking lot or gas station, with some sob story while being dressed relatively neat and not "hobo" like. They abuse polite good nature ontop of the guilt. As a young adult I realized I can't help everyone in the world and learned to tell them no. As an older adult I unfortunately don't even look their way anymore and just shake my head. They know what this means and like a good shakedown artist they move on to the next mark because it's a numbers game.

The stats here in South Africa are shocking. Some beggars here make more money than genuine workers. And they even have "turf wars" over the lucrative begging spots and busy intersections.

[jkaplowitz]

Good for you to get out of it in time! I nearly got tricked into signing myself, but did a bit of research during a bathroom visit, had the contract in front of me, and stopped myself when I saw the same red flags in the contract that people warned about online.

Small vocabulary correction: the term for what you did to get out of it, and the clause that allowed you to do so, is recission, not recension.

[nemo44x]

We went to a pitch once since we got like $100 or something. We had 0 intention of signing anything since we are of the opinion time shares at worst are a scam and at best just not for us. The sales guy was so pushy it was comical. I finally stopped him:

“I want to be clear, we aren’t buying this. We have 0 intent here”

He looked at me puzzled and said:

“Why would you waste an hour of your vacation? For $100? You’re just wasting your vacation for that?!”

Getting really upset and slightly personal. I had to respond

“We wanted to see how big a scam these really are and I can’t believe you find suckers that sign on”

He was pretty upset and said the front desk has our gift and huffed out.

[vkou]

> Since then, I've let myself get impolite at timeshare salesmen. The high pressure sales start at those tables, even before you get invited for the pitch. They abuse the tendency for civil people to be polite and redirect civility to continue the pitch. (And the slickest of them will guilt trip you on being nasty to explain yourself ... at which they can keep pitching ...)

Treat them as you would any other predator, like a lion, a grizzly bear, or a mugger. Because that's what they are.

[swores]

Did you pause to wonder if you could think of even a single way of behaving that would be equally appropriate when confronted with a timeshare salesman as with a mugger, or with a grizzly bear?

I mean, I guess running away as fast as you can would technically count but in that case I'd suggest there are more fun ways to get exercise and easier ways to get rid of an annoying salesman...

[lupusreal]

If you run they'll chase you. Yell loudly at them until they run away. Bear spray is also a good idea. I'm talking about timeshare salesmen of course.

[ciropantera]

Yeah I also got dragged into one of those while on vacation in a timeshare property in exchange for some tour tickets. The tactics are truly despicable. They insisted that me and my wife shouldn't talk to each other in our language because "it's not polite". We didn't speak the local language very well (although we could understand it), so this was obviously to keep us from talking to each other and be more vulnerable. They tried to waste as much of our time as possible in the hopes that we just sign the damn contract to get rid of them and enjoy our vacation.

I'd never heard of timeshare back then, but luckily the deal sounded really bad anyway and we were very adamant on not making any decisions under pressure even if it meant losing this "once in a lifetime offer". In the end they begrudgingly gave our tickets to the tours and ushered us out.

[lupire]

The real reason people "fall" for these pressure scams is that law enforcement will not help protect the victim against the predator, but because the victim is upstanding citizen but the predator is not, the predator or law enforcement will harm the victim if the victim tries to actively defend themselves against the predator.

[panarky]

People who are gullible enough to buy shady timeshares are gullible for other scams too.

[hosh]

You can be not gullible, and they will find some way to get at you. Like to argue? They will jujutsu that. Think you are too intelligent to fall for this? They'll use that. If you find a trick that works, they learn and adapt.

Best way is to walk away. Easier said than done for a lot of people.

Robert Greene has a book about this. In one of the examples, he talked about a scammer trying to scam Henry Ford. Ford had no imagination. The scammer failed. Most people are not a Henry Ford.

[bawolff]

> Think you are too intelligent to fall for this?

Thinking you are too smart to ever fall for something is a sure sign that you are probably a good victim.

[talldatethrow]

I sold cars for a decade in the SV area. The amount of times I've seen engineers, lawyers, accountants, doctors and higher level executives make errors is pretty high. No one is 100% ON all the time.

The amount of times I watched very financially conscious people explain to me that they want to lease and then buy their vehicle afterwards, yet forget about sales tax during the buyout after lease end is comical. They were always surprised that even with a high money factor a lease to purchase still paid off...... Depending on how nice they were I would sometimes show them what the forgot.

[BenjiWiebe]

I read this over and over again, and I'm not sure I believe it.

Or maybe the correct wording for my own case is that I'm too skeptical/cynical to fall for something.

But it could be smarts too, because I enjoy learning about scams.

[bombcar]

I remember reading that there were entire product lines that omit you ever bought one mail order you were forever on the lists of “suckers who buy nose hair trimmers mail order” and they passed those lists around like candy.

[Johnny555]

'I understand sending money the first time, but how do you still fall for it the 6th time they ask you to send more money?'.

I think that falls under the "sunk cost fallacy". Like they are thinking "Well, I've invested so much money already and I'm so close to the payoff now, I may as well send a little more"

[e40]

I listened to that podcast. I remember being really frustrated with the ex-cop and thinking there were so many red flags. I wonder if it really unfolded as presented.

[jancsika]

> I mean, I do understand that it's easy to sit there and think 'I understand sending money the first time, but how do you still fall for it the 6th time they ask you to send more money?'.

Such an assumption would show a clear lack of empathy, no? Esp. on HN where nearly all are familiar with data-mining and relentless targeting of people based on data.

Time share companies are notoriously aggressive in their sales pitch. So "the set of people who bought time shares" already selects for people who have a much higher propensity to send money to these scammers, even multiple times. And upon being scammed, they probably also get their data sold to hundreds other scammers and get stuck in a recursive loop of scam attempts at a much higher rate than the average HN-er.