Donating your Timeshare [WITHOUT GETTING SCAMMED]
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In Mexico, it's really common for timeshare owners to give up on their properties due to the scammer sales people and fraudulent companies flooding the touristic industry.
Nowadays, timeshare cancellation companies are really used to listen to this kind of stories from clients who all they want to do is ditch their timeshares.
Everyone ends up disappointed once they realize it's not like a real estate investment and has no financial benefits.
Are you now having financial problems due to your ownership? Are you trying to avoid rentals or the resale market? We sadly inform you that if you want to donate your timeshare as an exit solution will nor really solve anything.
The typical donating of timeshares scam preys on timeshare owners who may be nearing the end of their cycle of legitimate ownership in their timeshare, and the scam can take many forms, leading owners with false claims that they can make a donation and benefit other people, some of them are the following:
- Donate your timeshare for a cause
- Donate timeshare to charity
- Donate timeshare for a tax deduction
- Donate timeshare to children's orphans
- Among many others...
This Forbes article elaborates on the vage way donation companies invite you to donate your timeshare to charity and the rest of the scam tactics uncovered by the internal revenue service.
And for owners who are already trying to get out of the highly saturated world of the timeshare resale scams.
The "donate timeshare to charity" companies are not too far away from the same fraudulent tactics.
The typical donation of your timeshare for a cause happens as scammers will offer to transfer title to an owner's timeshare, sell the timeshare and put it in their name (almost like the typical timeshare resale scam), and then donate the money from selling to charities like the Salvation Army Foundation or come others like Disabled Veterans Foundation.
Those foundations named before do exist, but sometimes scammers are willing to make one up.
After this, they claim that the owner can receive an annulation on their federal income tax return for the market value of the timeshare. Sounds too good to be true, right? But unfortunately, this is a hoax.
If you investigate and learn about the details, you realize that in order for an owner to donating their timeshare, they first have to transfer title to the timeshare donation company you're doing business with, which will be often posing as a nonprofit.
But actually, the scammers will be collecting around $4000 USD from the owners through a separate processing company, that obviously, it's a profitable organization (which they should not charge any fee) Such organization will try a transfer of title of the unit and other paperwork, claiming it to be legally necessary.
After this, the scam is already done, and owners are promised to recover many times the amount of money collected at the beginning.
Donate Timeshare to Charity: The Consequences
With the scam comes more bad consequences for the owners, such as the following:
It is a rip-off to your pockets
In case you are wondering how much it will cost to donate their timeshare to charity, the reality is that most fraudulent timeshare donation websites are omitting the truth with their statements such as "we help you process timeshares free of charge"
When you take a look into the smaller print that is normally somewhere at the foot of the web page, you'll find another statement or disclaimer which indicates that for some timeshares, they maintain a fee-based program with limited guarantees.
They can motivate you with this: "Call us today to see which donation program your timeshare falls under"
Some owners realize about this too late, when finding out that they are paying thousands of dollars just for donating the timeshares, when in fact, other timeshare owners paid about $3 USD.
Much of the Money Does not Actually go to Charity
If you think your donation will ever matter with one of these companies, think again.
Even if you were to find a timeshare donation company that would send money to a charity, the odds of the charity foundation receiving all the money are low.
A scam website that was recently investigated listed in the page the foundations they supported with timeshare donations, including the American Heart Association, National Foundation for Cancer Research, The Salvation Army and many others. Still, the IRS filing for that company states that since 2010 it generated total revenue of more than $17 million, but donated less than $1.5 million to charity, basically giving less than of the money collected.
And so, charging owners exaggerated prices to supposedly donate their timeshare.
The Double Fraud When you Donate your Timeshare to Veterans
It is now well know that donation for veteran organizations is a great scam that has now been uncovered and now being processed by several state and federal entities.
The veteran's donation is basically the same as the ones we talked about before.
The timeshare donation company will charge the owner a fee of thousands of dollars to supposedly donate the timeshare to veterans, which will never receive the money.
This is considered as a scam not only for the owners but also American veterans, due to the fact that it attempts to help America's veterans and their families through approved charities that are not related to the timeshare industry.
Tax Deductions are not What you Expect
If you think you will actually get a decent tax deduction, you might be surprised with the results.
It was observed during an independent investigation that sales people were posing as appraisers who misled timeshare owners with valuations on their current units that exceeded far more than the actual market value of the timeshare.
This article from the TUG BBS blog, the risks of reaching for a tax deduction.
We advise considering a timeshare cancellation in order to avoid the headaches and financial problems stated before.
Were you planning to donate your timeshare to charity? We understand, since many people want to help others too.
But this might not be the best option available. Now that you know the truth... you might as well look for a legal way to get rid of that ownership that is affecting your finances.
You can always cancel. Take a free consultation with us. We assure you we can help you to rescind from your contract
To receive more information about donating your timeshare, send a WhatsApp to +52 333 239 6589, fill in the form in the contact section or call us at +1 714 277 3662.
