Timeshare owners from Cape Coral targeted by scammers

Michael Piccininni needs to unload a timeshare he bought 17 years ago at a resort in Williamsburg, Va. Piccininni, 75, and his wife who is 78, are stuck paying almost $900 a year in maintenance fees they can't afford for his two-week ownership in the unit.

Scammers can smell the blood in the water and have descended on the Piccininnis and thousands of other stuck timeshare owners who see a glimmer of hope in the empty promises of these con artists.

Piccininni gets calls and postcards weekly at his Cape Coral home from companies that want to sell his timeshare or claim to have a buyer.

"I just got a scam call on Tuesday. He wanted me to pay $900 up front," Piccininni said.

Piccininni said he's fallen for this scam before.

"I'm a desperate man," he said. "And when you are desperate, you do desperate things."

Piccininni said he didn't realize what a burden the lifetime obligation of maintenance fees would be. In fact, if Piccininni hasn't sold before going to the eternal timeshare in the sky, his estate and heirs will be stuck with the fees.

Michael Kohl, of Leesburg, said he's been trying for years to sell a Lehigh Acres timeshare he bought for $3,700 in 1982 for $800. He was living up North at the time and vacationed in Florida.

Kohl said scam operations are always calling to purchase or rent his timeshares (he owns another in Kissimmee), but he's come to realize that an upfront payment is always a scam.

There are thousands of timeshare owners stuck in the same position as Piccininni and Kohl, said Brian Rogers, the owner of Timeshare Users Group.

Rogers described timeshares as a depreciating asset. Resells, especially in this economy, he said, go for pennies on the dollar.

Not all timeshare locations are tough sells, Rogers said, but even the best timeshares in premier weeks over Christmas or Fourth of July will drop 50 percent in price when they come up for resale.

Most people don't realize they can buy timeshares from an owner who no longer wants it for half-price or better than the price offered at the resort, Rogers said.

Piccininni for example, paid $12,000 for his time share. The resort currently sells them for $20,000. But there are three listings on Rogers tug2.net Web site for this resort ranging from one penny to $3,000. Only one sold in the past year, he said, and that was for $900.

Rogers said there are about 2,000 to 3,000 active timeshare listings on his Web site. And in a year, only 10 percent will sell.

Scam operations, he said, are charging anywhere from $500 to $4,000 to list people's timeshares.

"People have discovered this monstrous desperation mindset of these timeshare owners," Rogers said, making them easy targets.

The Florida Attorney General's Office lists 10 timeshare resale operations under investigation. The attorney general has filed lawsuits against three resale companies including two that were charging up to $1,500 for "advertising services" for timeshares that people can't even give away.