It was only three hours for us, but we were happy we went as well, in part because it was an education in pressures but also because we'd never heard of points system timeshares, which is a concept we really liked the minute we heard about -- but of course, anyone who knows anything about timeshares ought to be able to figure out there's a second hand market(because so many people buy in a regret it, let alone the fact that a lot of people love it for a decade or so and then want to move on), so while we were excited about the product, we weren't about to commit without considerable more research.
a real education in "you deserve it,"
That, and when our first salesman figured out that approach wouldn't work, it was, "Your wife and family deserve it; don't you love your family?" I nipped that in the bud by telling him that if hubby loved me, he wouldn't saddle me with maintenance fees I'd have to pay every year if he suddenly got hit by a bus and I was in charge of supporting the family.
Apparently most wives don't worry about their husbands keeling over in the next year or ten....
I am just amazed that timeshares can be profitable to sell, but it's the kind of people who buy timeshares who'd buy into Trump's school. They're buying the fantasy, is all I can figure. While we hear the most from the unhappy timeshare buyers, a fair percentage of them are perfectly happy with their purchase -- even some people who discover within the first few years what their unit is worth on the secondary market (next to nothing, in mist cases), will shrug and say, "Well, we've had some great vacations, and we never would have gotten it without that push."
When it comes to this sort of thing, the difference between scamming someone and selling a dream is paper thin, it seems, and from what I can tell, Trump was on the legal side of that divide. Trump University was not a business I'd take pride in, but whatever.
I read your recount of your “timeshare” experience yesterday, but time did not permit me to answer - I was heading out the door.
Thank you for taking the time to comment.
It’s a real eye-opener to live through one of these “sessions” and I can see how some are pulled in and place themselves in a dubious financial situation - it can happen to them in many ways.
However, Trump is running to the the president and his character counts - he knew, or darn well should have cared enough to know, that what he told these people was a lie - they did not have wonderful professors and adjunct professors - the best people to teach them how to be successful like himself - it was a boiler room, high presser money extraction scam, where professional pitchmen pushed and pushed these people to take out more and more credit to buy the “classes” that were in the tens of thousands of dollars, and they didn’t get a timeshare where, if nothing else, they had some “fun vacations.” They were fleeced, their credit was ruined and they got nothing (while Trump banked that money).