Six Million People Can't Be Wrong

Yesterday, Joe and I researched a fantastic opportunity to take advantage of an offer to become owners of resort property in Lake Tahoe. In exchange for looking into this fantastic opportunity, we received $150 and a free vacation at the San Luis Bay Inn.

If you have not personally experienced the fun that is sitting through a time share presentation, I highly recommend it. The experience lasted a little over 90 minutes and has provided us with hours of reflective amusement. This was only our second presentation, but I'm strongly considering making it a hobby to attend these things, flummox salespeople with our innate cheapness, and collect cash. There are those who will argue it's not worth it, but where else are you going to earn $100 an hour with no work on your part?

Their sales tactic are oldies, but goodies. The first was the "make us feel like old friends" method, which began when Jade told us that we didn't "have to be open-minded, just honest" and she promised that even if we didn't buy today, "we'd still walk out of here friends." Because we were such good buddies when the pitch started? A more honest comment might have been, "I'll let you walk out of here without actually hurling insults at you for being cheap, close-minded, and soulless."

I particularly liked the attempts to make me feel smarter than the average presentation-attendee, such as when I attempted to shorten a complicated explanation of points and maintenance fees with "Basically, every 500 points costs an extra $40 maintenance fee."

Ross, the "numbers guy," stared in open admiration. "Wow, that's a good observation. Its actually $0.08001045003 per point. Are you in finance or something?" Because it takes a degree in finance to read a chart that says 1500 points $450, 2000 points $490, 2500 points $530 and make the brilliant deduction that every 500 points = $40/year.

But some of our favorite lines from the afternoon included this gem, "Six million people can't be wrong," again because, really? I'm not only sure they can, but quite frequently have been.

And another one that we're still scratching our heads over is "It's not a decision, it's a choice." This wasn't some throw away line, either, it's clearly scripted and was repeated frequently by more than one person. After describing some new fabulous component of ownership, Jade would comment, "When you make your decision. . . well, it's not a decision, really, it's a choice you make . . ." Huh?

We ran through a few of the old standards as well, "My boss doesn't really like me showing you this, and when he sees my book, I'm going to get in trouble. . ." and "This opportunity is only available today. Once you walk out of here, you won't be able to get this $3000 discount."

A $3000 discount on a $24,000 purchase at 18% interest for a $337/month payment over ten years! I'm no financial guru, despite Ross's belief to the contrary, but I'm pretty sure you'd end up paying $40,000 plus annual maintenance fees by the time all was said and done. For the opportunity to vacation one week a year at one of 2000 locations.

Of course, when I pointed this out, he was quick to point out that most people didn't keep the 18% interest rate they were offering, they simply rolled it into their mortgage payment and it was only $100+ per month. Again, no financial guru, but at 5.75 percent, that's $42,000 plus maintenance fees over the course of 30 years. For the opportunity to vacation one week a year at one of 2000 locations. Or, $1800 per year (including the fees) for a one-week vacation that we still have to pay transportation costs to get to and pay for food and any activities we might want to do while there.

They didn't appreciate it when I pointed out that our last trip to Las Vegas cost us less than $100/day all-inclusive or that we've averaged $75/night for accommodations for every trip we've ever taken. They tried to play up the quality of the resorts, but when you're talking to people whose dream vacation includes an RV, two dogs, and an unlimited sense of adventure, it's a hard sell.

Of course, the gem of the afternoon came from Ryan our "Quality Assurance" manager. He showed up and claimed he wasn't going to sell us anything, he was just there to ask a few question and make sure Jade had done her job. Okay, we liked Jade, she was more personable than the Hawaii salesman and, honestly? She was good at her job. It wasn't her fault we are literally the least likely people in the world to buy a timeshare on impulse.(Have you spent 6 months researching the best value in cordless phones lately? I rest my case.)

But when he moved into trying one last ditch effort at selling us something, Joe said, "You've moved past quality assurance into outright sales, and we're not going to sit through it." Ryan replied, "Okay, that's fine. Some people are capable of recognizing value when they see it, and some aren't. And you know, that's good for us, they keep the hotel economy going." It was truly difficult to keep from bursting into laughter right at that point.