Just like the human body, we all need certain things in order to survive. Things like food, water, shelter are all necessary to our survival. The same holds true for a timeshare resale company, without certain necessities these companies could no longer survive as a business. Today we are going to show you what these necessities are and just how important they are to a timeshare resale company. Many timeshare owners who have been contacted by a timeshare resale company are unaware of many of the things we are about to uncover. As always, we are here to educate the general public on the timeshare resale industry and how some of these shady operations are in business.
Timeshare Merchant Account
Without a merchant account, a timeshare resale company would be unable to process credit cards. In come cases this can also include electronic checks that their merchant account would also handle. Not all merchant accounts will process all four major credit cards, which are Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover. Some timeshare resale companies have multiple merchant accounts in order to process all four of these major credit cards. Another reason a timeshare resale company would have multiple merchant accounts is to lower their charge back percentage. If they process 100 credit cards through one merchant account and receive 15 charge backs, their charge back percentage would be 15%. However, if that timeshare resale company has 3 different merchant accounts, they would disperse those 100 charges throughout the three different accounts.
You may be asking yourself why would they do that? The answer is simple. It would LOWER their charge back percentage greatly which in return keeps them from having that merchant account frozen or even closed for good. Each merchant account has a charge back ratio or percentage they would like you to stay under. It could be as low as 3% or as high as 12%, going above the limited amount can run that timeshare company into trouble with that specific merchant company. This is why MOST timeshare resale companies will run their sales through different merchant accounts to prevent their charge back percentage from getting to high.
Another reason a timeshare resale company would have several different merchants accounts is it gives them a backup if one was to be frozen or even closed down. If they only have one merchant account and it gets locked up (money is frozen and will not be released right away) or even shut down for good, they would be in a world of hurt. They could not pay their sales people the commissions they earned on each sale or pay bills.
Finally you have the problem of space, once you run out you better find another place to put your things. When it comes to a merchant account, you are given so much “space” on your account to process with. That space equals money, the more space you have the more credit cards you can process. So with several merchant accounts you have a lot more space which gives you the means to process even more credit cards and potentially make more money.
Target The Merchant Account
The timeshare resale industry is high risk with all of the fraud that has been happening over the years, so getting a merchant account that will actually last is quite hard. Industries like online gambling, porn, and pills are all considered “high risk” and only certain companies will process your credit cards. Imagine if the timeshare resale industry was in that class of companies? It would make it that much harder to even get a merchant account for that business to start. Yes they are sales people and can talk their way around things like we are an advertising company, we do online marketing, etc. In order to get a merchant account, they bank wants to see a functioning website first before they will approve you. Now, when a customers credit card is charged, why not display the website address on their credit card statement? If it does not match up with the website that was filed with the merchant account it could cause problems for that timeshare resale company. Plenty of other ideas to make this work, but we will save that for another day.
Timeshare Resale Leads
Timeshare resale leads are like any other lead, they contain contact information for the company to call. That information can be just your name, telephone number, email address or more in depth to include your full address, resort(s) that you own, best time to call, etc. These leads are like food for a timeshare resale company, without them they will starve to death.
In order for a timeshare resale company to make money, they need leads and they need them fresh on a daily or even weekly basis depending on how many sales people they have working for them. The more leads they have the better, or so they think… Many timeshare resale companies use what is called in the industry as a “cold call list” or an “owners list”. These lists are made of up names of timeshare owners which can be purchased through a list broker, timeshare resale company who has gone out of business or the illegal way of buying from a shady employee at a timeshare resort. That shady employee steals the data and sells them to the timeshare resale company for them to call through.
Imagine if you put a wrench in a timeshare resale companies lead source? Better yet what if that lead source started to dry up or even went away completely? You guessed it, they would have to either resort to something else or close up shop since they have no new people to call and try to make sales to.
Sales People
If you live in a major city, grab your penny saver and their might be a good chance you will see an ad in there of a timeshare resale company promoting the great pay (Thousands per week). The pay is only great if the company has good leads and merchant accounts that they are in good standing with. Many timeshare resale companies turn and burn through sales people because either that person could not make any money, realized the job was a joke, the company was a scam or left to go to another timeshare resale company (which is very common in the industry).
Take away their sales people and you are taking another key piece of the puzzle away. It does not matter how much money they can run each month through their merchant account or how many leads they can pass out to the sales people. If their are no sales people to make the calls, no money is being made by the company.
Conclusion
Yes their could be other things like telephone lines, domain names, website hosting and office space. Getting those problems fixed are a lot easier then the three mentioned above. Why does law enforcement not target some of the key elements or act faster on how some of these timeshare resale companies operate? Companies put themselves out of business after a good six month run, just to open up shop across town under a new name. They rinse and repeat to keep the money flowing. Target some of their needs and you truly could cripple not just the company, but the industry as a whole.
Selling My Timeshare is about educating the public about how timeshare resales work and what timeshare resale scams to avoid. If you have been scammed by a timeshare resale company, please let us know or search for them and leave your story.
