My wife and I were recently in Las Vegas, and we were approached by someone who asked us if we’d be interested in attending a timeshare presentation. I wasn’t really that interested in attending, but when we were told about the free bonuses we would receive for attending the presentation, my wife convinced me to go.

So the experience began with a live presentation, with us sitting down along with an audience in a nearby hotel meeting room, with the presentation being led by a guy who could have been a preacher. He spoke with an old-school, loud sales voice, and he ended a good number of his statements to the audience with the words, “Can I get an amen?”

So right away, this was my first warning sign.

Then after his presentation we were led into another area where we met with a woman who was one of their salespeople, and her approach was definitely much better. She seemed kind, delightful, and considerate, and then the negotiations began…

I went into this entire experience having no interest whatsoever in buying, and then they began making it a bit more interesting for us. Their original asking price for the timeshare was $9,995.00, considerably less than the $20,000.00 to $25,000.00 typically charged by the major hotel chains for their own timeshare programs, but by the time we were done with the negotiations, I had gotten the price down to $2,995.00, and had gotten them to throw in two separate 4-day, 3-night trips to Hawaii and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, including airfare for two, as part of the deal.

The excitement was definitely building, as I had no idea whatsoever in the beginning that they would eventually be willing to make this kind of a deal, and I began thinking that the trips to Hawaii and Mexico alone would have us recoup a good percentage of the $2,995.00 purchase price. But having been in our industry for a long time, and having learned to pay attention to my intuition, I sensed that this deal was really just too good to be true.

And of course, that $2,995.00 price was only good if I took action and moved forward before walking out of their sales offices.

So I got a sudden flash of intuition, and picked up my cell phone to search for people’s reviews on this company’s timeshare program, and voila, the Yelp page came up for it, showing me many one-star reviews, with people complaining that they had great difficulty in booking their timeshare vacations through this company, and that oftentimes they couldn’t even get anyone to talk to them on the telephone. In addition, people were saying they wished they had never, ever signed up for this company’s timeshare program.

I then showed these reviews on my phone to the salesperson, and told her there was no way that I could move forward with a company that had received these kinds of reviews, and she gave me no argument in response to this whatsoever, got out of her chair, and our meeting was then over.

So once again, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Pay attention to your intuition and do your homework in these situations, and when you do, you’ll most likely discover that your best move will simply be to walk away from what’s been presented to you.