"micky" wrote in message
On Fri, 23 Dec 2011 13:02:53 -0500, "Robert Green"

stuff snipped

"free" timeshare weekends where if they could, they would waterboard
people
to get them to buy.

I went with a friend who was pestered by land sellers in the Pocono
mountains in eastern Pa. (I was pestered by them too, made an
appointment, rushed home that day, and they never showed up, probably
when they r ealized where in Brooklyn I lived.) Anyhow, t his was
about 1973 and to make things interesting I asked, "How do you feel
about homosexuals?" It was impromptu. I I didnt' ask my friend first
if he minded. but he kept quiet even though we're both straight.

Anyhow, the salesman had just driven us to the sales office,
eventually to be the "clubhouse", and he went inside and came back in
a few mintues and said "This is Maurice. He's homosexual too". I
think if I had said, How do you feel about Serbs" he woudl have
brought out the same guy and introduced him as Slobidan.

(-: They are the masters of the hard sell. When I was writing an article
about them for the National Observer there was one seller who took me aside
after I peppered him with a list of prepared questions about all the
downsides of the timeshare arrangement. He didn't figure out I was a
reporter, but he did say "You don't have to stay for the presentation - I
get the feeling no matter what we say, you're not going to buy." He got
that right.

I don't know how many lots they sold but I went back 11 years later
and the developer had gone bankrupt, there was no shopping center or
even a grocery at the entrance, so shopping was miles away, and only
10 or 15% of the lots had houses. My friend said they were charging
more per square foot for the land than property on the north shore of
Long Island.

Jeez. My uncle, who designed jet fighters for Republic and Grumman, ended
up buying a lot in Florida that turned out to be mostly swampland. A
friend's father, a police sergeant in Chicago ended up buying a lot
consisting of mostly ancient volcanic rock smack dab in the middle of
Nowheresville, Arizona. All te same promises were made accompanied by an
"artist's impression" of what the completed development looked like. My
friend even wasted money checking it out. It's still an old lava plain with
not a house in sight.

I experience buyer's remorse at a very early age, spending my allowance on a
deck of magic playing cards that weren't so magic one you knew the secret.
Since then, I've bought very little that's left me thinking "why on earth
did I buy that?" (-:

--
Bobby G.