The first call came in December 2011. It was a real estate broker from Mexico offering an exciting opportunity: A buyer wanted to pay Stephen, a financial manager from the Midwest, $65,000 for his timeshare in Cancún – far more than the $47,000 he had spent on it six years earlier.
Stephen agreed. He loved his two-bedroom condo, with its view of the Caribbean and an entrance lined floor to ceiling in marble. The concierge treated his family like royalty.
“We felt like kings and queens,” Stephen said.
He had originally bought two weeks a year so his children could spend time near the ocean. As they grew older and joined sports teams, there was less and less time for family vacations.
The telemarketer’s call seemed fortuitous.
But there was one catch: Stephen – then 54 – would have to first cover a Mexican federal tax of $3,900 that would be held in escrow, and credited back to him when the deal closed.
Looking back, that was the first sign that he was getting duped by a telemarketing scam, one that would end up costing him nearly $1.8 million as he tried time and again to sell his timeshare.
“It’s almost like an addiction,” said Stephen, who asked that only his first name be used because he doesn’t want his employer to know. “I kept thinking the next person was going to help me get out of it.”
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