My family and I just got back
from Sedona, Ariz., land of pinon-juniper forest, redrock spires
and vortexes said to be spiritual. The only vortex we found,
though, was the one our credit card number went into.
We
headed down to the self-proclaimed “New Age” capital of the West,
thanks to a friend who gave us a free three-day stay at a resort.
All we had to do was sit through a short sales pitch for the
timeshare program.
Our show began at 9 a.m. on the second
day of our stay. Along with another dozen-or-so freeloading
couples, we were herded into a room with expansive windows looking
over a courtyard backed by the area’s trademark sandstone
monoliths. As we entered into the room, each couple was ushered by
a sales person to a small, round table. Once there, like an
orchestrated military movement, the sales pitches began all at
once.
Our personal sales agent was Travis. He was a nice
guy. Young. Intense. Good at what he did. And what he did was for
an hour and a half make us understand why we, as a traveling
family, would be morons and child abusers for not buying into this
program. He then brought out a personal photo album of him and his
pretty fiancée in Hawaii on their own recent timeshare
excursion.
“Don’t you want to spend quality time
with your kids?” he concluded with the sincerity and intensity of a
minister.
Yes. I did. Right then, in fact. But our kids
were back in the room gorging themselves on sodas, snacks and TV.
Around me, chatter filled the room, dense and energetic. “Buy today
… buy today … buy today.”
Buy today, Travis
continued, urging us, doing us a huge favor, because there were
extras being offered right now and only now; in fact, if we were to
leave this room, the only thing we’d ever again be eligible
for was the standard package at the retail rate. Corks popped
around us as other couples signed on the dotted line and celebrated
with little bottles of champagne.
It may have been the
excellent and endless free coffee setting fire to my cerebral
cortex, but … there was an alluring reasoning unfolding here.
At its best, this time-share deal seemed a brilliant, albeit
for-profit, worldwide commune, a kind of capitalistic socialism for
travelers.
Of course, at its worst, it was $14,000 worth
of advance hotel reservations. But Sarah and I couldn’t get
enough space alone to discuss these concerns because Travis kept
interrupting our deliberations with sweeteners: Two free airline
tickets? A free week of lodging? No fees the first year? And more
coffee?
Our kids called our cell phone. How much longer
would we be?
“Just a few minutes,” I whispered gruffly
into the phone, feeling the “average to high stress” Travis had
scribbled secretly, yet clearly, on the top of the interview form,
about us, I assumed.
“They sound like great kids,” Travis
cooed, as I pocketed the phone and sat back down.
It
sounds insane now, but before we left that room we put a fat
deposit on our credit card. Actually, it sounded insane then, too.
And so that night was one of tense, awkward hours filled with a
mildly psychotic blend of giggling and soft whimpering. Finally, we
called a lawyer friend who, after he stopped laughing, did some
quick research and found that Arizona has a seven-day contract
rescission law, just for suckers like us. It should even be written
into the contract, he added.
We looked again. It was.
Right above our signature.
Right then I understood how
old folks get swindled out of their savings. How kids get sucked
into cults. How 25 years earlier I had gotten conned out of my
money after only 15 minutes in New York City. How skilled
salespeople make their living.
Still, it’s hard to
blame Travis and his time-share shilling compatriots. We signed the
contract, willingly, earnestly. I’ll admit that I even feel
some admiration for Travis. He was good at what he did. And I know
my wife and I learned some helpful, important lessons about
ourselves and the big scary world out there.
Given those
positives, maybe this predatory hard-selling has a function in
natural selection. Maybe these time-share sales people are like
hyenas or dingoes, performing their own Darwinian culling of the
dumb, the weak and the confused from the economic herd, and thereby
strengthening the survivors.
Maybe. All I know is, I hope
my wife and I evolved.
Ken Wright is a
contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High
Country News (hcn.org). He writes in Durango,
Colorado.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
