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Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

thehustle.co

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Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#291

Post by logfromblammo »

birdman3131 wrote: post #265
gregpilling wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real scam is the ongoing, monthly, maintenance fees on your 'timeshare'. Worldmark wanted $100 per month, per week of ownership, in a presentation I saw in Vegas. Which means that 52 weeks x $100 x 12 months = $62,400 per year in 'maintenance' on each unit. So even if you paid cash, they still get $62K per year in addition. This was Worldmark Vegas, buying a 'week' in a townhouse complex of $150,000 units. The mo…

52 weeks x $100 x 12 months = $62,400 is wrong. The 52 weeks means the 12 months should not be there. 52 weeks x $100 = $52,00

If the unit has been chopped up such that all 52 weeks of the share have been sold, then a combination of people will be paying $100 per week of ownership, every month. Your share of the monthly maintenance is allocated by the number of weeks you "own".

You aren't just paying maintenance for the week that belongs to you. Original calculation of $62400 is correct. Part of the scam is obfuscating from you the true costs of the deal.

If the 52 week-owners knew each other, and could all afford the costs of the share in the first place, they could conceivably form their own LLC, cut out the timeshare company middleman, pay $10k each up front for week-length shares in a $520000 property, and cut their maintenance fee in half, to $50 per share per month (assuming 5% upkeep/utilities/taxes per year). They could even rent out any unused weeks on AirBnB to cut the maintenance charges, or even pay out distributions.

The timeshare people are making bank on the fact that getting up to 52 people to spontaneously come together in a common cause is extremely unlikely. You need a prime mover organizing the whole thing, who is ideally positioned to profit from information asymmetry.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#292

Post by floatrock »

logfromblammo wrote: post #278
technofiend wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a furniture salesman here in Houston who makes heavy use of that sort of promotion. His latest if you spend $3,000 on a mattress and the Astros win the "2018 baseball final championship series" you'll be refunded the purchase price. Not sure why it's worded so formally; must be a legal thing.

$3000 on a mattress? WTF? How is that even possible for such a highly commoditized good?

Freakonomics podcast did an episode on it: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/mattress-store-bubble/

That's also exactly why Casper and a half dozen other upstarts have come out with the memory-foam mailed-to-you-in-a-vacuum-tube online mattress sales.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#293

Post by shoo »

logfromblammo wrote: post #278
technofiend wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a furniture salesman here in Houston who makes heavy use of that sort of promotion. His latest if you spend $3,000 on a mattress and the Astros win the "2018 baseball final championship series" you'll be refunded the purchase price. Not sure why it's worded so formally; must be a legal thing.

$3000 on a mattress? WTF? How is that even possible for such a highly commoditized good?

I do agree.

Mattress sellers love the value based sales pitch: how much would you pay for 1 hour extra sleep per night? Maybe paying $10/hour for extra sleep for one year is a bargain in some contexts, then you have a payback period of < 1 year, even for a ridiculously overpriced mattress.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#294

Post by seymour333 »

I worked in one of these call centers just after high-school. Not even a molecule of ethics existed in the entire company. My job involved getting yelled at by people who were sick of getting calls from dozens of different companies, and occasionally talking with someone gullible enough to come in for a sales meeting, who would then yell at everyone involved once they discovered they had been duped.

I can't remember exactly, but I think I eventually got fired because I started to deviate from the script. Sometimes being honest with people, and sometimes trolling angry people. It was a horrible job.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#295

Post by schoen »

dpiers wrote: post #250
technofiend wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a furniture salesman here in Houston who makes heavy use of that sort of promotion. His latest if you spend $3,000 on a mattress and the Astros win the "2018 baseball final championship series" you'll be refunded the purchase price. Not sure why it's worded so formally; must be a legal thing.

Terms like “Super Bowl” and “World Series” are trademarked, so advertisers use phrases like “the Big Game” or “baseball final championship series”, in this case, to avoid a lawsuit.

I wonder why it wouldn't be nominative fair use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use

Maybe I have to learn more about this doctrine.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#296

Post by andromeduck »

Bartweiss wrote: post #239
sanderjd wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem here is information asymmetry. The market for these time share schemes is very inefficient because the sales people have more information on both the value and cost than the customers. This is why people commenting here who have out of band information about this were unpersuaded despite finding the pitch emotionally compelling / exhausting. Regulations to require earlier and less subtle cost disc…

> The biggest problem here is information asymmetry. This gets to the heart of a question I've always had about unfettered markets, and never seen answered. It's widely acknowledged that markets don't just satisfy demand, they also transfer information. If you know something other people don't, you can make money, but in doing so you'll gradually disperse your unique knowledge until it's no longer valuable. (Either d…

That's also how evolution works.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#298

Post by munificent »

logfromblammo wrote: post #278
technofiend wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a furniture salesman here in Houston who makes heavy use of that sort of promotion. His latest if you spend $3,000 on a mattress and the Astros win the "2018 baseball final championship series" you'll be refunded the purchase price. Not sure why it's worded so formally; must be a legal thing.

$3000 on a mattress? WTF? How is that even possible for such a highly commoditized good?

Because it's worth spending money on any product that your spends a third of its life on and which can directly affect your health.

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#299

Post by dpiers »

schoen wrote: post #295
dpiers wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terms like “Super Bowl” and “World Series” are trademarked, so advertisers use phrases like “the Big Game” or “baseball final championship series”, in this case, to avoid a lawsuit.

I wonder why it wouldn't be nominative fair use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use Maybe I have to learn more about this doctrine.

The NFL has aggressively litigated uses of their trademarks, to the point where you might technically be allowed to do something, but realistically it isn’t worth the trouble.

https://www.thedsmgroup.com/super-bowl-trademark-copyright-2...

Re: Why nobody ever wins the car at the mall

#300

Post by nkantar »

logfromblammo wrote: post #278
technofiend wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a furniture salesman here in Houston who makes heavy use of that sort of promotion. His latest if you spend $3,000 on a mattress and the Astros win the "2018 baseball final championship series" you'll be refunded the purchase price. Not sure why it's worded so formally; must be a legal thing.

$3000 on a mattress? WTF? How is that even possible for such a highly commoditized good?

The mattress world—like just about every other, I imagine—is crazy: https://www.gimletmedia.com/surprisingly-awesome/12-mattress...
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