Summary: Empire Properties And Management is fake.  They will not sell your timeshare, and will not return your money.

Specifically, I mean:

I was cold called by John Simpson in early December, claiming to already have a buyer for my timeshare.  I just needed to sign some documents.  It sounded so easy.

A cold-call should be alarming – how did they even find out that I own a timeshare?  If timeshare sales were all published, like property sales in the US are, you’d expect to get offers like this all the time.  In over 10 years, this is the first contact I have ever received.

After initial introductions on the phone, I received a “letter of intent” by email.  This letter claimed “We do not charge any upfront fees.”  After signing and faxing the letter back, I received a second document by email titled “Exclusive resale contract”. At this point I started getting suspicious because the price was too good to be true.  $30k for my timeshare?  Most timeshares grant you use of their facilities for a limited duration like 15 years.  Mine is well over 10 years exhausted, so the price seems way too high, since I originally paid much less for it and especially in the current depressed economy.  One quick way to do a sanity check on the price is to do a Google search for “timeshare for sale <<name of your timeshare company>>” and see what other people are selling theirs for. Check the LOW end of the scale, not the high end, because listings are frequently from people who ask too much and never actually sell their property.  Only the low to mid prices are to be considered realistic.

After signing and faxing the “Exclusive resale contract” back, I was contacted by their escrow company “Timeshare Brokerage Firm”.  They wanted 10% or $3k as earnest money wired to a bank in Mexico.  So much for the “no money up front” claim.  At this point I was highly suspicious.  Mexico?  Once anything crosses a national border, legal recourse becomes very difficult.  At this point I started doing in-depth, detailed research. I requested and received business licenses.  Here’s what Empire sent me:

STATE OF COLORADO

DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE

MANAGEMENT SERVICES PROVIDER

BUSINESS LICENSE

REGISTRATION NO. 20111126374

This is to Certify that: COLORADO EMPIRE PROPERTIES AND MANAGEMENT

Located at: 370 17th STREET, SUITE 103, DENVER, CO 80202

having complied with the requirements of THE COLORADO MANAGEMENT SERVICES ACT is hereby registered to engage in the business of providing management services in accordance with and subject to the provisions of said law, unless this registration be otherwise suspended.  This registration must be renewed annually each July 1 by payment of renewal fee and submission of a renewal application.

REGISTRATION VALID FOR THIS NAME ONLY

NON-TRANSFERABLE

Lauren Miller  ADMINISTRATOR

March 1, 2001  ORIGINAL REGISTRATION DATE

Everything is falsifiable.  I could hand you a business card claiming I was president of the United States.  Would you believe it?  How can you verify it?  I searched the Colorado Secretary of State web site for the above registration number and found that the business name and other data on the document did not match.  That’s a very big red flag.

I received the following voice mail from Timeshare Brokerage Firm: “We are licensed by the California Department of Corporations as defined in section 17005.5 of the California Financial Code, license number 963 dash 0766 under our parent company Hallmark Escrow in Irvine”.  That sounds very weird to me; who talks like that?  If you were to ask your house-remodeling general contractor for his license number, he wouldn’t quote you the legal section numbers!  If you look at any other business website that lists their license number, they won’t include the code section either.  They’re trying too hard to sound legitimate.  I checked the CA Dept of Corporations web site, and the license number belongs to Hallmark Escrow.  However, I spoke with Hallmark Escrow, and they had never heard of any of these people or business names.  Conclusion: this is clearly fake!

Lastly, I went back and checked the email headers, and the emails all originated from Mexico.  They have a Colorado business address, and minutes after talking to them on the phone the secretary sends me email from Mexico?  If they’re not physically in the US, it’s difficult to do anything, such as serve a warrant or get a court to issue a cease and desist notice.  I’m definitely not sending them any money.

Other small suspicious details I noted:

  • There is no suite number for either address on any of their documents.  Both addresses are multi-story buildings as tall as 56 floors!  Incomplete addresses isn’t right.
  • The contracts are not signed by hand.  All the documents have an identical signature, as if Photoshop was used to copy & paste the signature.  Not only was it copy & pasted, it was resized to fit on a different sized line.  That’s just not right.

You don’t have to trust what I’m saying.  In fact you should be suspicious.  However, you can perform all of the above verifications yourself: Search for the business and address.  Verify their license numbers with California Dept of Corporations (http://www.corp.ca.gov/).  Verify their license numbers with the Colorado Secretary of State (http://www.sos.state.co.us/biz/).  Call your timeshare, and ask if they think these people are legitimate.

What should you do if you’ve been called by these people?  Report them!

  • The FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center – http://ic3.gov
  • Denver, CO Better Business Bureau – http://denver.bbb.org
  • Los Angeles, CA Better Business Bureau – http://www.la.bbb.org/