Transfer Smart News: Cape Cod Timeshare Owners Accuse a Local Developer of a Scam

For those owners who are trying to get out of their timeshares, one of their main reasons of doing so is due to the costs involved in it. However, some scammers use this as a scare tactic to prey on the unsuspecting victims. Recently, the members of a timeshare resort on Cape Cod are accusing a local developer of muscling in on their treasured vacation spot and bringing in slick out-of-state marketers to con them out of their property deeds.

The developer is Cliff Hagberg who took over the Sandcastle Resort in Provincetown two years ago when everyone agrees the timeshare had gone to seed. According to Hagberg, he's done right by the roughly 4,000 timeshare owners at the resort and he's overseen more than $1 million in repairs to the resort, which included new decks, landscaping and a poolside snack bar. He furher stated that they've literally gone room by room throughout the entire resort and have a detailed list of what each room needs. Moreover, he said that the idea is not to turn the Sandcastle into a Marriott, the idea is to make it the best Sandcastle that it can be. As far as I can tell, there's only good news at the Sandcastle.

Meanwhile, timeshare owners accuse Hagberg and his out-of-state partners of seizing control of the resort and then pressuring people to swap their deeds for membership in another timeshare. As one owners said, if they refused that deal, they were told they would be stuck paying the high cost of renovating the Sandcastle.

There are 49 timeshare owners at the Sandcastle who have filed complaints with the Attorney General's office. They claim Hagberg and representatives of a Texas company called Outfield Marketing of using scare tactics on the owners, convincing many of them that the only way to avoid a financial nightmare with such vacation property was to give up their deeds and pay more than three thousand dollars to join a national timeshare company called Festiva Resorts.