跟讀練習: Why Timeshares Aren’t Worth It - 通過影片學習英語口語

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Nearly 440,000 transactions and $10.5 billion in total industry sales in 2022, a 30% rise in prices in just five years.

That's the timeshare industry.

這就是分時度假行業的現狀。

It was really a post-pandemic winning sector.

這確實是疫情之後的一個明星行業。

It was not incentives or lower prices by any means.

這絕對不是因為激勵措施或者更低的價格。

It was consumers staying at home and consumers having more money and willing to spend it.

原因在於消費者留在家中，手頭有更多資金且願意消費。

Nearly 10 million U.S households own a timeshare.

近1000萬戶美國家庭擁有分時度假房產。

But despite a massive industry and rapid growth in recent years, it all comes with a lot of controversy.

儘管該產業規模龐大，且近年來發展迅速，但它始終伴隨著諸多爭議。

They're not held accountable for what they tell you prior to closing.

他們在交易完成前向你作出的承諾，事後無需承擔任何責任。

So they can boldface lie to you and do whatever they have to do to make the sale.

And who cares if they hurt you?

Websites like Timeshare Users Group and RedWeek.com list timeshares for resale, many of them for free.

But few consumers know about them, and companies rely on that lack of awareness.

The actual reality is that timeshare depreciates between 90 and 100 percent the moment you sign that piece of paper.

And if that were true and common knowledge, or the salesman presented that in the sales presentation, not a single person would buy another timeshare.

This is Sheila Wagner.

She took her first vacation in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee in May of 2020.

During her trip, she was invited to a timeshare presentation with Capital Vacations, one of the largest privately owned timeshare companies in the U.S.

We loved the place we were staying and it was 2020.

So we were told

that they were offering a deal where they would give you double the amount of points for signing up.

For $31,000 and $1,700 in annual maintenance fees, Shilla got 300,000 annual timeshare points.

Traditionally, timeshares have been sold as fixed or floating weeks.

Today, it's mostly a point system.

The industry has made it very, very clear that today's consumer wants flexibility, wants the ability to go different locations each and every year,

and the point model that almost all major developers have adopted reflects that.

Shortly after going back home, Shilla tried to book a trip, and soon realized the destinations that she had hoped for weren't an option.

After many calls with Capital Vacations, she was told she had to upgrade for another $42,000 to be able to use her points in the way that she wanted.

She says Capital Vacations even promised to buy back her points to cover the cost of the upgrade

if she put it on her credit card.

She later found out that wasn't true and had to resort to other measures to pay off her new loan.

Interest rate being 15%, as you can imagine, that's huge.

So the only thing I could do was borrow money from my 401k,

my retirement, to pay off the $42,000 loan.

Her maintenance fees have now surpassed $5,000, well above the national average of nearly $1,200.

I even told Capital if I won the lottery, the first thing I would do is buy their company and fire all of them.

I could retire if I had my money back from this, but I can't retire right now because of this situation that I'm in.

Capital Vacations manages 170 of the roughly 1,500 timeshare resorts nationwide.

Nearly half of the just over 200,000 units in the United States are in Florida, Hawaii, and California.

Some of the biggest hotel brands like Marriott and Hilton have been in the timeshare business since the 80s and 90s.

The timeshare piece of the business, it was smaller, it was arguably less profitable,

more capital intensive, and had a lower growth rate than the hotel business that we know today.

So in 2011, Marriott International spun off its timeshare business.

And in 2017, Hilton and Wyndham followed suit.

Basically, the hotel brand company said, we are the franchisor, we own the brands, let's let someone else, in this case the timeshare companies,

grow our brand on our behalf and they pay us a license fee or a royalty fee to do so.

In 2021, Wyndham Destinations acquired Travel and Leisure, which is now its parent company.

This is just one of the many consolidations that's occurred over the past decade.

Wyndham is going to make about $90 million from TNL,

and that's about 13% of Wyndham's adjusted earnings profile as a combined company.

Hilton, the license fee that HGV pays, is going to be about $140 million,

all variable, and that's about 4.5% of Hilton's earnings.

The largest privately owned timeshare company, Westgate Resorts, has an annual revenue of $1.5 billion.

The 2012 documentary Queen of Versailles spotlighted Jackie Siegel, the wife of David Siegel, founder of Westgate Resorts.

I'm a 43-year-old mother of eight.

...who lives in a 90,000-square-foot home in Florida, modeled after the Palace of Versailles.

I got the private jet experience here in my living room so I could enjoy my cab near our first bus.

According to a study out of the University of Central Florida, 85% of Timeshare owners regret their purchase.

But getting out of one is not easy.

Even when paying off a loan, the owner is perpetually accountable for an ever-increasing maintenance fee fee.

The Better Business Bureau has received over 3,000 complaints for Hilton Grand Vacations, Wyndham Destinations and Marriott Vacations worldwide.

Typically a mortgage company will say sure

if you pay off the loan then you can get out of the timeshare

but the timeshare companies sometimes are also the lending entities

so they own the mortgage and that gives them more flexibilities to

find a way for you to curtail your exit and pay off the mortgage or not all at the same time.

When the housing crisis hit in 2008, Americans owning timeshares felt the pressure.

In a 2009 quarter one earnings call, Marriott said it had $28 million worth of contract cancellations.

Industry-wide, owners defaulting on payments more than doubled from 2007 to 2009.

This pressure gave rise to the timeshare exit industry.

LLCs formed, allowing owners to transfer their unwanted timeshare deeds over for a few thousand dollars.

But many of these exit companies that formed at the height of the financial crisis turned out to be empty shell companies.

The resorts didn't catch wind of this until maintenance.

They realized they were sending 2,000 maintenance fee bills to the same address in Delaware.

And no one's answering the phone.

And so that really just rocked the industry that they've closed

that loophole because it just got absurd and it's actually crippled some of these companies with thousands and thousands of defaulted ownerships.

Timeshare exit companies are still found all over the internet.

But nowadays, Rogers says that the strategy of these exit companies is often just telling owners to default on payments.

And the owner is overjoyed, oh my goodness, I finally got out of my timeshare.

This company did exactly what they told me they were going to do and getting me out of my timeshare, not realizing that all they did was stop paying and roll the dice.

The U.S.

Department of Justice has made efforts to curb exit company scams, like this in November of 2022, or this in Washington state.

Between 2015 and 2021, personal finance author and radio host David Ramsey allegedly received more than $30 million to promote Timeshare Exit Team,

a company later known as Reed Hyde & Associates.

I've been recommending these guys for the past three years, and I am so confident that they can get you out of your timeshare.

Hein & Associates shut down in 2021.

In April of 2023, Ramsey was sued by his listeners.

And the case is still ongoing.

The major timeshare industry itself did not address this problem early enough to create responsible exit programs for their customers.

This is Tom and Kelly Shriver.

They bought two timeshares in Tennessee.

One in May of 2022 and one in October of 2023 that they soon wanted to get out of.

When contacting a timeshare broker, they were told that their points were worth a fraction of what they paid.

The rescission period where you can cancel a timeshare is dependent on state laws or outlined in the contract itself.

The Shriver's contract with Windham was 10 days.

They took out about $34,000 worth of loans between the two contracts.

The only solution that Windham's exit program offered was I had to pay my timeshare off.

I had to pay $15,500 to them and then whatever else other fees they charge for us to exit out of it.

There are generally three ways to exit a timeshare.

100

The first, either give it away or sell it on resale websites like Timeshare Users Group and RedWeek.com.

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Timeshares are often listed for free, as owners are looking to unburden themselves from the maintenance fees.

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No situation where buying a new timeshare from the resort is the best choice for you.

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It became common knowledge that the resale market existed, and not only that, but the resale depreciation is almost 100% in so many cases.

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The industry would just, I don't want to say it would collapse, but it would certainly fundamentally change overnight.

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The FTC warns of timeshare resale scams, where owners are contacted by a company offering to sell their timeshare.

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They collect an upfront fee and then disappear.

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The second option for exiting is a deed-back program, where certain timeshare companies will work with you to take it back.

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I'll use Disney as the gold standard because that's what I think it is.

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They're so brand conscious.

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Hilton is the same.

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Marriott is the same.

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They want to get rid of the clutter on the internet reduces their brand value.

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The older legacy resorts have a different set of economic problems where if they let you out of a timeshare,

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I'm going to have to pay more to offset your loss of income.

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If you have paid off the loan and only owe maintenance fees, a final option could be defaulting on payments.

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But this comes with risks like foreclosure.

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And I know sometimes timeshare companies will talk about, well if you do that we'll send a letter ruining your credit.

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That sounds like a good scare tactic.

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It works with a lot of older couples because they grew up in a depression era where they didn't have credit.

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So when they got it, they want to keep it.

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Very, very rare and almost unheard of for a timeshare, whether deeded or not, to come after an owner for unpaid maintenance fees.

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It's a coin flip whether they'll report it to the credit agencies.

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If you're defaulting on a loan, that's a much different matter.

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And the person coming after you for the loan is the lender.

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The Shriver said that they were ready to default on their Wyndham loan entirely.

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I've even thrown around the idea of bankruptcy.

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But the thing is, is this, is the, it's the principle of the whole thing.

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I'm not giving them money because of the way they went about what they did.

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That's when they decided to contact the Attorney General's office in October of 2023 as a last-ditch effort.

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About two months later, Wyndham sent them an email to confirm the cancellation of their contract, releasing them of all financial obligations.

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Hilton Grand Vacations, Marriott Vacations Worldwide, Wyndham Destinations, and Capital Vacations declined or did not respond to CNBC's request for a comment or an interview.

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If you do decide on attending a timeshare presentation, the FTC recommends researching the company before going into it

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and asking the salesperson why today is the only day they can offer you that deal.

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Understand your ability to cancel the contract and read through the paperwork on your own before committing.

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It's hard enough to make your living now with the cost of everything

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and just paycheck to paycheck and living in this world right now,

137

let alone having people like that take advantage of you.

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本課的詞彙與口語要點

這段影片共有 137 個句子、1963 個單詞可供跟讀。講話部分時長為 11:57。說話人語速自然，每分鐘約 164 個詞，接近日常對話。只有 80% 的單詞屬於英語最常用的 3,000 詞，詞彙難度較高。

影片中的重點詞彙

影片中 15 個值得學習的單詞，附發音和釋義：

單詞	發音	釋義
exit 名詞	/ˈɛɡzət/	離開 /離開, 退場 /退場
resort 名詞	/ɹɪˈzɔɹt/	度假勝地 /度假勝地, 度假村
default 名詞	/dɪˈfɔlt/	違約 /違約, 暴雷
destination 名詞	/dɛstɪˈneɪʃən/	目的地
mortgage 名詞	/ˈmoɹ.ɡɪd͡ʒ/	抵押, 抵押貸款 /抵押貸款
earnings 名詞		收益, 收入
deed 名詞	/diːd/	行為 /行為
cancel 動詞	/ˈkæn.sl̩/	劃, 勾
retire 動詞	/ɹəˈtaɪɹ/	退休, 引退
scam 名詞	/ˈskæm/	詭計 /詭計, 騙局 /騙局
accountable 形容詞	/əˈkaʊntəbl̩/	有責任的 /有責任的, 有解說義務的 /有解說義務的
cancellation 名詞	/kænsəˈleɪʃən/	取消
occur 動詞	/əˈkɜː/	發生 /發生
founder 名詞	/ˈfaʊ̯n.dəː/	創辦人 /創辦人, 創立者 /創立者
awareness 名詞	/əˈwɛɹ.nəs/	意識 /意識, 覺悟 /覺悟

影片中出現的短語動詞

單詞	釋義
buy back 動詞	買回 /買回, 回購 /回購
find out 動詞	找出, 查明
go back 動詞	回去, 返回
sign up 動詞	報名 /報名, 註冊 /註冊

影片中的語法

說話人最常用的結構，並附上影片中的原話：

結構	影片中的用法
條件句 if + 從句，will/would + 動詞 — 條件及其結果	if you do that we'll send
現在完成時 have/has + 過去分詞 — 過去發生但與現在仍有關聯的事	have been sold · has made · have adopted
被動語態 be + 過去分詞 — 強調發生了什麼，而不是誰做的	was invited · were told · have been sold

需要注意的發音

說話人用了 19 次縮略和弱讀形式，例如 I'm, didn't, I've。請按聽到的簡短形式來說。

“sh” 和 “zh” 音: destination /dɛstɪˈneɪʃən/, presentation /ˌpɹɛzn̩ˈteɪʃn̩/, cancellation /kænsəˈleɪʃən/, shortly /ˈʃɔɹtli/, ownership /ˈoʊnɚʃɪp/
長單詞——注意重音位置: destination /dɛstɪˈneɪʃən/, flexibility /ˌflɛksɪˈbɪlɪti/, cancellation /kænsəˈleɪʃən/, documentary /ˌdɒk.jʊˈmɛn.tɹi/, controversy /kənˈtɹɒv.ə.si/

如何用這段影片練習

先完整聽一遍影片，不要開口，記下不認識的單詞。
先用 0.75 倍速逐句跟讀，熟練之後再回到正常速度。
錄下自己的聲音並與原聲對比，特別注意 exit, resort, default 這類單詞。

什麼是跟讀法？

跟讀法 (Shadowing) 是一種有科學依據的語言學習技巧，最初開發用於專業口譯員的培訓，並由多語言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。這個方法簡單而強大：您在聽英語母語原聲的同時立即大聲重複——就像是一個延遲1-2秒緊跟說話者的影子。與被動聽力或語法練習不同，跟讀法強迫您的大腦和口腔肌肉同時處理並模模擬實的講話模式。研究表明它能顯著提高發音準確性，語調，節奏，連讀，聽力理解和口語流利度——使其成為雅思口語備考和真實英語交流最有效的方法之一。

影子跟讀法: 閱讀完整分步指南 →

跟讀練習: Why Timeshares Aren’t Worth It - 通過影片學習英語口語

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