Charging for contact informationon Redweek.com

I am a current owner at two different resorts and was browsing for another week on redweek. After spending over an hour browsing for the right resort, dates, price etc. I was only them notified that I must pay $9.99 to become a member in order to send an email to the person I wanted to rent from. What a disappointment. I have use many sites which are free to people who wish to rent from owners with no problems. Why do you charge to make contact with owners? I can assume the response will include something regarding "quality and safety" issues, however, MANY web sites do this for free. My apologizes to the owners that I never reached. I will rent from others who list on myresortnetwork.com.

kad2 wrote:

I am a current owner at two different resorts and was browsing for another week on redweek. After spending over an hour browsing for the right resort, dates, price etc. I was only them notified that I must pay $9.99 to become a member in order to send an email to the person I wanted to rent from. What a disappointment. I have use many sites which are free to people who wish to rent from owners with no problems. Why do you charge to make contact with owners? I can assume the response will include something regarding "quality and safety" issues, however, MANY web sites do this for free. My apologizes to the owners that I never reached. I will rent from others who list on myresortnetwork.com.

The nominal fee is to protect Redweek ad owners and their email addresses from scammers, spammers and tire kickers. On most free websites, owner's email addresses are listed in plain site for such parasites to pilfer freely.

jay jay: Unfortunately the "objective" to Protect Advertisers from Scammers is sadly lackng. I have had two adverts for my TS-Units listed with Redweek during the past five months.... The ONLY responses were from persons 'posing' as Interested but actually reps of 'Resaler Firms'... the LOWEST Form of Spamers.

IF I were offered a Choice, it would be to make my own decision if a responder was/is legit or not. My criteria is quit simple.... tell me your Full name, address and telephone number (yes, I shall call) and I will respond in kind so we have as little chance for 'unforseen problems' (or whatever) as posible so YOU have an Enjoyable Vacation in the accomodation I am offering.

I agree with people needing to make their own decision in regard to whether or not a person is "legit" or not. I can only recemmend that people list on myresortnetwork.com as I have rented multiple weeks with no troubles to speak of. I wish the person I wanted to rent from would do it...he/she would have a confirmed rental and money in his pocket!

Let me first clearly state that I do not work for RedWeek, nor do I speak for RedWeek in any way, nor am I authorized to do so at any time on any subject.

That said, I fully support the RedWeek system. Paying what actually amounts to 83 cents per month to access honest listings is not the least bit unreasonable to me.

Those objecting to this minimal fee seem to focus only upon their own unwillingness to pay 83 cents per month (that's averaging out the cost of of a $9.99 per full year membership) to contact advertisers, viewing the matter only from their own narrow perspective.

Consider also, however, that some RedWeek advertisers (and yes, I have been among them in the past and I am among them right now) actually WANT some mechanism in place for screening of contacts. That screening has never once impeded the success of MY few occasional ads on RedWeek.

I've placed "free" ads on Craiglist in the past, just to provide a very specific example for comparison here. Responding to such ads is "free". Almost immediately, however, I receive notifications of winning the UK Lottery, bogus business offers from far away lands, cash offers from Nigeria expressed in semi-lierate English, inheritance notifications regarding ancestors I never even had, assorted non-existent "contests" won, etc., etc. ad nauseum. My time is valuable to me and I'll GLADLY pay 83 cents per month to AVOID having to ever even see and have to remove all that other unwelcome, irrelevant, unsolicited crap.

Just my personal opinion. I respect your right to harbor a different point of view, but please keep in mind that yours is not the ONLY perspective on the matter...

donaldd67 wrote:

jay jay: Unfortunately the "objective" to Protect Advertisers from Scammers is sadly lackng. I have had two adverts for my TS-Units listed with Redweek during the past five months.... The ONLY responses were from persons 'posing' as Interested but actually reps of 'Resaler Firms'... the LOWEST Form of Spamers.

There will always be a few spammers/scammers that will pay the $9.95 fee to peruse Redweek ads, especially upfront fee resale company parasites (the upfront fee is how they make their lowlife living). That's minimal compared to how much spam you would get if your email address was in plain site for copying and pasting by millions of spammers. Also, $9.95 is nothing (or 83 cents a month as Ken pointed out) compared to the hundreds to thousands of dollars upfront fee resale companies charge.

At least you know what they (resale parasites) are the minute you open their emails thanks to the education provided here and on other timeshare forums from seasoned timeshare owners.

And, speaking of MyResortNetwork, you have only a few lines to describe what you have for sale/rent. With Redweeks ads, you can describe your resort and unit until your heart's content. That's one of the things I didn't like about MRNW.

Also, MRNW doesn't have resort reviews like Redweek.

Apparent ken1193 , YOURS iS the ONLY Valid Opinion here.... Fine. I was MERELY attempting to Suppot the ORIGINAL Point of this thread...(by Kad2)...

You have DISSED Every one of my postings (four Different forum threads). I was unaware that My time was Valueless... Thanks for your Insight. Happy New Year

donaldd67 wrote:

IF I were offered a Choice, it would be to make my own decision if a responder was/is legit or not.

I thought Redweek had change this policy so signing in as a guest would let you see the resorts offered and contact a owner to see if the ad fit and was still available for you so you could make a deal before joining Redweek! I see now it has not changed !

This was one of the heated postings we had last year on here because many of us including myself felt that after owner paying Redweek to run the ad people should be able to browse the site and contact a owner to check rental before being forced to join.

No one was saying you shouldn't have to become a member to rent or buy from a owner but to just see if there was something of interest shouldn't cost. No one ever complained about the cost but only the fact you needed to go through the hassle to join just to check it out with owner of ad. Then if nothing on here of interest to you Redweek would refund your money. This was just a waste of time just to look!

I know I left Redweek because of this waste of time fee that they would return if you didn't make a deal but it was just a waste of my time and cost owner my money. I left and bought from some where else and saved more money. I did come back and later joined but then it was my idea and not being forced to join by Redweek just so I could see if the unit on the ad worked for me.

PHILL12

phill12 wrote:

I thought Redweek had change this cost so signing in as a guest would let you see the resorts offered before joining Redweek!

A guest can see all ads, they cannot contact owners unless they become a member.

jay jay: Apparently you and I 'read' Kad2 initial message with different conclusions.... so let me explain mine. Firstly tho, Cuddos to Redweek for a Service that is among the BEST VALUE Available (IMNSHO)... for TS-Owners. I thought Kad2 was merely saying, "Once I have found something that perks my interest, I want to simply & Quickly make an enquiry or to initiate a 'deal' with the person offering whatever"..

I too, have lost 'interest' in several attempts to get more information whenever I am asked all sorts of 'personal data' PRIOR to actually submitting my enquiry.... do ya get my drift? I would agree that ten bucks is insignificant to most prospective vacationers, but merely having to reload and go through that proceedure is a deterrent for SOME of us.

I don't have a good alternative suggestion but still say.... Redweek is INFINITELY better than ANY Newspaper advert... period... !!

BTW, TUG2 does NOT charge for contacting an advertiser. Their Format has been 'Updateed' too (I preferred their Old Format). Also, TUG2 has a Forum Format, Reviews, etc. .

Jay, I suspect you ARE an 'Official' for Redweek, NO?

Anyway, a Sincere Happy New Year... (Please take MY comments as POsitive Feedback)

I hope I am understanding Phill12 exactly.... .... seems to me those were POSITIVE Comments.

Welcome back to this Forum, Phil.

phill12 wrote:

I thought Redweek had change this policy so signing in as a guest would let you see the resorts offered and contact a owner to see if the ad fit for you so you could make a deal before joining Redweek!

As I stated in last post that no one ever had problem with amount to become a member but to just let people look around and see if there was something of interest.

Let them contact owner to see if the ad worked for them and if they were able to rent the unit and week. At this point they would then need to pay the Redweek fee to become a member!

I doubt anyone would have a problem with this system because you do not become a member until you contact a owner to check if this would work for you as a rental.

This is all people including myself wanted was for new people to check with ad owner to see if the timeshare and week worked for them before getting money out of them.

It is surprising how many ad owners never answer back or are rented out and not marked or deleted.What a hassle to give Redweek your credit card and then need to get it refunded because of no deal. This is what is meant by a waste of time for possible renter or buyer.

PHILL12

donaldd67 inexplicably rants: >> Apparent ken1193 , YOURS iS the ONLY Valid Opinion here.... Fine. I was MERELY attempting to Suppot the ORIGINAL Point of this thread...(by Kad2)...

You have DISSED Every one of my postings (four Different forum threads). I was unaware that My time was Valueless... Thanks for your Insight. Happy New Year << =============================================

My opinion, when expressed here, is nothing but my opinion --- no more and no less. You apparently choose to take personally the expression of a different viewpoint than yours in an open discussion forum. That is certainly your prerogative, but doing so is entirely unwarranted --- and also quite unhelpful to the goal here of intelligent and courteous exchange and discussion.

Ken, There of many of us who have great respect for your opinion. Stan.

My original intent was to bring the issue of paying before you can even email or talk to an owner to see if their unit was a match. The $9.95 fee is not a big deal if you could ask questions to an owner prior to paying. My point is this--it is only AFTER the fact of paying a fee that I may find out a unit is not a match for my family. How would it feel to pay $9.95 to a company just to find out that a unit is not what you are looking for? Many of the people I have rented to are wonderful families who are not owners. Thus said - I want to have them feel comfortable and rent from me in the future as well. If I can avoid having hard working families pay a fee to find and locate my unit - the better chance I have at renting it.

kad2 wrote:

My original intent was to bring the issue of paying before you can even email or talk to an owner to see if their unit was a match. The $9.95 fee is not a big deal if you could ask questions to an owner prior to paying. My point is this--it is only AFTER the fact of paying a fee that I may find out a unit is not a match for my family. How would it feel to pay $9.95 to a company just to find out that a unit is not what you are looking for? Many of the people I have rented to are wonderful families who are not owners. Thus said - I want to have them feel comfortable and rent from me in the future as well. If I can avoid having hard working families pay a fee to find and locate my unit - the better chance I have at renting it.

I guess maybe we can just agree to have different perspectives and points of view on the matter. I guess I look at it that the $9.95 cost is a RedWeek MEMBERSHIP fee (for a full year, I might add). That membership fee is not intended to be a "charge to contact owners", per se. Many members here have no intentions of ever contacting owners in response to ads, but still choose to pay the minimal membership fee just the same. In the end, as stated previously, I still acknowledge and respect alternative points of view.

stanleyf5 wrote:

Ken, There of many of us who have great respect for your opinion. Stan.

Thank you, Stan for your kind words. I try to offer honest, objective input here when I can, based upon my own 25+ years of timeshare ownership, use and experience, as well as a strong legal background for considerably longer than that. Nonetheless, it appears that some people simply choose to inappropriately regard a differing point of view as some sort of personal affront (which it most assuredly is NOT). That misinterpretation, although unfortunate, certainly will not in any way impact my weighing in on a RedWeek topic when I think I may have something to offer to the discussion at hand. Thanks again for your supportive input.

Best regards, Happy New Year to all.....

The link that shows the benefits of a free guest account and those of a paid membership can be found at http://www.redweek.com/join/options The free guest account benefits have been the same for many years. This is not something that has been implemented recently.

We have a refund policy that if you are unable to connect with the owner to arrange a transaction, please let us know within 30 days, and we would be happy to fully refund your membership fee.

Thanks, Marty