I was contacted by an agent (Mike Stevens) from WWMS several weeks ago and was told that they had a customer who he identified by "The Frasiers", wanted to purchase one of my Timeshare properties and that all they needed from me was a Surety bond to ensure that I would not back out on the deal and that I would get my bond back once the sale went through. They indicated that Chicago Title would perform the title transfer and if I was unsure about the validity of WWMS, I could look them up on sunbiz.net to verify that they were a legitimate timeshare resale company. I did attempt to locate them on sunbiz.net but could only locate 2 WWMS companies listed on the site (both listed as "inactive"), one out of Miami and the other out of Margate. Since I could not verify the company on this website, I contacted Chicago Title Transfer and spoke to one of their people about the cost of title transfers. CTT told me that the cost of a title transfer was significantly less than what WWMS were asking for as a "Surety Bond" and that I should ask for a breakdown of the charges that were associated with the value that WWMS were asking to bill me for. When I reached Mike, he claimed that he was unaware of what was wrong with the sunbiz website (although he did admit that he hadn't actually looked at it himself, he had just referred many of his customers there). When I told him about my conversation with CTT, he admitted that some of the Surety Bond costs included moneys that they kept in order to make a profit as an organization and that he would send me a breakdown of the costs included in the value of the Surety Bond. After about a week of trying to reach him and leaving messages on a daily basis, I finally caught up with him, only to be told that because of MY slow response, he had already matched his buyer up with another seller and that I needed to move fast in this business if I wish to capture the deal. He asked if I was still interested in selling the property and I indicated that I was.
About a week later, he called me to say that he had another buyer, "the Fosters" who wanted to purchase my property and had already given them a $4000 deposit. All they needed from me was my credit card number to charge the Surety Bond to. I asked to see a copy of the contract they were planning on using and he emailed me a "Money Back Guarantee", which really didn't differ from anyone else's; it simply stated that they would guarantee that they would market & sell my property within 90 days or continue to market it at no additional charge until it was sold. I called Mike and told him that this was the same "guarantee" that everyone else is making and that a buyer rarely materializes. He indicated that they had SUCCESSFULLY marketed my property and already HAD a buyer, so the "guarantee" was mute, as their obligation had already been met. I told Mike that what I wanted was something in writing that guaranteed that I would get my Surety Bond back whether or not the deal actually went through. Mike said that he would send me the contract & guarantee by email. When it arrived, the "guarantee" was unchanged and made no mention about the Surety Bond, only about their Marketing Fee. I called Mike back on this and was accused of "pulling his puppy" and making him "jump through hoops" over the past few weeks. We ended up yelling at each other during the call and he hung up on me. About 30 minutes later, he called back to say that he really wanted to get this deal done and I admitted that I did as well. He asked me for the credit card that I wanted to use and I told him that I would be charging it to my VISA card, then he asked me for my card numbers, I refused to give him my card number until I had a satisfactory guarantee from them, to which he lost his temper, said F**k and hung up on me again. That night I re-worked the "guarantee" to be acceptable to me and returned it to Mike, saying that if it was acceptable to WWMS, I was prepared to move forward and provide my card number. The next day, Mike called to say that his manager had approved the language in my proposed "guarantee" and asked for my card number again. I told him that I was not willing to provide my card number until I received an email from them with the new "guarantee" attached. Mike said that there was no one in the office to send that back to me (today being a Saturday), so I asked why he couldn't just press "reply on his computer and return the email back to me. He said that he would have to ask for permission from his supervisor first, as he was not allowed to do anything without their approval first, so I asked him to get that approval and send the email to me. H called me back a few minutes later to ask for my card number again, to which I replied that I still had not received the "guarantee" back from them yet. He said that someone in the office would send it to me on Monday if I would just provide my credit card info now. I told him that I wouldn't be providing my card info until I received the "guarantee" back from them first, to which Mike replied that he would have to move on to someone else who was really interested in selling their property. I said that I was really interested in selling my property and Mike replied "then give me your VISA card number or I'll have to move on to another seller". I replied that I wasn't going to provide my VISA number until I had an email from them with the "guarantee" attached. Mike said that since I didn't want to sell my property, he would be forced to seek out other sellers who were really interested in selling their property. A couple of hours later, I got an email from Mike saying "we agree to the terms and conditions of this email" but with out the "guarantee" attached (only the text of my original email). He then called to ask if I had received his email. I told him that I had received their email but without the "guarantee"attached, it really didn't mean much and that I needed him to send me an email with the "guarantee" attached . He eventually did send this to me, so I provided him with my credit card info. When I had second thoughts about the situation and called Mike back to say that I wanted to fly down early next week and see their operation for myself before letting the credit card charge go through, Mike completely lost his temper, saying that he had now wasted two extra days on me and that either I wanted to make the sale or not. I said that I did and he agreed to meet me at the airport on Monday morning. I tried to call him back to say that I couldn't guarantee that I could get a flight for Monday, he wouldn't answer my phone call, so I left him a message. I even tried calling him from my cell phone( which has a different area code) but still to no avail.