All you have to do is survive a grueling, high-pressure presentation.
Sometimes evil is justified, and other times, knowing evil means knowing how to beat it.
Check out our evil week tag page.
Its assimpleas saying no, sure.
Ive never actually been to one of these myself, but Ive always been intrigued.
Are those free magic show tickets worth three hours of your life?
Other times, the freebies are pretty valuable.
But its not just about time.
It takes effort to get through these things.
Youll go through a series of screenings to ensure youre a good mark, and that can takehours.
It takes a long time to shake someone down, after all.
Then lets get to it.
Bring a Bad Cop
Theres safety in numbers.
The company knows your excuses.
Theyve studied them, and theyve worked hard to find a way for you to cave.
For this reason, bringing another person is crucial.
They handed me the papers and I was on my way with no timeshare to my name.
And if you still cant stand up for yourself, blame an imaginary financial planner or life coach.
Its a numbers game, asCertified Financial Planner Jason Hull points out.
To be clear: youwantto be a false positive.
But you want to disguise yourself so they dont weed you out.
so that do this, Hull recommends being agreeable.
This way, not only do they think youll bite, youll also get through the presentation quicker.
The salesperson doesnt have to stop and further explain the situation to you.
Thats a great strategy for defense, but what about your offense?
One anonymous tipsterwell call her BJhas survived three timeshares to score free Disneyland tickets.
She starts by asking the presenter how long the process will last, from start to finish.
In her experience, they say it will be about 60 minutes.
Each group is seated at a table and the pitch begins.
When Im given the final price of the time share, I immediately pick it apart.
I simply repeat the same argument.
I then stand up and say, now where are my free Disney tickets?
Not everyone has the stomach for this, though.
If youre not an aggressive person, this could backfire and you could fold when crap hits the fan.
If so, a more defensive strategy may be in order.
At the end of the day, its just about sticking to your guns.
She said:
We made it a game when we realized this was the pattern.
He was good, too.
He worked that angle flawlessly, and we were impressed with his initiative.
Plus we got to see a super bowl ring and get a delicious dinner out, she said.
Its all about your attitude.
Just dont enjoy yourself so much that you forget to keep saying no.
You cant just come up with any excuse.
It has to be a solid one.
Financial Advisor Matt Ahrensconfirms this.
Then, he said he had nothing extra in his budget to pay for a timeshare.
Ahrens says its about explaining your own numbers to them.
Then again, this sends you down a rabbit hole of rebuttals, Melissa Heisler ofItsMyLifeInc.compoints out.
When you come at them with numbers, theyll just come at you with more numbers.
A lie, I know.
But one they could not counter.
Basically, when all else fails: lie to get out of the presentation.
Lying your way to a free vacation is pretty evil, but dont feel too bad.
Timeshare companies expect this and have built it into their model.
In fact, their tactics are pretty evil, too.
Photo byImageFlow(Shutterstock).
