A federal district court has issued a temporary restraining order against a Florida-based telemarketing scheme that allegedly tricked timeshare owners who sought to sell their timeshare properties.

According to the Federal Trade Commission’s complaint, Vacation Property Services, Inc., two related companies, and their three principals have made tens of thousands of unsolicited telemarketing calls to timeshare owners since 2006 claiming that they could quickly find buyers for the owners’ timeshares.

The defendants allegedly trick consumers into paying large up-front fees, typically using one of two deceptive sales pitches – that they have buyers lined up and waiting to buy the timeshare properties or that they will find a buyer for the timeshare properties within a short period of time. Regardless of the pitch used, the defendants demand that consumers pay an up-front fee, ranging from $200 to more than $8,000.

The FTC alleged that after making the hefty up-front payment, consumers ultimately learned the defendants had no buyers lined up to purchase their timeshare properties and no such buyers were in the offing. And, when consumers realized they had been duped, the defendants routinely dodged consumers’ phone calls and denied their refund requests.

In addition to Vacation Property Services, Inc., the complaint names Vacation Property Sellers, Inc., doing business as (d/b/a) Timeshare Experts; Higher Level Marketing, Inc., d/b/a Vacation Property Services; Albert M. Wilson; David S. Taylor; and Frank M. Perry, Jr.