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Ambushed by the dreaded timeshare sellers of “dream holidays”

It was Saturday, and we were hungover. My boyfriend and I spent most of the morning certain we needed to eat but unable to decide what we wanted.

Eventually, when hunger had reached starvation point, we decided against a drive-through. We wanted to eat someplace nice.

“The only problem with this place”, I remarked as we parked and headed towards the restaurant, “is it’s filled to brimming with promo-people who are almost impossible to shake off.” 

“Uh, OK then.” my boyfriend’s side-glance made it pretty obvious that he found my comment slightly odd. 

The restaurant was in sight. As we reached it, an enthusiastic man appeared with a smile that said we are the luckiest people he has ever met.

“So sorry to bother you! I won’t be a minute!” I tried to ignore him and steer my boyfriend along. “Are you a couple? Ah that’s lovely. You here for lunch? Yes that’s wonderful! Young love!"

"I won’t take a moment of your time! We’re just running a promotion...”

Ugh.

“It’s just for couples, ah you two are so lovely! Just scratch this card and you could win!”

Perfect. I never win at scratch cards.

I accepted the card and the coin, “Good choice! The ladies are always the luckiest!” and cheerfully scratched, knowing this damn torture of talking to a Salesperson would end soon.

“What do you have there? Two? Wait, you have three? Oh my, excuse me,” he clutched his chest, taking a deep breath. “Do you know what you have there? This is not a joke, this is not candid camera! You've won our big prize!”

He shook our hands enthusiastically ,

“We only have five of these! You have won our biggest prize! This is not a joke, this is not Leon Schuster, you’ve won a WEEK holiday to Mauritius, the Canary Islands or Spain!”

He congratulated us as if we’d won the lottery. I started to feel like we had, and wondered if I’d be expected to cheer in the near future. “...Are you excited?”

“Oh yes, yes, that’s wonderful,” said my boyfriend and I, smiling, ready to walk away, pleased to have gotten through the Salesperson with, perhaps, a nice holiday out of the deal.

“Wonderful! Yes you see this ticket gives you...” he explained it all again, making Spain, Mauritius and the Canary Islands sound like the perfect holiday spots in all the world “...all we need from you is to just come with me to accept your prize!”

Ah. 

“And we will explain to you what we do...”

I knew about these from my parents. I’ve been warned about these from my parents.

“A short presentation, it will only take roughly sixty minutes! All you have to do is listen, and at the end of it YOU decide, it’s YOUR choice.”

“I can’t believe you won the BIG prize!”

Maybe if we were more alert, we could have escaped, but he had chosen his targets well. We were vulnerable, mentally weak from a late night and hunger, and easy to control. He steered us away from our lunch. 

The company’s offices looked like the designer had been inspired by two words: Modern and expensive. A perfectly manicured model in stiletto heels and an absolutely miniature dress greeted us. Mr Enthusiastic told her how we’d won the big prize.

“The BIG prize? Wow, that’s amazing!” she smiled, her teeth glistening white, her eyes glassy and emotionless, giving us a form to fill out that would provide the company with every single last contact detail we have.

“Just fill these out and wait here for a consultant. She’s just going to explain what we have to offer, and then at the end, YOU can decide, it’s YOUR choice. Would you like some tea or coffee?” 

In moments, a second model wafted in, (she gave an impression of shea-butter moisturizer and expensive perfume,) introduced herself as our consultant and, after feigning excitement at how we’d won the "big" prize, herded us into a consultant room, where we sat around a glass table and were smiled at.

I was given the most delicious cup of coffee I’ve ever had in my life. The place was perfectly air-conditioned and smelled wonderful. The decoration remained expensively modern. Every staff member was immaculately dressed, beautiful, and smiling.

The presentation was painful. I spent most of it trying not to fall asleep. My boyfriend spent most of it trying to feign interest to make up for my obvious lack of it.

We both spent most of it horribly aware that this poor girl was trying everything she could think of to get us interested in buying into their special deal, and that she was going to fail.

It was like a timeshare, but instead of one place, you have your choice of a range of places all over the world every time you want to go on holiday. Very nice, I suppose, if you have the disposable income.

She used a notepad. She wrote positive words like “Life!” and circled them. She told us personalized anecdotes about people in her life and their experiences with this deal. She asked us questions and tried to relate to our answers. She complimented us.

She explained how much money we’d be saving, how many millions. She tried to convince us that we could earn money through this deal simply by effectively scamming our friends and family.

She kept telling us about this wonderful life we’d have, and all the beautiful places we’d see. “A holiday in Japan every year!” was one of her more passionate outbursts. 

She constantly reminded us that we would keep our BIG prize, which, as it turned out, was one of five given out daily. Later, we found out friends of ours had "won" it too.

“And, at the end of the day, YOU can decide, it’s YOUR choice.”

When it came to costs, she divided them up carefully and never added up exactly the full amount we’d be paying every month.

Finally, the damn thing ended. Our consultant told us how she was just going to call another person, who would give us today’s special deal, and that after that, we can leave with our prize without signing up, because WE can decide, it’s OUR choice. She gave us a few minutes alone.

We turned to each other and laughed. Then we felt bad, because this girl probably earns by commission and she’d just spent an hour trying desperately hard to make an impossible sale.

The consultant returned with a man who oozed sales out of every pore. 

They had the standard deal. On top of that, they had something special to show us.

WE can decide it’s OUR choice, BUT...

TODAY ONLY...

They had a SPECIAL deal...

That was just fantastic, of course. ONLY ON OFFER TODAY! 

With an apologetic look at our consultant, who could, at least, read the writing on the wall, we said we’d have to see, and escaped to celebrate our freedom over a long-awaited lunch.

Of course we never returned. We were being asked to commit to paying over R1000 a month for the next eight years, by people who were extremely pushy, manipulative and careful to hide costs. It wasn’t hard to make our decision.

We might go to Mauritius though.

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