Property Relief Consultants is a timeshare exit group located in Whitefish, Montana. This consulting group has been in business since 2016 and claims to be one of America’s most trusted consulting firms. They allegedly can help get you out of your timeshare contract in twelve months or less or they’ll offer a full refund for your trouble. Though they make this hefty promise to potential customers, do they actually hold up to it?
Property Relief Consultants Website Review
They immediately assert to the potential client that their mission statement is to eliminate timeshare fees permanently, but their website leaves a lot to be desired. It isn’t impressively designed and appears a little outdated even though the group has apparently been in business since 2016. The website looks more like it was designed in the early 2000s at the very latest rather than only 5 years ago.
Your initial impression is based upon the landing page, which shows a gold seal promising their 100% money-back guarantee. The rest of the landing page offers little further information, showing only that they promise to get your timeshare transferred out of your name in twelve months or they’ll give you your money back. The only other information found on their landing page is their contact information and where they are located, so it’s a pretty poor first impression.
If you click over to their ‘About Us’ section, you’ll find their vision statement. This essentially lays out that they believe the timeshare industry is deceitful and they wanted to help combat some of that and help consumers be relieved of their timeshare burdens. It then gives you a little background on the owners of Property Relief Consultants, Dan, and Sherry Stapleton. They claim to have over twenty-five years in the timeshare business and that seeing it firsthand is what helped them to realize how dishonest and corrupt the industry could be.
You’re also given a little bit of background on two other members of the consulting team, Keith Deal who is the Director of Operations of the Western Division, and Lisa Allen who is the Director of Operations for the Eastern Division. Both of them have over ten years of experience in related industries, making them valuable additions to the team. This section does give us a little bit of credibility for the consulting team, which helps when you’re trying to establish if a company is legitimate or not.
Their ‘Timeshare Cancellation’ page acts more like a frequently asked questions section where they answer things you might be curious about before you do a consultation. They answer basic questions like if you need a lawyer to get out of your timeshare, or if you can cancel your timeshare after the rescission period. The questions and their subsequent answers aren’t incredibly helpful and they don’t give you much more than you’d find from any generic timeshare exit company.
You can also look at their testimonials, but as we know the testimonials offered on the website of the service are not always the most honest. They tend to be the most favorable reviews you’ll find about the company or service, and there are no guarantees they are legitimate. If you’re wanting to find more honest reviews you’ll be better off looking at a Better Business Bureau page.
There isn’t much else to the disappointing website, to say the least. We’ve learned only a little about Property Relief Consultants and we can’t see how most people would choose to go into the consultation without knowing much about the group. You should be wary about any company you’re expected to give your contact information to before learning much about them.
All in all, we weren’t impressed by their website, but their reviews might be more promising.
Property Relief Consultants Reviews
Here’s where you’ll learn a bit more about Property Relief Consultants as a whole. You can usually get a good idea of how a company actually functions from their Better Business Bureau profile. This is typically where you’ll find reviews, complaints, and even confirmations about the legitimacy of the company itself. You’ll find on this BBB profile that they have 3 customer ratings in all, but they have 6 complaints and a B rating which tell you a lot about the company itself.
You’ll also find that this business is not accredited by the Better Business Bureau, which is alarming for a group you’re expecting to help handle your legal business. The three reviews they have available are all 5 stars, but that doesn’t tell us as much as the complaints and their ratings do. All three mention Dan Stapleton specifically and how they were more trustworthy than other companies they’d tried to contact.
One even mentions another timeshare exit company by name and claims that they are a scam, to help assert that Property Relief Consultants is more credible. Though these reviews seem nice, they aren’t what interests us about their Better Business Bureau page. We’re more interested in those six complaints and why those have knocked their rating down to a B.
The most concerning thing about these complaints seems to be that the responses back from the company claim that the complaints are invalid only because they were able to get the timeshare canceled in the allotted 12 months. Even if the complaint has nothing to do with how much time the cancellation took, they continue to bring up this fact and act as if they upheld their end of the bargain. Most of these complaints have to do with dealing with third parties and being charged extra for services they weren’t told they would need.
They seem to completely ignore other concerns and allegedly they have a third-party company called Switch It Escrow that handles their final paperwork. While we are glad to see escrow mentioned, we aren’t fond of the fact that most of these customers are being charged more to work with this third-party service as well. You can definitely see why this group has a B rating, and likely why they aren’t accredited.
Property Relief Consultants Cost
While we don’t get much information from their website regarding costs or payment unless you contact them initially, we can get a little bit of an idea from their BBB complaints. We can see that some clients were charged anywhere from $720 to $1550 and that extra services from Switch It Escrow cost $100 or more. Even with their 100% money-back guarantee, this seems like a shady business model and we would even go as far as to say it sounds like a scam to bring in a third party and charge the client more money.
We are not entirely sure how much initial services cost and how much extra charges or monthly fees you’re incurring the longer they work on your contract. We also don’t like how there seems to be a variance in how much customers are charged but aren’t given an idea of what to expect. You should have an idea of how much you’ll be paying before you ever give out your contact information to the company.
This is typically how scam companies get a hold of you as you’re expected to contact them first to get any information. They then have your phone number and /or email to call or email you whenever they feel like it. This is concerning, especially if you’re not going to use their services as they can still contact you even if you’ve decided against their help.
Summary
You’re expected to use what little you can find on their website to make a decision about whether they should help you with your timeshare cancellation or not. This isn’t a good business practice as timeshare cancellation tends to be an extensive legal process and if you can’t trust the company helping you get there, it’s essentially like falling into another scam. You’ve already been through the wringer with your timeshare company, why should you have to deal with shady individuals in your cancellation company as well?
Make sure to check out their Better Business Bureau page, especially considering how little is available on their website. You’ll get a better idea of how competent and trustworthy their company is from their BBB page, rather than what little you can find on their website. Also, make sure to do more research before you decide to submit your contact information to them.
Holding onto your burdensome timeshare can be frustrating and even feel downright helpless at times, but it isn’t worth going through another potential scam to try and get out of it. Thoroughly vet the company or service you’re going to use to help with the cancellation before you put any money down. Even if the company doesn’t offer escrow payments, you should have a clear idea of what to expect before any money is exchanged.
So, if you’re looking for a helpful company that will get you out of your timeshare company quickly you can go ahead and skip Property Relief Consultants.