WITH timeshare companies getting a bad reputation for dodgy tactics, more firms have latched onto another strategy to lure unsuspecting customers: timeshare resale.

Preying on consumers desperate to end agreements with other timeshare companies, these organisations offer an attractive deal: Let us take over your contracts, handle the messy legal negotiations and reclaim the investments for you.

Their fees are substantial, with some investors paying as much as $40,000 for their services. This money, they are told, is to cover legal and administrative fees.

Isolated cases about such companies began surfacing as far back as six years ago.

The Consumers Association of Singapore (Case) says complaints have gone up tenfold since then. Its executive director, Mr Seah Seng Choon, estimates that more than 500 of the 2,280 timeshare complaints Case received last year concerned timeshare resale companies.

Some of those hit by complaints include well-known names like Leisure Group Marketing and Global Europ.

The latest entrant to rile its customers is Maxmega Group.

Last Friday, 16 of its customers met Case officials to lodge complaints. Collectively, they claimed they had given more than $790,000 to the company.

Trouble came knocking late last year when they each received calls from Maxmega. It claimed it could help them recover their investments with various timeshare companies by buying over their agreements. The customers alleged that they were also promised up to 150 per cent in returns.

The investors said they paid sums ranging from $5,000 to $40,000 in January.

Last month, however, they were allegedly told individually that Maxmega was unable to retrieve their money from the timeshare agreements it had purchased from them.

To 'compensate' Maxmega for these supposedly botched deals, the investors were said to have been invited to invest in a timeshare scheme with the firm. Some customers said they paid an additional $16,500 to $50,000 each.

The group banded together after one investor became suspicious and contacted others he had met at a Maxmega contract signing ceremony.

Mr Wong Liang Yong, 69, said they wanted to complain about Maxmega's tactics and were seeking advice on what to do in case the company did not uphold their agreements.

The bank staff officer said he had given $35,000 to Maxmega to retrieve his initial $45,000 invested with four other companies, two of which were also timeshare resale companies.

He claimed he was told initially he would get all his money back within 18 months, plus an extra $24,000. He had hoped to use the money for his daughter's university education.

'I really regret joining them. I thought I could just wash my hands of these schemes,' said Mr Wong.

Since last October, Case has received 27 complaints about Maxmega.

When The Straits Times visited its Tras Street office on Monday, a manager, who wanted to be known only as Mohamed, said the company had not breached any laws. He declined to confirm whether the company had encountered problems with the timeshare agreements it had bought over.

Mr Seah advised consumers trying to get out of timeshare agreements to seek action on their own.

'It would be better if individuals went directly to their own timeshare companies to seek a settlement. Rather than engage another company and pay large sums of money to get this done, why not do it themselves?'

He added that Case would investigate the company to see if it had breached the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act.