Avoiding Scams

Most people on this site are exactly who they say they are. A few are not. This page is what owners here have learned about telling the difference.

Start with the badge

Every seller whose ad you can see has been verified. That means an independent identity service confirmed their government-issued photo ID is genuine and matched it against a live photo of the person holding it — so they are a real, identifiable individual, not an anonymous account. We also check that the name on their payment matches the name on that ID, confirm they hold a Marriott owner account, and speak with them directly.

This is not a guarantee. It does not promise the transaction will go well. What it does is remove the easiest and most common scam — someone with no Marriott account and no real identity taking your money and disappearing — and it means that if something does go wrong, we know who they actually are.

Ads from unverified accounts are never published. If you can see it, they passed.

Before you send money

Do a small transfer first. 25–100 points. It proves the other party can actually transfer points, and someone operating a stolen or non-existent account usually cannot get past this step. It is the single most effective check on this page.

• Ask for a screenshot showing the name on the account, the account number (partial is fine), and the points balance they are offering.
• Check the names match. The name on the payment should be the name of the person you have been talking to, and the payment email should match the address they first contacted you from. Mismatches here are the most common early sign of trouble.
• Speak to them. Phone or video, before money moves. It is remarkable how often this alone ends a conversation with someone who was never going to transfer anything.
• Look them up. TUG is worth a search.
• Be suspicious of pressure. A real owner with points to move is not in a hurry to have you skip any of this. Urgency is a sales tactic and, more often, a scam tactic.

How to pay

By credit card, through PayPal, as a Goods and Services transaction. The cleanest arrangement is for the seller to send a PayPal invoice and for you to pay it by card.

Never send a PayPal Friends and Family or Gift payment to someone you do not know. It removes every protection you have and it cannot be reversed. A seller who insists on it is asking you to carry all of the risk.

Be aware of a real limitation: PayPal’s purchase protection excludes real-estate transactions, and its terms say nothing specific about timeshare points either way. Paying by card rather than from a PayPal balance gives you your card issuer’s protections regardless of how PayPal classifies it. That is the main reason to insist on a card.

The scam that catches careful people

Straightforward theft — take the money and vanish — is the one everyone expects.

Account takeover is the one that catches people who did everything else right. A scammer gains control of an unsuspecting owner’s Marriott account and transfers that owner’s points to you. The transfer completes. The points appear. Everything looks correct.

Then Marriott identifies the takeover, returns the points to the rightful owner, and the buyer is left with nothing and no recourse against the person they paid.

This is why the name checks matter even with a verified seller. If the person you are speaking to is not the person whose name is on the payment and on the account the points came from, stop.

If something has gone wrong

Give Marriott its three business days first. A transfer in progress looks identical to one that never happened.

After that, contact the seller directly. If you cannot resolve it and they are a Verified Seller, email info@vacationpointexchange.com with a current screenshot of your point transaction history showing the points did not arrive. We will try to reach the seller. If they neither complete the transfer nor return your funds, we release the identifying information they gave us so you can pursue it legally.

Reporting someone

Email info@vacationpointexchange.com with as much detail as you can: usernames, the ad, dates, payment details, and any screenshots. Reports help other owners even when nothing can be recovered for you.