If you have a timeshare and want to get rid of it, you’re not alone. One thing you might ask yourself is if you need to hire a lawyer to guide you through the process. Along the way, you might stumble across U.S. Consumer Attorneys, a firm that claims to help people get free from their timeshares.
The question is, will they help you?
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Who are U.S. Consumer Attorneys and What Do They Do?
At the moment, it’s difficult to confirm whether or not U.S. Consumer Attorneys is still in business. The website listed for them opens to a parked page that recommends links for divorce lawyers. The firm seems to have left a trail of breadcrumbs in the form of abandoned social media pages and negative reviews and complaints from customers. Indications are that the firm stopped accepting clients in 2020.
When it did exist, the firm seemed to have been based in San Diego, Calif. The firm apparently had locations across the U.S. and in Mexico, too. It claimed that its attorneys had more than 100 years of experience between them and that they were well-versed in contract law and consumer trade practices.
The law firm promised to provide around-the-clock attention and service to its clients. While it doesn’t provide specifics about what it did for its customers, it did say that the process often takes several months or a year. As a way of covering its back, the firm states that it’s important for clients to be patient, as things can take longer than anticipated.
A note in response to a client complaint on the company’s Better Business Bureau page shines some light on what might be going on. Per the response, the firm stopped accepting clients in May 2020. The firm claims that it will continue to operate until all client files have been resolved.
U.S. Consumer Attorneys Timeshare Exit Costs
The details about how much U.S. Consumer Attorneys charged its customers are scant, and there’s little to no way to determine whether or not the company offered an escrow option or a money-back guarantee.
When a company offers escrow, the fee a client pays is deposited in a separate bank account. The firm only gets paid once they deliver on their promises, in this case, canceling a client’s timeshare.
With a money-back guarantee, a client at least has some reassurance that they can get a refund if things go south. Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, timeshare exit companies that promise a 100% satisfaction or money-back guarantee often make it challenging for customers to get the refunds they’re owed.
Although it’s difficult to determine exactly how much U.S. Consumer Attorneys will charge for its services, several reviewers have provided details about their own experience with the company. According to reviewers, the firm charges anywhere from $3,400 to more than $5,000 for its services.
The cost of the firm’s services likely depend on how long it takes to solve the timeshare problem and the amount a client pays upfront.
Can You Trust U.S. Consumer Attorneys?
Given a large number of consumer complaints about U.S. Consumer Attorneys and the bad reviews the company has across the board, it’s probably best to proceed with caution. Also, since the company stated that it stopped accepting new clients in 2020, it’s a good idea to be wary of anyone who approaches you claiming to be working for the firm.
The Better Business Bureau doesn’t think too highly of U.S. Consumer Attorneys. The firm isn’t BBB accredited. What’s more, the BBB has given U.S. Consumer Attorneys an “F” rating.
The F rating is due to the high number of complaints filed against the firm and the company’s lack of response to many of the complaints. Out of 115 complaints, the company hasn’t responded to 23.
Although the BBB doesn’t use reviews when determining the rating, it’s worth taking a glance at the average review on the BBB site. Out of 64 reviews, the firm has an average rating of 3.14 out of 5 stars.
Things aren’t much better on other review sites, either. In fact, they’re worse. The average rating on Yelp is one star out of five.
Interestingly enough, U.S. Consumer Attorneys also has terrible reviews on Glassdoor, the site where employees can review their workplaces. It has an average rating of 1.2 stars out of five, with many former employees stating that the working environment was fine until they learned they were working for a scam company.
What’s Good About U.S. Consumer Attorneys?
- The company used the courts to help clients get out of their timeshare contracts.
- When it was accepting clients, the firm worked with people whether they had a mortgage on their timeshare or not.
What’s Bad About U.S. Consumer Attorneys?
- The company stopped accepting clients in May 2020.
- When the company was operational, clients didn’t get to choose their attorney. Instead, they were automatically assigned someone once they paid their fee.
- The company has negative reviews pretty much across the board and hundreds of customer complaints.
Lawsuits Against U.S. Consumer Attorneys
Given that U.S. Consumer Attorneys seemed to specialize in litigation and suing timeshare companies, it should be little surprise that there have been a few lawsuits filed against it.
In 2018, Westgate Resorts filed a lawsuit against U.S. Consumer Attorneys, alleging false advertising.
Per the lawsuit, the resort alleged that U.S. Consumer Attorneys claimed to be a law firm that helped relieve timeshare owners of their obligations, but in fact were targeting timeshare owners, getting them to pay the law firm money instead of the timeshare resorts.
The lawsuit stated that the attorneys at the firm put their clients at risk of “adverse actions” by Westgate, including foreclosure. The lawsuit also alleged that the law firm injured Westgate’s reputation and caused the resort economic harm.
Online Reputation
Many dissatisfied clients have left reviews of U.S. Consumer Attorneys online. Even though the firm stated that it stopped taking clients in 2020, a few reviews are from the fall of 2021. For example, in October Eric & Rebecca left this rather lengthy one-star review on the BBB:
On Yelp, where U.S. Consumer Attorneys have one-star reviews across the board, Dean M. left their review in April 2021:
It can be worthwhile to get a sense of what current and former employees think of their employer. U.S. Consumer Attorneys doesn’t fare well in that department, either. Most of the reviews on Glassdoor call the company a scam, such as this former Full-Stack Developer:
U.S. Consumer Attorneys Website
The website for U.S. Consumer Attorneys is offline, based on the Wayback Machine, looks like it went offline sometime in late 2020. The version of the website that’s accessible on the Wayback Machine is from 2019.
When its website was live, it didn’t have the best design and looked like something that might have been created in the early 2000s.
The website had an “About Us” section that didn’t provide specific information about any of the attorneys involved, such as who they were and what their credentials were. That’s all basic stuff any client would want to know before hiring a lawyer.
Much of the rest of the information on the company’s old website is very general and could apply to any company.
Social Media Presence
While its website is MIA, U.S. Consumer Attorneys seems to still have a Twitter account and a YouTube profile.
The company posted multiple videos on YouTube, where it has seven subscribers. The videos are all short, usually 30 seconds or less. Several of the videos link to a “review” website for U.S Consumer Attorneys.
The videos and the “review” website are very odd. Each video looks like it was a short PowerPoint that someone pressed record on. There’s no sound accompanying the videos. The language used in the videos and the accompanying website reads as if someone ran it through Google Translate several times.
It’s not clear who created the videos for the law firm. They don’t inspire confidence or reassurance in U.S Consumer Attorneys.
Over on the company’s Twitter, the most recent tweet is from May 2020, just when the company claims that it stopped accepting new clients. The tweet tells people how they can boost their immune system and seems to have nothing to do with a timeshare cancellation.
The Bottom Line
If nothing else, the story of U.S. Consumer Attorneys should be a cautionary tale. Always do your research before you decide to work with a timeshare exit company and make sure your money is protected. You don’t want to end up like this company’s clients, who paid thousands of dollars and now seem to have no way of getting it back.
FAQs
According to the BBB, Henry N Portner, is the principal of the law firm. Portner is also named in the lawsuit filed by Westgate Resorts.
When it was in business, U.S. Consumer Attorneys’ main office was in California. According to the archived version of its website, it also had affiliate offices in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Colorado, Texas, Virginia, Florida, Nevada, Georgia, South Carolina, and Mexico.
U.S. Consumer Attorneys has a bad reputation online, so much so that it appears to have hired a reputation management company to do damage control.
U.S. Consumer Attorney is no longer accepting new clients. Many of its existing clients have said that they have had difficulty reaching anyone at the firm.
No organization seems to currently endorse U.S. Consumer Attorneys. It doesn’t look as if anyone has endorsed it in the past, either.
The BBB lists 1300 N Johnson Ave, Ste 107, El Cajon, CA 92020-1654 as the mailing address for U.S. Consumer Attorneys.