"I wish I had known about TUG before I bought my timeshare!"

Hi, I’m Bill Rogers.

I founded TUG more than 30 years ago after my wife and I made what we thought was a great exchange — trading our beautiful Gold Crown, 5-Star rated resort for another property that looked fantastic in the directory (yes, it used to be an actual paper directory back then).

The photos were impressive. The description promised everything we wanted — even tennis. But when we arrived, the reality couldn’t have been more different.

The unit looked like a converted roadside motel from decades past, complete with worn-out furniture that probably hadn’t been updated since WWII. And the tennis court? Overgrown with weeds… and no net. When we asked about it, we were told it hadn’t had a net in years.

That was our wake-up call.

We realized we could no longer rely solely on exchange company descriptions and marketing photos. From then on, whenever possible, we toured resorts ourselves to see what they were really like — not just what the brochure said.

During those trips, we discovered something important: most other timeshare owners felt exactly the same way.

So, together with other owners, we created Timeshare Users Group (TUG) — a place where owners help owners by sharing honest, real-world experiences.

Today, our TUGBBS Online Discussion Forums connect tens of thousands of timeshare owners who openly discuss buying, selling, renting, exchanging, and avoiding scams. The more owners who share their experiences, the better informed everyone becomes.

And yes — the exchange company did credit our exchange fee toward another trade. But we had already lost an entire week of vacation… along with the hundreds of dollars in maintenance fees we had paid at our home resort.

That experience became the foundation of TUG — and our commitment to helping owners make informed decisions.