Starting with a single Seminole office in 1999, this company eventually spawned three more in St. Petersburg, two in Largo and one in Tampa, according to court records. The Attorney General's Office has received 138 complaints about the company.

In March 2011, the Federal Trade Commission charged Vacation Property Services and two other companies and their owners with breaking federal laws barring telemarketers from making misleading statements, and for making more than 292,000 calls to phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry. The FTC said the companies were connected.

Several officers at other local timeshare resale companies are former Vacation Property Services employees, including Dwayne Pouncy, president of Timeshare Traveler.

The Tampa Bay Times started investigating the timeshare resale industry in June 2011.

The newspaper reviewed more than 2,000 consumer complaints against Tampa Bay area companies and tracked down their offices across two counties in an attempt to interview owners and employees.

The Times interviewed more than 100 people, including company employees, victims and government officials who oversee or investigate timeshare resale companies. It also reviewed thousands of pages of court documents and licensing records and closely examined the criminal histories of employees at more than a dozen local resale companies with customer complaints.

The complaints reviewed are those recorded by the state Attorney General's Office, which operates a fraud "hotline" and accepts and categorizes complaints that come in by phone, email and letter.

Contact reporter Will Hobson to suggest further timeshare resale story ideas.