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Bob Dolan, Santa Barbara, Calif.

SOME ADDITIONAL thoughts on timeshares:

A client of mine bought a timeshare/condo in Freeport, Bahamas. The developer's contract provided that the annual maintenance charge was approximately $200 a week and would not increase more than 10 percent per year. Yet only a few years later, the client received a bill for $800 for his share of a capital assessment. What fine print governs this?

This leads to my own analysis of several timeshare budgets. The reserve funds invariably do not have sufficient money to replace vital systems, such as plumbing and wiring, that get sclerotic after about 40 years.

Here's another cheery thought. A key element of the standard sales pitch is that the buyer can "trade up" to use more desirable units elsewhere. The reason for this is that the usage of units by owners is less than 100 percent. (How otherwise would owners of more desirable units collectively create the partial vacuum that makes those units available to people with only lesser units to swap?)

There is no reason to believe that the party listening to the sales pitch is any different from anyone else and, to this extent, the math applied to justify the expenditure on a dollars-per-vacation basis needs to be ratcheted down to reflect the more likely real rate of usage.

Julian Karpoff, Arlington

Florence Thievery

JUST A REMINDER to travelers in Florence, Italy: Keep hold of your purse at all times.

Recently, a friend had her purse stolen while we were lunching at an open-air cafe on the Piazza della Signoria. Unfortunately, instead of holding it, she had put it by her feet. One of the diners later said that a couple of "well-groomed" men entered the enclosure and looked around (ostensibly to find a table). One stooped to pick something up (alas, the purse), and off they went.

A number of years ago, I had money stolen by children who swarmed me by a church in Florence. I did not see this on the current trip. There also were lots of police patrolling, but their response to the theft was to tell us to report it.

The only good news was that I learned a lot of Italian words helping my friend with the police report.

Elaine Davies, Woodbridge

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