I've won a holiday on a scratch card

Simon_Kent

For some time now we have had problems with what can only be described as fraudsters re-selling our Whoopydoo holiday vouchers on auction sites such as Ebay. A few people we contacted hadn’t read the T&Cs which specifically prohibit this practice but many simply told us to shove off and continued to sell the vouchers. They still do so but now sell the scratch card which is contrary to the Gambling Act.

The problem is that they mis-describe the vouchers and don’t provide the buyer with any of the terms and conditions of what they are actually buying. This would certainly fall fowl of the latest consumer legislation that came into effect May 08.

About the middle of 2008 we became aware that people were asking questions regarding our vouchers on this site and the replies were invariably incorrect and often opinionated rather than factual. We thought that some of these could be malicious posts from some of the people we had ‘caught up with’ on Ebay. So we decided to reply to some posts under the same username we had used on Ebay to try to flush them out.

Nothing happened so we thought we must be wrong. So we stopped trying to be clever and then tried to answer any concerns as Whoopydoo.

Then ‘bingo’ along comes ‘Watch-dog’. As the only way anyone could know that Pa1antir7 is Whoopydoo will have been to be caught fraudulently selling our vouchers on Ebay as we suspected.

As our ‘trap’ has now been sprung, perhaps ‘watch-dog’ would like to provide everyone with their ebay username and contact details?

Simon_Kent

To answer some of the various other questions people have prior to us adding these to our web site:
- All of the holidays we send people on are booked through our travel agent who are ABTA and ATOL bonded.
- Only 'upgrades' to choices 2 or 3 require a fee of £39pp for processing. The choice 1 holidays are what the recipient has been awarded by the competition company. This is never described as free because the recipient has paid some money to receive the reward.
- We do not use any timeshare resorts or accommodation and you will never be asked or required to take any kind of timeshare presentation on holidays offered under our vouchers.
- The testimonials on our web site are 100% genuine and are updated as we receive feedback from travellers to the questionnaire they are sent after travelling.
- We have a number of competition companies as clients but we have no connection with them beyond that relationship.
- The reason we can provide these holiday reward vouchers to our clients for the rates that we do is simply down to our extensive knowledge of buyer behaviour and the associated response rates.

We hope that the above will clear up any questions you may have but if you still have questions you can always email us from our web site.

hollydays

Tojo_Ralph wrote: »

1) Does Whoopydoo have a business contact telephone number?
2) Can you please direct me to the terms & conditions of the 7 day med holiday scratchcard?
3) Am I correct in saying that the cards retail for less than £10 each... Approximately?
4) Are any of the 7 day med holiday scratchcards you sell, losing cards?

Thank you.

Simon Kent,You didn't answer these questions.

Simon_Kent

Sorry Hollydays, answers below.

1. We have a different number for each voucher we produce to allow us to know which voucher the customer is holding and answer their queries faster.
We deliberately don't give a phone number out until the end of the recorded information line message, otherwise people just call us up without reading the voucher and we spend our lives talking them through the vouchers rather than dealing with genuine queries. For this reason, I won't provide our phone number on this board but if you want to email us we will provide you with it to call.

2. We don't produce scratch cards so don't have any T&Cs for this. You would need to contact the competition company.

3. We don't sell our holiday reward vouchers to consumers, only to companies and in quantities of 1,000 or more. The price we charge per voucher depends on many different factors as to how we believe the vouchers are likely to redeem and hence the total liability we need to underwrite. For large scale promotions that we accept, this often works out at less than £10 per voucher.

4. We don't sell scratch cards, we only supply holiday rewards to companies.

Hope this answers your questions fully.

PS. We have now managed to identify 'Watch-dog' as Ms Sarah Bellhouse of Megadans Mega Mail. She was fraudulently selling Whoopydoo voucher in 2007 on Ebay and was very childish when we wrote to her to tell her to stop.

jinkssick

I paid £128 heathrow to los angeles, then £40 to las vegas stay 2 days, another £30 to san francisco, stay 2 days and another £30 back to los angeles. even if its free, as stated, i doubt any of these companies could get me such a deal as described.

make your own luck and use :money: etiquete to keep checking here or hotukdeals for cheap flights and make your own, holiday come true not ringing these companies.

''the guardian article described that they cant be stopped legally because some of the holidays are free, just that they dont state that you could be in a cruise, with a complete stranger in your cabin'' :rotfl:itll cost your £300 you get the cabin alone.

Simon_Kent

We should point out that all Whoopydoo vouchers that offer a cruise are for 2 persons in 2 berth cabin and not sharing with anyone they haven't named on their application. So the Guardian article you refer to is clearly not applicable to these vouchers.

If you actually held a voucher you can see that it clearly states this on page 3.

rospax

I'm sitting looking at a voucher code awarded me for having filled in an online survey for Consumer Lifestyles, the reward for which is, you've guessed it, a Free 7 day Mediterranean Holiday, which by the end of the survey had turned into a 7 Day Mediterranean Holiday via Free Holiday Vouchers. Hmm.

OK, so we have Simon MD's assurance that the holidays are genuine, we really can take who we like with us (and even share a room with them), and that there's no timeshare salesmen to meet us off the plane. I don't even mind much about a certain lack of flexibility, having no kids to consider and being in the position to take my hols any old time of the year, even at quite short notice.

What bothers me is the additional request for a £150 deposit cheque (is that per person or per party?) which apparently will only be cashed in the event that we don't turn up for the hol. OK I could probably risk £39 per person plus tax, however, handing over a cheque for £150 on top of everything else doesn't make me feel very secure. How can I be certain I'll get it back uncashed? And why do they need to charge you just in case you don't turn up - you've already paid the non-refundable £39 per person and the £40 or so tax so presumably not turning up doesn't cost the company any extra - surely it's only your loss, ie. the traveller's... isn't it?

And let's face it, things do come up in life that mean one has to change plans sometimes. I'd hate to feel compelled to go on holiday or risk throwing a further £150 away.

And where would that leave you with your cancellation travel insurance (assuming you had a genuine, insurable reason to cancel)? Would that £150 be acceptable to the insurers as a genuine holiday cost, seeing as it only applies after the fact.

And then again there's the issue of can I trust them to give me my cheque back even if I do go on the hol? Surely a deposit like that which may or may not be taken could be paid by credit card - a lot more secure if the company turns out to be fraudulent.

Has anyone out there ever actually taken a hol with these guys, and then got their £150 back? Answers please (but on this latter point, not from Simon MD or any of his psuedonyms, or employees for that matter).

satan666wayne

It is a scam if you win a holiday you should not have to pay for it at any cost.

Simon_Kent

Rosip,

The reason for the refundable deposit is very simple. When we book your holiday it costs us several hundred pounds but you have only paid for your taxes, etc. As a result we have had people who have confirmed their acceptance to go and then not bothered to turn up because they have changed their mind and not had the good manners to inform us so that we could possibly offer the holiday to another claimant. This has lead us to request a form of security from the claimant to make sure that they are going to travel.

We don't bank the cheque unless you fail to travel. If you had a genuine reason for not travelling, such as ill health, your travel insurance would then pay out for the cost of the holiday (deposit cheque). Without this they would only pay out your taxes etc and we would be left 'holding the baby'.

Once we know you have travelled we then feed your deposit cheque to our shredding machine or, if you have provided a SSAE, return it to you.

We stopped taking credit cards some time ago because the fixed and transaction costs became uneconomic.

setras

Simon,

I have one of these vouchers and after reading this thread am still not convinced. I do beleive what you have written could be used as an assurance in a Court should things go wrong.

What peace of mind can you give someone that your genuine..... I have my doubts after you freely published the name and association of a user on this site, I feel that is unethical and you may have breached this sites T & C's. If your prepared to do that then taking money by a scam would not lose you any sleep.........


so before I part with my hard earned cash put my mind at rest........