Ultimate After Party - County Court Judgement

Nicky2

Hi I would like to advise that I have received the same scam as all you above, please note that I have been intouch with Pontins and also Butlins management- who are now onto this scam and there is no dates or arrangements made at either venue in November 10 or Jan 2011 so please do not make any payments. I have been advised by my solicitor to not make any payments either- mine is £720!!!
I was in Magaluf in july and me and my friends signed up for the BCM'S booze cruise and the BCM'S bar crawl - we didnt go on the booze cruise and got a refund due to them messing the dates up for the trip and now my details have now been cloned onto a contract that I never agreed to and GHPE LTD are now chasing , the contract that they have included states that this is at Pontins 12-15 Nov but I have never received any details till now regarding this - I have contacted the office today and they advised that this date has now been postponed till Jan 2011 to take place at the Butlins Skegness but they couldnt confirm a date with me. Please note that when I was challenging them they became very contrdictive and wouldnt give definate answers.
I have told them of my actions and they didnt seem to care at all.
I do not intend to make any payments and wanted to make you all aware of this scam and that this is now going to be investigated by not only the holiday companys advised above but I am also in the process of reporting this to the Consumer Direct and watchdog - I would strongly advise that you all do the same.

bigJim49

We have just received notice this morning of intention to recover outstanding monies from Global Holidays & Promotional Events for a BCM UK Reunion Ultimate After Party for Friday 12th November to Monday 15th November 2010 (doesn't state a venue!).

My 21 year old son is down as the party leader, his two mates (also 21) and my 18 year old daughter and her mate (18 also) make up the 5 names on the booking form.

As they are both away at universities, you can imagine our reaction when this arrived this morning!

GHPE's intention to recover the monies within 7 days panicked us somewhat as the letter was dated 28th October, but only franked 1st November and arrived today!

On making contact with my son his understanding of what he thought they were undertaking is much the same as others on this forum...They thought that they were paying 10 euros each for a bar crawl that they went on in Magalluf last July. The reunion party was mentioned by the rep - it was left that they would be contacted nearer the time to see if they were interested.

Two weeks ago contact was made via a phone call asking him to commit to it. Apparently the rooms needed to be booked. As he couldn't commit he left it that he would contact them only if they wanted to go ahead. Nothing was mentioned that he had already signed up with a deposit(?) and would therefore be liable for some outstanding balance. There is no copy of anything he actually signed, nor do I know if anything exists.

We are disgusted that this is happening to impressionable young people in Spain, who by now must be worried silly and might think it best to quickly pay to make this problem go away (maybe before their parents find out?).

We are thankful that this forum exists, but (sadly) we are not alone in this con.

What to do next, from reading all the threads it seems that people are doing nothing?

tj37

My daughter was in Magaluf in July 2010 and has fallen victim to the same scam. She has received a letter this morning demanding payment of £534 for her and her friends otherwise legal proceedings will commence. I have advised her to ignore this and we will wait and see what happens.
I have contacted BBC watchdog and gave them details of this scam and am hoping that if enough of us do the same they will investigate and close this operation down before more young vulnerable people fall victim to this ruthless organisation.

2801

Just rang the bcm company there, asking how far they take action, and he said they will take legal action and take it to court.
i asked about where the location for the event was and he said they have changed the date to january but cannot confirm the location. when i said pontins no nothing about it he stuttered and said err well it is a real thing.
has anyone else got any other letter except the Notification to collect outstanding monies? or is that the furthest its been taken?

wealdroam

2801 wrote: »

Just rang the bcm company there, asking how far they take action, and he said they will take legal action and take it to court.

Well they're not very likely to say...
"You can ignore our letters. We just hope they'll frighten some people into paying",
are they?

Darby64

My son has just received a letter declaring a notice of intention to recover outstanding monies, from G.H.P.E LTD. The thing is he signed up for a bar crawl whilst on holiday in Magalluf and signed along with three friends, the fourth friend was allowed free access as it was his birthday. The original booking form was a B.C.M Reunion form but the reps have written clearly on the form that it is a bar crawl. The thing is along with the letter of intent, a booking conditions form has been sent to us, the boys were not given this form whilst on holiday. They paid 40euros for a bar crawl. Not sure how to tackle this.

redkite2

My son and friends also fell victim to this scam, told he was signing up for a bar crawl in Magaluf and then 4 months later gets the threatening letter.

I'll be reporting this to Watchdog, trading standards etc. and hope some action is taken.

Thank you Martin lewis (and Google) otherwise his mother and I would be worrying about the £500+ that GHPE claim he owes.

Nicky2

Darby64 wrote: »

My son has just received a letter declaring a notice of intention to recover outstanding monies, from G.H.P.E LTD. The thing is he signed up for a bar crawl whilst on holiday in Magalluf and signed along with three friends, the fourth friend was allowed free access as it was his birthday. The original booking form was a B.C.M Reunion form but the reps have written clearly on the form that it is a bar crawl. The thing is along with the letter of intent, a booking conditions form has been sent to us, the boys were not given this form whilst on holiday. They paid 40euros for a bar crawl. Not sure how to tackle this.

There is no point contacting this company as you will get no where, I have been advised by Butlins and Pontins that this event has never been authorised and they are investigating this scam now! I have been advised by a legal advisor that this company will only be able to recover any monies owed by taking each person to a small claims court - which I cant see them doing as it is a scam and they will hang themselves once in court! please dont be pressured into paying any monies even if they do pass it to any debt company. keep all documents and any evidence ie phone calls logged.
I hope this info helps

jenniferp28

This happened to us too! a group of four of us, just arrived in our hotel, plonked out cases down then these 2 girls bombarded into our room and persuaded us to sign onto the bar crawl that BCM were doing. So we did, it was our first night after all and we wanted to hit the strip like all young holiday makers do!
Anyway, you all know the drill... they got us to sign along with our 10euro "deposit" and then my friend was getting viscious phone calls and then letters which quite frankly are pathetic! I mean, the grammar and spelling is atrocious!!!!!
this is a copy of the email i have sent to watchdog...

Hi there
4 of us aged between 18 and 20 came on holiday to have a good time .We booked to go to Magaluf with Thomas Cook (NOT club 18-30's) on the 19/07/2010 for one week. We had literally just arrived, and had not even un-packed, when 2 young girls who were BCM ‘reps’ bounded through our door to sell us tickets for ‘a pub crawl’ for 10 Euros each. We were told this would also act as a deposit for the BCM reunion (an event taking place at a Pontins resort - Bognor), if we wanted to go, but were told that there was no obligation. Being young and naive we signed up for the pub crawl. At no point did we have the terms and conditions that were later to sent to our friend (who initially signed the form), explained to us, especially the fact that we had only fourteen days to cancel otherwise we would be expected to pay the remainder of the money for the re-union we did not even want to attend.
We stated at the time that we weren’t particularly interested in the reunion event and only wanted to go on the bar crawl for our first night in Magaluf. The "reps" said this was fine and they would only send us details at a later date and then we could decide what we wanted to do.
Since the holiday, my friend has had many phone calls and 3 letters harassing her, even reducing her to tears, stating that she owes them 365 (Pounds? Dollars? Euros? - it doesn’t actually state what we should pay - it literally just says " There is an overdue amount of 365 on your BCM reunion account")and that she should expect debt collectors if the amount isn’t paid within 7 days of receiving the "Notice of Intention to Recover Outstanding Monies" letter. We don’t know what date this letter had been sent out as the letter is the most unprofessional I have ever seen - No punctuation or formal writing methods are used AT ALL!
This all leads us to believe it is a scam, and after researching on the internet it is clear that this is happening to other young people who are going on these clubbing holidays. I will put the link on the bottom of this so you can see the other concerns from young people about the same thing. We have notified Thomas Cook about this and also intend to let the Police know. We wondered if maybe you could help to investigate this further as we, and many others across the internet, believe this is a complete scam, yet BCM and G.H.P.E Ltd are potentially making thousands of pounds off vulnerable people who give in and pay these incredible amounts of money for something they don’t even intend to go to.

Please also find attatched a copy of the letter we are intending to get posted this weekend to G.H.P.E Ltd.

Thank you for taking the time to read this email.


I hope everyone else will also write to watchdog and hopefully we can get this shambles of a firm closed down and people can be re-imbursed for feeling like they have had to pay these ridulous amounts of money for nothing! I shall post the letter we wrote to them after this one.

Jenny

jenniferp28

okay, so it wont let me attatch the letter we sent but it basically states that we are withdrawing and forfeiting our deposits and if we get any other form of communication from them we shall take matters further.
Basically, i have no doubt that this is a scam, but my friend was really shaken up by it and thought she would have to pay the outstanding "monies" to them..
I did find it highly amusing, though, that they didnt state what we actually owed them other than 365... LOL

deary me, these guys running this firm need bringing down a peg or two! scumbags!!!