Club La Costa Disgusting Customer Service and Misleading 'Prize Luxury Holidays'.

maksipup

mpython wrote: »

maksipup wrote: »

I see you've deleted the insult about being drunk in an ambulance about me.

Decided not to sink to your level and accept you made a grammatical mistake.

mpython

maksipup wrote: »

mpython wrote: »

Decided not to sink to your level and accept you made a grammatical mistake.

Another insult, suggesting I am below you.............

maksipup

Always ensure any decision is made with regards to your own individual circumstance.

Very sound advice from Martin

mpython

With thanks to terryw and MSE martin: (my highlighting in blue)


We've had a note from the company OMI about what it argues are potentially libellous comments about it on here. Those posts have therefore been deleted.

I would also ask that no further discussions on this company take place. Please report any to the abuse controller.

I have not checked this company out and have no knowledge of its practices - and therefore am not in a position either to vouch for it, or to back up the criticisms.

Some General Tips On Holiday Home Organisations and Sales Meetings

However, do let me take the opportunity to make some general points on all holiday type schemes where you are invited to meetings.

DO NOT TOUCH ANY OF THEM WITH A BARGEPOLE!

Holiday clubs are almost invariably not MoneySaving. Their aim is to get long term cash from people. Often these companies work by pressure sales, inviting people to meetings and attempting to sign them up.

Worse still, they often use these meetings to recruit people to sell the product in a network marketing type scheme. In other words they get people to try and flog the idea to others working on commission. This means the 'testimonials' for these things are often flawed and biased and should be taken with a rock of salt.

Rarely have any of these companies actually provided a good deal for any consumer. As a general point I would completely avoid attending such meetings. Never part with your money. In my view you're almost invariably better off going for a normal holiday.

Martin

marleyboy

maksipup wrote: »

Always ensure any decision is made with regards to your own individual circumstance.

Very sound advice from Martin

I think you missed this bit out........

Martin Lewis, Money Saving Expert.
Please note, answers don't constitute financial advice, it is based on generalised journalistic research.

marleyboy

just got back from clc resort in fuengirola and what a nightmare it was.
got to resort at 10pm with 11 month old baby took an hour to check in then we had mount everest to climb to get to the apartment with all bags pushchair etc with no help from porters.the apartment was dirty and not child friendly having two floors to it and no child gate also the cot they provided was a travel cot that was in a really bad state or repair which we had to pay 12 euros for the privelegde of using.as we had been travelling most of the day we decided to go to one of the 3 resturants(1 was closed for the winter,the other you had to reserve but was full for the week)) on site out of the 4 meals ordered 2 were cancelled before they arrived due to baby been ill and the others were absolutly crap and were sent back and we left refusing to pay.
the small supermarket on site was very expensive and overpriced but they have got you by the short and curly's as you need a car to get anywhere else.
monday we changed apartments to a much better one (thought things were looking up)tue we had our meeting we were shown fantastic apartments jacuzzis on the balconys etc i thought why were'nt we put in one now as we were on a marketing week i asked the rep he said they dont as they dont know who is coming and we could have been the family from hell ,mmm i thought we had been selected for this as high caliber people.
well not wanting to ramble on as soon as we were'nt interested in parting with any money it turned sour the rep got rude to my wife and just ignored her questions so we walked out.
the place is half run down on the side of a mountain and it seems that your money goes into buying nice new cars for the reps to run round in i counted over 30 in the resort in one day and they are constantley showing people around i reckon over a hundred a day.
so to top it all off the taxi to the airport never turned up either i wonder if its because i never bought into the program.
so you make your own mind up i got a cheap holiday for my family and inlaws i paid £75 for the weeks accom for 4 adults and a baby altho the place was not suitable for us or the holidays that there offering it was good value it was just a shame that there attitudes did'nt match
i recommend you play them at there own game get the cheap holiday attend the meeting dont say anything then say it's not for you and leave enjoy a cheap holiday
ps the thousands of flies were a free extra at no cost

Hi,
For some strange reason we didn't bother doing any internet research before heading off to a CLC presentation - normally extremely cynical, we were temporarily beguiled by the offer of a free holiday, and the dulcet tones of Monica from Stirling who assured us we only had to attend a 20 min presentation, receive some brochures and have a chat with a rep, absolutely no catch, honest, it would all be over in 2 hours max. We arrived early and decided to sit and wait in the car park as there were no cafe facilities at the presentation venue. Strange?
We were greeted by the rep, who looked every inch the salesman, all mouth and trousers. Whilst Pete went to the loo, I asked what time we could expect to finish, as of course we had to leave at the witching hour of 5 o' clock, and confessed to being just a bit worried by the 11.00 o'clock people leaving at 2.30pm - certainly longer than the promised 2 hours. The rep turned aggressive and defensive and asked me in belligerent tones, "Do you want me to lie to you?" He went on to use the full range of cod-psychology tactics in his armoury (we know this because he had gone full-circle in approx. 2 mins), asking us what our profession was and making childish and irrelevant analogies. The icing on the cake was his closing gambit: "Look, my father was in the military." SO WHAT, MR SALES REP????? His insistence that he is a people person surely points to the fact that he is anything but, as I kindly and very quietly pointed out to him as we left. His body language was textbook defensive, and all his statements were non-sequiturs. We couldn't bear the thought of being held captive by such an obnoxious character, and left without even hearing the presentation. Amazing I have so much to say about someone whose company I "enjoyed" for a grand total of 4 mins, 25 secs. Back to the cynical approach next time. Am now going to book a nice holiday of my choice online. How can I explain his attitude? Was it because he was exhausted from a grilling by the previous batch of potential victims (all of whom, incidentally, left with faces like thunder)??

Went to a presentation in Tenerife.
Looked round one site only. (They try to get you to look round two)
Told girl it was becoming tedious.
Back to salesman. Was not very pleased when we said we had no interest in buying a timeshare.-He tried to tell us we were on a timeshare at the time as we were in a hotel where someone else would be a couple of weeks later.
Waited to be processed in a long queue for over half an hour to collect 'gifts', then was told that I needed my passport to confirm my age.
When I said I wished to forfeit my gift rather than go back to hotel for my passport (at their expense by taxi), I was told getting back to civilization would be at my own expense. ( In Tenerife the complex is along way out)
I therefore went back for my passport being forced to leave my wife as hostage to make sure I came back.
When we got our 'gifs'(yes-one was a special) I received 2 bottles of cheep booze and my wife's was-you guessed it.-A weeks holiday in a time share, but not one of theirs. It was one of the promotional hols. that anyone can get just by ringing up one of the many companies offering these promotional holidays.
The above is exactly as it happened, so gather your own conclusions!!!

A 751 point membership which included 751 points remaining from 08, with a further 1502 unused points failed to sell on Ebay this week. Starting price 2k - no bids. A well known reseller also failed to attract a single bid on a similar lot at much the same price.

Some points were sold for pence each.

1 piece of information I was given that made me highly sceptical was about the maintenance fees. I asked for details of fees over the last 5 years and was given the following, 410, 412, 413, 413, 415 and that the most it had ever risen in history was £3. It seemed as if the figures had just been picked off the top of his head (I actually expected someone to have to go and find out this info). When I wrote this down (in my comments above please note they also don't provide you with any way of making notes but fortunately I went prepared) I was asked why I was writing it down? The comment so I know exactly what you told me I feel didn't go down to well.

I would have expected this figure to be at least around the rate of inflation so to see it around 0.25% a year seemed very wrong. Can any members confirm or deny this? If it is for maintenance surely their costs would have risen more than this

Finally a question on the 'awarded' holiday. Anyone who's been on it care to comment. The salesperson actually said to me at the end not to bother going on it as its not worth it. I took this as bitterness for us not buying and possibly assuming it does cost the company money if people take them it could have been an active tactic to put us off. Anyone care to comment?

Wish I saw your advice early last year. Now wouldn't have a £10,000 debt. Information given to you are only to entice you. The other side of the coin is hidden that's why we find out all the flaws here and for most of us it's to late. They're smiling to the bank with £10,000 richer, and you? Trying to skip the bank or skip town cause now you're in debt. A week in a luxury hotel room here or an apartment there is not worth going into debt for or spending your savings on.

This is not an investment. There are no returns and you are only left with maintenance fees close to £1000 and rising by the minute. I've always got an invoice in the mail for special management fees or special something. Haven't used any of my CLC points as yet because whenever it suites us dates are never available with them or check in/check out is either saturday/sunday/friday.

So you've found a flight, can take a holiday but the check in days don't correspond and if you arrive on the any other days you'll have to fork out from your pocket to cover the nights. Another thing, flight alone is sometimes around £500 or more. Then think about another £200 if you happen to eat in their restaurant plus buy groceries for your apartment. Then you come back from your CLC holiday really lovely property and spent £700 without even doing an excursion. Ask yourself how many times a year you'll do this?

You can get a lovely self-catering/half board or all-inclusive holiday on the internet or high street with return flights for sometimes £400 that's what I've gone back to doing.

Yes treat yourselves to a 5 star holiday sometimes but without forking out £10,000 to some smart !!! with a convincing sales tongue with yearly maintenance fees. CLC is a monkey on my back!

If you're desperate to get in I want to get out. DWVC wants to trade places with me but they want me to pay them £7000??? ever here such foolishness. I prefer to 'stay in the frying pan than jump in the fire'. Please stay away from any presentation relating to holidays/clubs/points/weeks etc.

If you intend to go leave your credit card/debit card home. The presentations are usually beautifully done. You would be awed by the beautiful apartments and how much a enjoyment you could have. But be warned???

At the presentations they usually say the 'offer is only available today' and it's a' YES or No today only offer' and 'not available tomorrow'. Means they don't want you to go away and think about it! Chances are you'll do some research and change your mind. They want you in the net now 'today you're ready cash, tomorrow you're a bounce cheque', Do not sign anything or depart with a deposit. Remember they won't tell you there's no 'cooling off period'. If you still want to get in you can have mine for nothing. It's a monkey on my back.

My advice is don't touch this company with a barge pole.
I am a member and have been for a couple of years and oh how i regret ever going to the local presentation. I have forked out the best part of £15,000 for 1501 points and the management fees when we signed up were about £800 and we were promised that they would never rise above the rate of inflation. What a load of cobblers!

Last year we were subject to a surcharge mid year because as they said "the fees at the beginning of the year didn't go as far as they expected" We had no option but to pay up or have our membership suspended.

This year they have switched all membership fees to Euros which I don't think is a bad thing HOWEVER the exchange rate they have chosen is 1.27 because that was the rate in October!!!

So my charges have now gone up by a staggering 32% as I can only get Euros at todays rate which is about 1.05 and furthermore this inflated Euro figure will be the baseline for next years increase.

If you seriousely want in then you can have my points for a sensible figure.
I have written to the company and they are totally unsympathetic in fact they say that this decision was taken because "it was in the members best interests" How arrogant is that?
Chris

Club La Costa.......

you have all heard the gossip... free holidays, etc etc. well here's the secret of their success: get you hooked a little in the uk. only 3,800 quid with 400 a year maintenance - get you to spain or somewhere and then the big one - ****** you for everything. 1501 points for 20,000 and ever increasing maintenance starting at over 1300.00 and increasing by 12% a year,and after you are dead and gone they will go for your children and grand children. here's the bad thing, they make it sound so good,they even tell you that they will buy the points back if you want out. they do not tell you about clause 7 that specifically states that they will not. worse - no one will buy them! it has ended up costing another 9500 to get rid of this. sadly we got caught hook line and sinker.

and lets not forget, we tried to book various holidays, every time - nothing we wanted was available. SO PLEASE . . . . DO THE RIGHT THING . . . . . RUN RUN RUN, DO NOT ANSWER THEIR MAIL, DO NOT TALK TO THEM - THEY ARE VERY PERSUASIVE AND I PERSONALLY HAVE JUST LOST 30,000 QUID TO THEM.

http://forum.holidaywatchdog.com/Timeshare-&-Holiday-Clubs-Club-La-Costa-Thread-2329-Page-56.html

marleyboy

i have tried many places to sell points, which quite frankly are worthless despite being originally worth 20k. when you consider all things, you have to get rid of the maintenance fees, as they go on forever, not just the 10 years whilst you pay off the points. increasing by at least 12% pa. i ended up paying someone to take the flaming points so i have no more worries.

also i note another comment that to go into that ammount of finance is crazy, well if they allowed you to consider it then that would be true. however once in spain or wherever you may be outside of the uk, there is no cooling off period, they hound you, even yell at you, and get you to sign. it is only when you have time to look into the scam in total, try to book holidays, which seem to be so over subscribed that you cant even get one - unless its one of their free weeks *****(sorry, i mean sales weeks)*****

There is never going to be agreement on CLC. I don't think that it stacks up financially unless you are able to make the fullest possible use of it - and for a long time - and don't have to rely on loan finance.

Anyone who buys in should be aware that they are never going to be able to resell for more than a few percent of what they paid - so if you aren't going to stay in, don't go in.

The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 have a fair bit to say about undue pressure at presentations, incomplete or deliberately unclear information and fake "today only opportunities".

For example - "A commercial practice is unfair if it materially distorts or is likely to materially distort the economic behaviour of the average consumer with regard to the product" i.e. it is an offence to tell not merely lies, but half-truths, exaggerations. It is an offence to do anything which applies pressure with a view to distorting the customer's view of the product.

https://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2008/uksi_20081277_en_1

http://forum.holidaywatchdog.com/Timeshare-&-Holiday-Clubs-Club-La-Costa-Thread-2329-Page-57.html

Spartacus_Mills

Timeshare Consumers Association


Holiday Clubs

(including Vacation Clubs & Travel Clubs)

Holiday Clubs are BAD news and should be avoided

Holiday clubs are booking systems for which you pay a large joining fee to enable you to book holidays at prices which are generally no cheaper than on the Internet or High Street.

The enticement may be when you are at home or when you are on holiday :-

• a scratch card on the street
• a telephone call offering to buy your timeshare - ending with "you need to come to our offices etc.."
• a telephone call offering low cost holidays
• a telephone call, possibly claiming to be from RCI, inviting themselves into your home under some pretext

Key reasons for avoiding membership of a holiday club:

• lack of certainty that you will get anything, let alone what is promised. If the club goes "bust" tomorrow, you have lost everything
• the lies told by salesmen to get their commission
• the lack of any "club" structure to enable members to influence how the club is run
• the inability to check what the club can offer until after all the money has been paid (the Scots phrase "buying a pig in a poke")
• no time (cooling off period) in which to check salesmens claims
• they take a deposit so as to lock you into the contract
• there is no "second hand" market to enable you to recover some of the capital sum when you want to "get out".
• the cost of taking holidays in the club is generally no cheaper than in the open market (teletext, internet or high street) - the membership fee is therefore worthless.
• many purchase agreements appear to be void in law, lacking certain essentials of an enforecable contract

The introduction of the Consumer Protection Regulations on 26 May 2008 - see here - will ensure that most of the UK based crooks in the holiday club industry will be forced to cease trading. If you are caught by a holiday club sales team then you should report this to your own local trading standards officer who will be able to use the Consumer Protection Regulations to stop their activities.Holiday clubs come in three flavours - recognising which flavour you are involved with is almost impossible:

Bogus

with neither a formal structure nor an administration service, they have no arrangements for delivering the promised holidays. In legal terms they simply do not exist. Run by unsavoury people with criminal records they eventually “disappear” having stolen a LOT of money. The majority of holiday clubs fall into the “bogus” category. Many thousands of consumers are defrauded every year. Fraudulent

a superior version of the bogus club – where a formal structure may have been established (usually a limited liability company or proprietary club) and a small administration service has been set up. These clubs last longer than the bogus ones – because they initially appear to provide a service – but close down when complaints about failure to deliver the promised holidays get too great. Many tens of thousands of holiday club members have already been “left in the lurch” when their club disappeared. Established

where a legal structure exists, an administration service is in place, and members do get holidays – but generally not where, when or at the price promised by the salesman. Although very poor value for money, they may survive for a number of years. An increasing number of holiday clubs are Internet based - booking of holidays can only be done using a website, often based in the USA. These internet clubs are no more reliable than their "land based" cousins.
Holiday club salesmen tell lies for a living. Typically:

• lies about where in the world you can take the promised holidays
• lies about the time of year you can take the promised holidays
• lies about the quality of accommodation
• lies about the costs of the accommodation
• lies about the savings they offer fro flights etc.
• lies about who endorses the club - Disney, Marks & Spencer and other highly respected organisations.

Those holiday clubs that DO provide some holidays usually operate by renting spare timeshare or hotel accommodation. They find it near impossible to rent periods in high season (ie. school holidays when most holiday makers want to go away) and places in high demand (the very places you want to go).
And claims that they are members of ABTA or IATA (even if the claim is true) does not provide any comfort as the joining fee and the membership fee is not covered by the bonding schemes run by these two respected organisations.
Holiday clubs that do provide holidays either:

• pay a full rental fee (which they pass on to you with an uplift) which is exactly what you could do for yourself using the internet or teletext.
• Or they book timeshare weeks on the understanding that you attend a timeshare presentation (6 hours of sheer hell) from which they receive a commission if you buy.

Update - July 2006.

The Office of Fair Trading announced that they are in negotiation with five holiday club operators to introduce a Code of Conduct covering:-

• Truthful marketing by all marketing outlets for the clubs
• A cooling off period (probably 10 days)
• Fair complaint handling procedure.

The clubs involved are:-

• Club Class Holidays
• Design Vacation
• Full Circle Management Ltd - in liquidation 24 July 2008 - see here
• Elite Holidays
• Timelinx (DWVC) – who did not attend the initial negotiating meeting. But see here

And the Office of Fair Trading are also collecting information about dodgy holiday club marketers and operators. TCA Advice - AVOID becoming a member of a holiday club.

• If you do not get an unconditional written 14 day cooling off period - walk away.
• If any attempt is made to take any money during the cooling off period - walk away
• If you do not get the opportunity to take the purchase agreement away to read it before signing - walk away
• If all the verbal promises made to you are not in writing - walk away.
• If you are not given, in writing, detailed examples of places, times and prices that are available to you - walk away
• If you do not get written proof (bonding, trusteeship etc.) that club will honour all the promises for the full period of membership - walk away
• If you feel the need to use a lawyer to help you get out of a holiday club contrcat (and get back any money paid) talk to any solicitors here

If you want to see what happens to your money when you buy into a holiday club - click here If you are enticed to sign up then please read How to cancel

Spartacus_Mills

[EMAIL="http://www.timeshare.org.uk/holigraph.html"]http://www.timeshare.org.uk/holigraph.html[/EMAIL]

Where your money goes.

marleyboy

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

Where your money goes.