Another CLC & Club La Costa threads get deleted - what is MSE scared of?

marleyboy

I see yet again a third thread has been deleted, MSEdan did lock one (which was fair enough as at least it gets the chance to be viewed by others), proclaiming there was too many arguments on it, however looking through it I could not see one, it just seemed a rather lame excuse to ensure it got no further.

Two more have been posted since, warning about CLC ethics (of course their are many old ones still active that could just as easily be bumped), within each, all the links and reports posted were authentic, there was absolutely nothing libellous in either, nor was their anything abusive or "argumentative" (regardless of MSEDan's opinion) yet for some strange reason MSE keeps deleting them.

So come on MSE, what are you scared of about CLC or Club La Costa?, I always assumed MSE was a trusted site, that will happily warn members of anything risky or untoward, is CLC really scaring you this much with unsubstantiated legal threats or is MSE turning itself into another "only post good reviews on here please" sites?

Unless you are more open with us and TELL us what the big issue is with Club la Costa or CLC, instead of either turning a blind eye and deleting them, or falsely proclaiming the threads are being too "argumentative" and locking them, expect more of the same, this is after all supposed to be a "consumers" site and not some site that is prepared to be rattled by speaking the truth, and displaying the evidence.

MothballsWallet

MSE don't have to scared of the lawyers at companies like CLC, there's United Nations law on the consumer's side - as long as there's nothing libellous or that can't be backed up, then the Freedom of Expression Article (number 19) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights applies. Also, there's nothing to stop CLC appointing a rep who has MSE permission to post and put their side of things.

marleyboy

Except the MSE team opt to just delete the threads completely, which casts me in doubt as to whether or not MSE is prepared to let this company be discussed fairly without the need for libel, as the only things posted on these threads, are what is freely available in the public domain, thaat act as a warning to others, even Martin Lewis's link regarding timeshare is prominently posted throughout each.

For some reason of which I know not, MSE is being overtly cautious about any posts that dare mention the "publicly available" information regarding this companies ethics, yet keep very low key as to the reasons behind it, this dispells my complete trust in MSE being independent and fair regarding the truth behind this company, something I NEVER in the Years of being a member, ever thought would be the case.

I dont think MSE is in anyway being dishonourable to its members, but when it comes to Club La Costa, MSE seem to have ulterior motives as to the reason they choose to "single out" anything to do with CLC, until we can establish what this is or indeed if this is the case, such threads are bound to be re-discussed and such advice is inevitably bound to be offered, and no doubt constantly deleted or singled out for daring to issue warnings about such an unethical company (with a MASSIVE history of negative reviews).

I was shocked though not surprised the original thread got deleted, even though it had exceeded over a thousand posts warning about CLC, the only reason I was not surprised was because it got trolled by abuse toward the end (a cast iron guarantee of getting bad information about any company to be wiped), I was hoping MSE would have locked that thread before it got to that level.

However the threads posted SINCE about this company, got deleted for no reason whatsoever, with one getting locked for no obvious reason, except some excuse of "its becoming argumentative" even though quite obviously this was not the case.

Rather than me point a finger of blame in any direction, (as I strongly suspect CLC are scared of such information being public, and watch this site like a hawk), I dont really know if discussing CLC or posting the clear evidence of their tactics and\or publicly available reviews (from press, media, watchdog etc.) is strictly TABOO on MSE, or whether MSE deletes them solely on the basis of this company saying "can you delete this thread", simply because MSE is being discreet as to the real motives behind these deletions.

Of course I understand that MSE reserve the right, as well as dealing with such a massive forum. But without a motive as to why CLC is a touchy subject, its inevitable it is going to crop up again and again, and its constant deletion with no reason, is only going to waver the trust in MSE being completely unbiased about such discussions.

I have always loved MSE, and have always had complete trust in their reviews, as well as their ability to warn members of any scams, fraud, rip offs, or dodgy companies. I really would not want to lose such faith in them as a result of CLC, but unless we know why it is a touchy subject for them, it is bound to be discussed.

MothballsWallet

There are a few other company-specific threads that have been locked and deleted, with Stickies posted, but I don't remember anything else happening with the investigations.

Former_MSE_Dan

Hi folks,

We just wanted to post to give you a brief update on this. We never want to close or delete threads regarding legitimate complaints.

However, sometimes due to legal challenges we are left with no choice but to close or remove threads while claims are investigated. It's important to always remember there are often multiple sides to each story, and it takes time and work to wade through the issues, especially when it isn't core to MoneySaving as in this instance.

We cannot promise that any deleted threads will be restored but we are investigating and will do our best to help MoneySavers.

Cheers

Dan

MothballsWallet

Dan, maybe I'm just being ignorant, and I don't mean to stir up anything, so please don't take this the wrong way, but Martin himself warns against holiday schemes like CLC, but I don't understand why investigating complaints about a company like this isn't seen as money saving at MSE Towers because a fair number of people have signed up, only to find out that they've lost a lot of money in it?

Would you be able to shed some more light on this for an old, slow, fogey like me?

Spartacus_Mills

MSE_Dan wrote: »

Hi folks,

We just wanted to post to give you a brief update on this. We never want to close or delete threads regarding legitimate complaints.

However, sometimes due to legal challenges we are left with no choice but to close or remove threads while claims are investigated. It's important to always remember there are often multiple sides to each story, and it takes time and work to wade through the issues, especially when it isn't core to MoneySaving as in this instance.

We cannot promise that any deleted threads will be restored but we are investigating and will do our best to help MoneySavers.

Cheers

Dan

If encouraging people not to fritter away tens of thousands on one of these schemes is not moneysaving then what is ?

I am sorry but this simply gives the appearance, rather like in the thread on Tripadvisor, that all an organisation has to do is threaten legal action and MSE will be rather supine in how it deals with it especially given the amount of corroboration given by posters - especially Marleyboy.

I guess the people they have hired to manage their online reputation are earning their corn by ruthlessly suppressing any negative comment.

Personally I think this approach is shameful.

Spartacus_Mills

marleyboy wrote: »

However the threads posted SINCE about this company, got deleted for no reason whatsoever, with one getting locked for no obvious reason, except some excuse of "its becoming argumentative" even though quite obviously this was not the case.

I thought the excuse was lame. Given that many threads in MSE become argumentative without a peep from the mods it is just merely an excuse to censor comment on clc.

Former_MSE_Dan

Hi folks,

By 'not core to MoneySaving', we mean that we have not covered it in details before, so when forummers and companies, and other parties, come to us with threads regarding it, we do not have all the research to hand in order to deal with it simply - as we would be able to do with a argument of a credit card or savings account.

Sorry if anyone feels we are being supine, we are not. We are simply following the procedures we always follow to protect both ourselves and our users.

Dan

MSE_Martin

MothballsWallet wrote: »

Dan, maybe I'm just being ignorant, and I don't mean to stir up anything, so please don't take this the wrong way, but Martin himself warns against holiday schemes like CLC, but I don't understand why investigating complaints about a company like this isn't seen as money saving at MSE Towers because a fair number of people have signed up, only to find out that they've lost a lot of money in it?

Would you be able to shed some more light on this for an old, slow, fogey like me?

Thank you for asking a question rather than being accusatory

There are millions of things people SHOULDN'T do - if we focused on what you shouldn't do, we'd never even start.

MoneySavingExpert is a site primarily about what actions you should take. We don't ever suggest people use holiday clubs on the site - its something we warn against.

This is a classic difficulty we face, a similar one was the Cartel Claims Company issue -

The site and I had said 100s times "don't use claims handling companies - don't pay up front" thats what this company did. Quite simply we don't have enough resources to take onevery company that does something against MoneySaving, that's impossible. Lots and lots of companies overcharge, mislead, and treat customers badly - our job isn't about helping people when that happens - its about showing people how to do it right in the first place (though if that then goes wrong, we do wade in)

The best way to explain the difference is that this type of thing is for Watchdog - ie somethings gone wrong sort it out - you'll never see that on MSE, we're about how to do it right in the first place (when I appear on watchdog its always a hybrid of the two - which is a unique role). Effectively MSE is prevantive, Watchdog curative.

We do our best to protect the consumer, but we are not a government funded body here to take up every cause, we have to pick them carefully, we don't have unlimited resources. To do this takes resources away from other work, takes legal time, needs research and corroborative work - a decision on priorities needs making.

Yet we do want to robustrly try and defend consumers rights in the forum to post the truth. However when legally challenged - we also have to protect the site and the legal way of doing that is taking down posts while we investigate - and see if we can corroborate as after that point it can be argued we are the publisher of every comment.

As dan has said above it is a subject we were looking at - though at the tail end of summer we are short of personel, don't have our in-house lawyer here and are relying on external consultancy so we can't react as quickkly as wed like

I do find this rather frustrating I've just spent a months in the skimlinks thread being told a forum doesn't need any staff, and is totally over resourced - now we're berated here for the opposite.

Truth is this isn't our issue generally - its not what we do - we have no expertise in it so can't react quickly - yet we will look at it to try and protect our users free comment - however some of the notes above are unfair and need a level of realism.

Spartacus_Mills

MSE_Martin wrote: »

Truth is this isn't our issue generally - its not what we do - we have no expertise in it so can't react quickly - yet we will look at it to try and protect our users free comment - however some of the notes above are unfair and need a level of realism.

Martin,

If you are referring to my comments I apologise if they come over as unfair. I appreciate the team here have a fine line to walk and I do not wish to appear unduly harsh to the team here especially as we are all on the same side.

Regards

SM