Is this a Con?

bhafc810

I was called last night to say i have won a holiday :j and i was to call an 0800 number and was given a reference code to quote.

I called the number and the company name was sunshine holidays lady told me that i had won a holiday to either Tenerife or costa del sol.

The prize was for 7 nights self catering for up to 6 persons and i would need to pay £49.50 pp booking fee.

I was then told i would have to drive to lakeside this week (approx 3 hours away) to claim my prize and watch a promotional video! which would take all afternoon!

I have a feeling this could be timeshare and once got to the destination would be bombarded by timeshare salesman. They wanted to know if i was a home owner on the phone and if i was full time employed.

Any ideas?

sue

payless

Yes timeshare, pointsm, holiday club or something similiar
-
search on "timeshare" or "Sunterra " on this forum for more info
( the promoter may not be sunterra in this case, but they do a similiar promotion)

Some would say Timeshare does have its benefits , although buying onsite or via a marketing agency is not likely to be the most cost effective way

If decide to go to meeting only for the ( not ) free holiday

1. Make sure you are aware of all the terms ( extra costs, restrictions)
2. Have strong willpower

rchddap1

We've had those phone calls. Had a guy on the phone for about 30 mins once after I started to argue various points with him. I had great fun. Had the guy well confused by the end of the phone call.

cardtart_2

It sounds similar to something that happened to us,we recieved a letter telling us we had won a holiday and a free dvd player to be picked up at a special 'promotional evening' We went along to this and said we were not signing up for anything.
When we got there there was about half a dozen other couples as well.Each couple were assigned one representitive who proceeded to grill us about how many holidays we took a year etc.The whole thing was supposed to last about 2 1/2 hours.After 20 minutes the guy who was speaking to us asked how much we would be able to afford a month for some sort of holiday club,we said we could'nt afford anything and he seemed to lose all interest and said we were wasting his time.So my O H said thanks we will have our dvd player then and be off,but the guy was having none of this and said we had to spend the rest of the time there so we said okay ,but he didn't want us to so hubby kicked up a bit of a fuss and just to get us out he gave us a voucher for the dvd player which we did recieve later.The free holiday seemed okay but reading the smallprint, you had to attend another promotion while you were there where I would imagine some hard sell would go on.Some companies offer free accommodation but ask you to pay for meals which are ridiculously expensive.So beware if you never entered a competition in the first place then it is probably too good to be true.

jezza1O1

Yes. ** No need for that language, even abbreviated -Edited by Abuse Controller **


edit, 2 yrs later: awe I think it was in context, but your call abuse controller

mcallister1

Sometimes the times you can take the holidays are really limited.For instance, they say they will give you a weeks notice to let you know when you are going- not much use to anyone who has to book holidays. Also sometimes it doesn't include flights. However, all these things are only revealed after the presentation, and assurances you have had over the phone are pretty worthless.
We tried really hard once to make one of these work out. We went to the presentation, but luckily they didn't have room for us, so eventually agreed to give us the leaflet you get at the end without us having suffered for a couple of hours. The amount of small print and limitations on the holiday were incredible.