Holiday Club Scams

well if it sounds to good to be tr....... There was a long thread from a particular company r1pp1ng off people with time share and ownership schemes

Who did you buy from, where did you buy it from, how did you buy it and where is the company registered?

I *believe* that if the company is not registered in the UK you can just stop paying the fees and they will just take back the week or points as they cannot proceed through the courts with you living overseas. This is what someone I know did, they just stopped paying, ignored everything and in the end the letters stopped as they could not get the money back.

Are you trying to get your initial outlay back?

Have you called Trading Standards or Consumer Direct to see what they say?

And if you paid by Credit Card have you called them to see what they say?

We are with a club like the one you talk about and have been members for a really long time now and we always bank our week with RCI to go further afield and have more choice but we have never had an issue with not getting what we want, when we want so I do not think it is the same company. When we bought it we bought on finance and when the big PPI claiming thing came in we tried to claim the the PPI back as we was told we had to take it but we would not have been able to claim from it, so I went via the Ombudsman but they said because the Finance company was registered (and we was paying that company) in the Isle of Man we was not eligible for a refund. It was only about £4 a month - not huge sums of money - but a principle was at stake here, lol, so in the respect of claiming back PPI, we was not eligible for that.

iainmcr wrote: »

Hi,

would be interested to hear from anyone ripped off by "holiday clubs" especially in Tenerife, and even more so if you have managed successfully to reclaim on a section 75 or have managed to get a refund.

I don't want to get into a discussion about "if it sounds to good to be true" for once in my life I let my guard down!

My wife and I were in Tenerife in January this year, and walking along the front north of Playa las Americas when we were accosted by a couple of pleasant British ladies with clipboards. They asked us about how we were enjoying our holiday, then started talking about local markets, and asked us as far as I remember if we would like to talk to someone about a scheme to promote Tenerife. There was said to be a free bottle of wine in it. We smelt a slight rat, but having plenty of time (and holding on tight to our wallets) went off to see how this developed. We were introduced to this chap in an adjacent holiday emporium. Turned out very quickly to be a holiday club membership salesman. We were told there was a 90 minute presentation. We told this bloke quite clearly we were not interested, because we like to holiday in different places, and keep our options wide open, but he pretty well insisted on giving us the presentation anyway. So we got a cup of coffee and carried on. Can't remember all the details now, but there was an annual subscription which gave the right to holidays in very cheap 4 star accommodation in these resorts all over the world. We saw this "typical and unprepared" appartment in the emporium, which just happened to be decorated with nice pictures and potted plants. It had the biggest washbasin I have ever seen. There was a big emphasis on the 4-star, and there seemed to also be an emphasis on golfing. I remember the subscription seemed quite expensive. Towards the end of the presentation we were taken to a room where it appeared that several other people were enthusiastically signing up- afterwards we wondered if they were actors? Although in there we were leaned on quite heavily, we did turn it down because at the end of the day as we had said in the first place, we were not interested in the concept. I think the salesman had gone through it with us anyway because he had some kind of bet that he could change our minds.
I'm sure there are people to whom this kind of thing is attractive, I know people personally who participate quite happily in timeshare, but at the end of the day if you don't want to be tied down to a particular style of holiday or particular locations, don't agree to pay out any kind of subscription for such a thing. I would imagine also that if the organisers go broke, you will lose your most recent subscription installment.
NB, we never got the wine.

You are quite right Mrs_Sparrow, it is horses for courses. Our approach to a holiday is quite different to yours, we find it enjoyable to take punts sometimes on quite rough looking accommodation in obscure corners of Europe- often you get little gems, sometimes you don't. All I was saying was, don't get tied down to what you don't want. And some of the salespeople for holiday clubs and other subscription schemes are very persuasive, you really don't want to go into any sales pitch meeting with your eyes shut. And not after a few drinks.