Timeshare: Won Holiday On A Scratchcard

ehlittleone · 13 September 2005 at 12:28PM

I wonder if anyone can give me any advice please.

My brother has just returned from a holiday to Portugal and says he has won a weeks holiday for 4.

He attended a meeting with a timeshare company while there and was given two scratchcards where he won a bottle of wine and SURPRISE SURPIRSE a weeks free holiday.

He has told me that he will have to pay for his flights but the accommodation is free.

Can someone tell me if there is any other catches to these holidays. Has anyone out there actually got the free holiday offered?

I personally think its all a con but he and his wife are so gullible its embarassing. How can I persuade him not to bother? Or has he got the bargain that he thinks he has?

Thanks in advance.

zolablue25 · 13 September 2005 at 1:22PM

Yes there is another catch. During the holiday you will have to attend another sales pitch. We went on one and we had to but our flights through a certain supplier, but that wasn't a problem as the prices were OK. The sales pitch we had to sit through lasted all day and was for a 'Holiday Club'. If your strong enough to withstand the patter and don't mind wasting a day then they are fine.

I hope this helps

mrnomoneybags · 13 September 2005 at 1:26PM

All Holiday clubs are a con and all timeshares are a waste of money.

IMO

finlay · 13 September 2005 at 1:31PM

Tell him to throw it in the bin and google the company for info. I'd lay bets there are loads of watchdog type complaints about them.

zolablue25 · 14 September 2005 at 1:47PM

Tomlewis007 wrote:

All Holiday clubs are a con and all timeshares are a waste of money.

IMO

I agree about Holiday Clubs but can't agree about Timeshares. I would however, agree with you if you were mad enough to sign up for one on site. We were quoted in excess of £10,000 for an apartment we viewed, when we came back to UK we bought one from a resale place for £2000.

mrnomoneybags · 14 September 2005 at 2:50PM

zolablue25 wrote:

I agree about Holiday Clubs but can't agree about Timeshares. I would however, agree with you if you were mad enough to sign up for one on site. We were quoted in excess of £10,000 for an apartment we viewed, when we came back to UK we bought one from a resale place for £2000.

How much are the management fee's each year?

Are they fixed?

What happens if something major goes wrong with the aparment block?

All the timeshares i have seen have not been worth anything IMO.

the fee's are almost the same price as a hotel or apartment hire for two weeks.

as i said IMO.

zolablue25 · 14 September 2005 at 3:44PM

I used to agree with you until I tried to book my mum a weeks self catering in Tenerife for peak season in a 4* resort. The prices were staggering. Our management fees are not fixed but are set by a management committee where owners are represented. The fees at the moment are £300 but the villa sleeps 6 so £50 a head isn't bad. Yes we have had late deals that would work out at a similar price but the standard of accomodation really doesn't stand up.

Your other point is definitely valid though. I don't know what would happen if something majr was to happen to someone who owned in an appartment block but I guess all but the most major disaster would be covered bythe emergency fund.

I guess all these things come down to opinions. The real drawback for timeshare to me is the fact that you have to be prepared to stay in the same place each year or pay out more again to exchange.

ehlittleone · 14 September 2005 at 9:22PM

Hi sorry back to the original message, just to say thanks for the advice.

I spoke to my brother today and he is adamant they arn't a con. I did a google on the company and couldnt find anything about them (DRMI Consortium based in Malaga) although that's the name and address on his exclusive winning ticket (ha-ha) I guess they might probably have other names.

I did find some other useful information from my google search so I asked him some questions about whether he had to sign anything - no, whether he had to give credit card details - no, I said to him he may have to pay a fee to join their membership club - he thinks no, or get his own flights and attend a day long seminar - he said yes but was happy to do that for the holiday.

I also said to him that they may ask him to pay a deposit of say £1,000 which they would return to him once he had taken the holiday, like a cash back scheme, and then never return it. At this point he and his wife went very quiet. Maybe I hit the nail on the head or they were just fed up with my constant questions/nagging.

Anyway I tried to enlighten him what more can you do!

Thanks

vonlance · 14 September 2005 at 11:24PM

ehlittleone,

This IS A CON!

if you grabbed a copy of the sun newspaper today they had a 2 page article on how this scratchcard scam is replacing the timeshares malarky!

basically, you get a 'winning' scratchcard ALL the time, so you win either a bottle of wine etc but you have to sit thru a 90 min siminar.

AFTER this, you have to sit thru a sales pitch that could last hours!

the poor old dear in the article lost over 7000 pounds(life savings) and her husband over this!

Tell your brother the age old maxim....

If it's too good to be true, it most probably is.

but if he's adamant, tell him

1. don't sign anything on the day, ask to take the contract away and think about it

2. don't hand over any credit card details

3. ask about a cooling off period

photome · 15 September 2005 at 6:49AM

I dont know if this is a con!

A few years ago 4 of us "won" a holiday to lanzarote where we only had to pay for the flights..yes we had to book through 1 agent but the prices were ok ...we booked the flights had great accomodation and did not attend any sales pitch ,altho we thought we were going to have to.

The end result was a very cheap week in lanzarote.

Timeshare: Won Holiday On A Scratchcard

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