"Holiday Club" Fraud Warning
- Thread starter ajapale
- Start date
This happened to myself and the BF a few years ago in Gran Canaria. Out for a walk and were given scratch cards by a group of very friendly teenagers. Scratch card revealed a free holiday. The teenagers were very excited about this, jumping around the place, and said hardly anyone ever got the free holiday (Yeah Right!), but we had to go and see a new resort offering this same type of deal as mentioned above to claim it. We knew it must be some kind of rip-off but decided to go and see what it was all about out of curiosity. Free taxi ride for about 45 minutes to an absolutely fab hotel resort near Puerto Rico. Met by a really good looking English guy who certainly had the gift of the gab and was giving a really hard sell. We were shown round some of the Appartments - very top of the range. Had free lunch and a few drinks, obviously with the aim of lowering your inhibitions about the deal. It was fairly similar to what is outlined in the post above. Pay around 10 grand and have two weeks per year in the resort for the next 20 yrs or something like that. Few other things like free cruise, trips to world cities. No discussion of Terms and Conditions. You could rent it out to others for those two weeks aswell. How could you pass up this opportunity! Anyway, at the end of all this we said thanks very much but not interested. He was not impressed at all and started to get more and more insistant. We wouldn't give in and the attitide changed then. Firstly started to get a bit agressive, then didn't want anything more to do with us, and very reluctantly gave us the voucher for the taxi ride back to where we started. The free holiday turned out to be a voucher for £70 towards a holiday that had to be redeemed from some British Travel Agency.
We went to this resort with our eyes wide open, but I can see how people could be taken in by it. The sales pitch is very convincing, the agent will act like he's your best friend, and he will ply you with drink to get the deal done. It all takes a long time (around 4 hours) and you'd nearly sign on the dotted line just to get away! However, as has been said before on this site, if something sounds too good to be true it usually is.
We went to this resort with our eyes wide open, but I can see how people could be taken in by it. The sales pitch is very convincing, the agent will act like he's your best friend, and he will ply you with drink to get the deal done. It all takes a long time (around 4 hours) and you'd nearly sign on the dotted line just to get away! However, as has been said before on this site, if something sounds too good to be true it usually is.
S
sunrock
Guest
When you "win" the scratch card holiday or freebie,please,please dont get into the taxi to the resort.
Myself and gf went to resort hotel to get the full boiler room treatment.
Despite her insistence that she wasn t going to buy anything, i could see before my eyes her changing attitude as the salesmen zeroed in on her.
She ended up ringing her 80+ mother after midnight london time,eventually paying 200e she got from her atm.
the deal was 2 weeks off peak accomadation at a nice coastline complex in crete or rhodes and then another 4 weeks at rci resorts condos int ,i think thats the name.
I tried to reason that the flights and meals were not included and anyhow, how would a person manage to get flights to fit in with the dates .
My thanks _my gf began to argue with me and the salesman made some dark comments about bfs not supporting gfs etc
Its a revolving sales team with people from the customers home area moving in for the kill.
Her bank wouldn t allow her credit card transaction ,so we escaped with the 200e deposit.
We were also shown the type of apartment ,we would be staying in_it had tvs ,cutlery etc etc
Back in london ,i told her that even as she had signed forms,not to advance the rest of the money.
But the co. rang her every night and she send off the money.
Afterwards she had to do the ringing as they didn t keep in touch.
We parted ways so don t know what happened, but she paid 3000£ in 2003 for 5 weeks off peak accomadation _and paid up front.
surely a very bad deal!
And i hear that when these people go for their 1 or2 weeks club greece holiday they are heavily targeted as suckers to take out life memberships costing 20 k as well as paying very expensive meals in hotel complex etc
Please dont accept the free taxi ride to be pressurised by high sales teams for hours on end.
Myself and gf went to resort hotel to get the full boiler room treatment.
Despite her insistence that she wasn t going to buy anything, i could see before my eyes her changing attitude as the salesmen zeroed in on her.
She ended up ringing her 80+ mother after midnight london time,eventually paying 200e she got from her atm.
the deal was 2 weeks off peak accomadation at a nice coastline complex in crete or rhodes and then another 4 weeks at rci resorts condos int ,i think thats the name.
I tried to reason that the flights and meals were not included and anyhow, how would a person manage to get flights to fit in with the dates .
My thanks _my gf began to argue with me and the salesman made some dark comments about bfs not supporting gfs etc
Its a revolving sales team with people from the customers home area moving in for the kill.
Her bank wouldn t allow her credit card transaction ,so we escaped with the 200e deposit.
We were also shown the type of apartment ,we would be staying in_it had tvs ,cutlery etc etc
Back in london ,i told her that even as she had signed forms,not to advance the rest of the money.
But the co. rang her every night and she send off the money.
Afterwards she had to do the ringing as they didn t keep in touch.
We parted ways so don t know what happened, but she paid 3000£ in 2003 for 5 weeks off peak accomadation _and paid up front.
surely a very bad deal!
And i hear that when these people go for their 1 or2 weeks club greece holiday they are heavily targeted as suckers to take out life memberships costing 20 k as well as paying very expensive meals in hotel complex etc
Please dont accept the free taxi ride to be pressurised by high sales teams for hours on end.