A MÁLAGA based holiday company has been accused of conning tens of thousands with promises of cut-price holidays in exotic locations.
Club Class Holidays, based in Fuengirola, is reported to be taking between 3,000 and 30,000 euros to join holiday clubs offering cheap luxury breaks which buyers claim fail to materialise.
The company, which has links to former timeshare salesman Costa Killer Tony King, uses a training manual that teaches staff how to crudely fool customers.
In a sales manual for staff, trainees are told to treat customers “as if they have the intelligence of 10-year-olds” and to use “bribery, intimidation and lies” to get customers to the presentations in the first place.
Middle-aged and elderly couples are the main targets of the holiday-club sharks, who promise a lifetime of five-star hotels anywhere in the world at knockdown prices.
But instead of a dream holiday in the Caribbean, they are being offered low-grade hotels and apartments on the Costa del Sol that can be bought just as cheaply at any travel agent.
Other buyers find they cannot choose holiday dates and are committed to annual subscriptions even if they do not go away.
In a ruse identical to the timeshare salesmen, many victims are approached while on holiday by sales reps who give them scratchcards saying they have won a bottle of champagne or a free holiday.
To collect the “prize” they must attend a presentation, which turns into a high-pressure sales pitch lasting five or six hours.
Consumer watchdogs are so concerned about the hard-sell tactics used by some club reps that they are leafleting UK and foreign airports warning holidaymakers about the one-billion-euro-a-year business.
David and Lesley Sylvester, both 60, from Derbyshire, in the UK, agreed to go on a cut-price £99, one-week holiday to Tenerife.
As part of the deal, they had to attend a five-hour sales presentation by agents representing a company called Club Class Concierge – and ended up handing over thousands of pounds.
“The next morning we recognised its implausibility and asked for our money back,” said David.
But unlike timeshare sales, where clients can cancel within 14 days, the Sylvesters say there was no cooling-off period, and they could not cancel.
The couple paid £10,050 to join a holiday scheme called Estrella Dorada Mediterrenees.
When they tried a “castle holiday” in Austria, they were taken to a rundown students’ hostel in Vienna.
They have now successfully taken the company to court in Barcelona, where a judge ruled the couple should get a refund.
New EU laws recently announced by the European Commission will bring holiday clubs into line with rules that now protect timeshare buyers – but these will not come into force until 2010.
Steve Wright, 48, signed a £5,000 deal with a company called Designer Way Vacation Club, after attending a sales presentation in Huddersfield.
He said: “I was fortunate because I found out in time and I wrote off the £950 deposit.”
British members of the Designer Way Vacation Club, operating in the Canary Islands, were charged between £8,000 and £12,000 for a website “key” giving them access to “huge” discounts.
Instead, they mostly got normal online travel agencies whose offers they could have found themselves on the internet.
The UK’s Office of Fair Trading reckons 400,000 Britons get sucked into holiday-club scams every year.
Sandy Grey, of the Timeshare Consumers’ Association, said: “I would urge people not to go anywhere near these scams.”
No one was available to comment at the Spanish HQ of Designer Way Vacation Club.
Both Club Class and Designer Way have close links to timeshare millionaire Garry Leigh, who is the brother in law and former employer of Costa Killer Tony King.
Leigh, who has been operating on the Costa del Sol for over a decade, has a shady past.
His companies are well-known to the Office of Fair Trading.
Leigh started making his fortune in the 1990s, when he and his father, Tom, ran a Yorkshire-based pyramid-selling scheme called the FPW Club.
They advertised with the slogan ‘Turn £140 into £600 as many times as you like! It’s as simple as that! No catch, no limits.’
Garry and his father reportedly tricked 8,500 investors out of more than £8 million before the Department of Trade & Industry won a court order to stop them.
One of his companies, Matchoption Ltd, went bust owing £300,000. His “silent backers” are said to include notorious Costa gangsters Dennis New and Mohammed Derbah, who helped him get his early Spanish scams off the ground.
It is a dirty business that saw Leigh’s Málaga offices teargassed in 2002 and Leigh seriously injured by knife-wielding thugs.
His Incentive Leisure office in Fuengirola in southern Spain is a large impressive building.
Leigh and co-director Kim Bambroffe turn up in luxury Bentley cars.
In a recent investigation, the Sunday Mirror claims workers were told to treat customers as practically subhuman.
The bible of shame instructs staff to “sell the sizzle not the sausage” and refers to customers as “UPs” – industry slang for gullible punters.
It doesn’t get any better does it.
hi just a warning! travellers to tenerife, just got back, while in the Flanabe shopping centre approached by respectable woman(looked like ur gran) about cheapflights did the scratchcard thing wowee we had won something good would we like a free coffee! another fatherly guy went thru the speel would only cost us £95 a yr mem/ship. (good hey) he went to fetch his boss a really smooth operator. It went up to £100 a month (over 5yrs) they would borrow £6000 for us but we would have to pay £1800 off our visa then send £4200 to their a/c after 5yrs we would get back our 5grand via cashback. what a load of rubbish it was all very confusing, we walked. But 2 days later we saw them with an older couple and wanted to rush over and warn them but how could we? someone in the spanish gov’t should do something to stop these crooks, they did not get us but they must be successful most of the time or they would not do it. WOULD THEY.
If you are pulled off the street into one of the scratch card scenarios and pay by credit card you are entitled to a cooling off period, so don’t be mislead.
More comments and advice about Club Class Concierge on Holiday watchdog.com
We have been conned by Club Class Concierge.
We started with a company called ETOO,to sell our
RCI points. CCC said they were not connected to ETOO or in the same organization. I am trying to establish that there is a link.
I have gathered a lot of info, and am trying to get our money back.
I’ve been trying to sell my club la costa points due to the ever increasing maintenance fees and contacted Etoo after seeing their advert on TV, they came back to me with a great deal, £1 per point, but the deal has never materialised they have taken months and a fee which was to be returned when they sold the points, I received a phone call from them this morning after pestering them for weeks,and they are now offering me a trade for Club Class Concierge membership but looking for even more money for setting it up. I am now very angry with myself for getting involved with any type of timeshare.
I too was approached in the Fanabe shopping center in Tenerife I was given the 3 hour talk and went for it, I paid £1500 on my credit card and I have now been told by MBNA I can’t claw back the payment because of GB Marketing T&C. I have however received a phone call from Debbie Sands of GB Marketing and she is telling me she will activate my club class concierge membership so that I can find out for myself how it works, she say I will not be disappointed. I just don’t know what to do.
I live in Tenerife and i get so angry when i see these sratch card touts SCUM BAGS really .conning everyone on the street .you have club class offices also near beverley hills the touts hang out along the line of shops opposite parisio .Also fvn they hang out near los cris market .please to anyone always just walk away .i have stopped my car before to get a few couples to walk away from the touts ..
then you have club la costa the touts are every were they even jump out of cars and approach people ..
all the companies here seem to use gb marketing too..
Etoo advertise on sky and to think there connected to club class .
I work for the Incentive Leisure group booking holidays and it would be nice if, before making accusations, people actually checked their information. I can offer members cheap holidays but there will always be a company who has a bargain from time to time. Walk down the High Street and you will see closing down sales. The accommodation we offer is always of high standard but we do get let down sometimes, but everyone does. It is now almost impossible to get any discounts on flights because they are at rock-bottom prices already and this had only changed really in the last few years.
I will not comment on other holidays clubs but I did work for one you have mentioned and I left because they were dishonest and that club should be avoided.
Hi have just read some of your comments re club class concierge with dread. I have today returned from Miraflores in Spain where i have signed up to join the above.
Unfortunately the deposit which was paid on my credit cards has already left the bank
Has anyone got any good news re Club Class Concierge, i must admit that the representative was polite, professional and appeared to be honest and very helpful with changing appartments and getting around from one to the other.
I was taken in by the glossy brochures, number of people involved, people who appeared to be signing up and affilliation with reputable company’s such as BA, Asda, Virgin, Budget, HSBC, Barclays etc.
I was also given a letter to give to the VIP lounge when departing from Malaga.
Do not take “No” for an answer with credit card companies Clawback arrangements.
Gather all your material together, and list all the lies you were told at the meeting.
If the credit card company will not pay you – then complain to the financial services ombudsman.
Lots of adive on holiday watchdog timeshare forum too.
As far as ETOO is concerned there is no evidence they have ever actually sold a timeshare. Complain to the Advertising Standards Authority.
Me to was taken in by CLUB CLASS CONCIERGE for £1222.48 paid for with Barclay credit card and they say they will not pay us back so take care all you dopes out their me too Club Class and Barclays they all after your cash???
John Skane is there anyway we can contact. We have recently sold them our rci points and our friends sold them their timeshire in gran canaria. They were sent to Club Class by ETOO and the appointment was made for them by ETOOO. ETOO also offered to pay for their flights and accomodation but they were coming to see us anyway as we live in Spain not far from their offices. We are going down tomorrow to check their offices as we have been having no problems contacting them up to today but now the phones in Fuengirola, Mijas Costa and Gibraltar are constantly engaged.
My husband and I were caught by this scam, and paid £1030. We have since realised this scam and have requested the money back – had paid on debit card, and have been informed that we can get our money back, but need to contact he company first to give them the chance of the refund first. if any problem, we need to contact bank and they will help us get the money back.
We were invited to Spain by ETOO to meet with a company that would buy our Points. We found out when we got there it was a Club Class Concierge. We also parted with money via a credit card and we are now worried about our actions after reading all these complaints. We do not know how to get out of this situation and we originally were caught in the scratch card scam.
If any body knows how to fight this system please help. Good luck to any body trying to get out of this as it is a night mare once you get caught.
Hi,
My husband and i were conned years ago with these scratch cards and talked into an agreement or should i say brainwashed after hours of videos and talk of lots of saving by joining an holiday club it cost us £4000 and also £60 membership per year, we were MAD and i personally did not want to do this but they zap your brain till you do not think straight till too late, and we were led to believe if you sighn anything in one of their offices there is no getting out of it! It ended up cuasing us a lot of financial heartache and no such thing as a cheaper holiday either.
just returned from tenerife, club class concierge are still in action they scamed me out of 1500 pounds and tryed to get me to get out a loan , cash back, cannot believe we fell for it
there new address is
C.I.F:B-38804605
Avda Bruselas S/N, CC Fananbe’Plaza,L237,Adeje,Tenerife
tel; 0034 922 724564
joanne allens (0034)618457215
just got back from tenerife on the 29th july this is were they are operating from now , i spoke to a guy who goes by the name andy , yorkshire man
just returned from an arranged ETOO meeting with club class concierge in Maidenhead,when we arrived my wife did state that the plush offices looked like something that could be dismantled within a few hours,and moved.
The sales person and sales talk was very amateur,with loads of £s that we would make after 3 years.and the price we would recieve back was £15,200 along with our sign up fee of £6100.00.
with only a £1830.00 deposit.Balance of £4270.00 payable over 3 years.
This was a grand total of £21,300.00.(not Guaranteed).
Lifetime of Platinum standard holiday for only an additional £95.00 per year.
Well this sounded excellent,no more looking for holidays,just contact Club Class Concierge to sort all what ever destination we wanted,and we would be on our way.
In reality,once we got our heads out of the clouds and thought,who in there right minds would want to pay us £21.300.00 in 3 years,for a time share we had been offered £1000.00 to £1500.00 on several occasions for. Well nobody.
SO PEOPLE THINK WITH YOUR HEADS AND NOT WITH YOUR WALLETS-IF IT SOUNDS TO GOOD TO BE TRUE,ITS PROBERLY A SCAM.
C.C.C south tenerife.
we were aproached by an ederly gent claiming they had just set up and offering free family day trips as a promotion, we were told we eeded to agree to listen to a presentaion lasting 60-90 mins but you could stop listening when ever and claim your free ticket.STOP, DO NOT SAY YOU HAVE THE TIME.we agreed and were taken inside, we gave basic details to some lady to prep some forms and showed her what plastic we had.DO NOT ADMIT TO HAVING ANY PLASTIC ON YOU.
we then were passed on to another old guy who presented the tasty offer of 60% disscount on hols at the price of ? deposit with 50% refunded after 3 years + £99 a year.
when he had finnished we were introduced to a tall yorkshire guy who was the manager to talk money.
the following amounts were wrote down on paper
£10,000 life membership, £7,000 cant remember what for – £5k for access to the web site that gives 50% disscount on bookings.
My partner & i said we needed a couple of mins to think about things,once left alone we came to our senses and said we were in no position to commit regardles and after saying no several times they got the message.
to our suprise we still recieved a free day at loro park worth 110 euros.
We have a great sence of relife to have escaped this as a better sales person might have snared us
Has anyone been to the Portugal offices for club class concierge?
Etoo have a bad name, how long does it take for the british to realise these things are a rip off, dont you watch tv or read the papers, probably not. wake up smell the coffee its been going on for years, where have you been
CLUB CLASS CONCIERGE, ETOO and CASHBACK EUROPE ARE ALL PART OF A BRAZEN FRAUDULENT SCAM OPERATION, that have scammed hundreds if not thousands of innocent people, including myself, out of millions of pounds. There is a huge amount of bad publicity on the internet about them. From reading it all, it appears that:
Cashback Europe plc is part of the ETOO and Club Class Concierge group. The registered office address of Cashback Europe is:
Garrison House, 3 Library Ramp, P.O. Box 1469, Gibraltar
(see paragraph 1a of the claim process page on http://www.cashbackeurope.com)
This is the same address, apart from the PO box number, as timeshare resale scam company ETOO.
(see contact page of http://www.etoo.com).
ETOO have recently had their television advert in the UK banned because it was misleading:
(see http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/Public/TF_ADJ_44892.htm)
ETOO promise to find a buyer for your timeshare, ask you for an upfront fee of 850 pounds sterling or more, which they say is refundable once they find a buyer, and then tell you they have a corporate buyer and you need to to travel to Spain to meet this corporate buyer.
This corporate buyer is a holiday club called Club Class Concierge who have the same registered address (apart from the PO box number) as both ETOO and Cashback Europe.
The address given on the website of Club Class Concierge (www.clubclassconcierge.com) is their sales office in Spain but their head office has the same Gibraltar address as those of ETOO and Cashback Europe.
All three of these companies seemingly use the same firm of accountants, Sochalls of London, and strangely Sochalls is also the company to which money is paid by the public to join Club Class Concierge.
Club Class Concierge will not buy your timeshare. Instead they try to get you to buy membership of their product by getting you to trade in your timeshare to them in return for their product. They reduce the value of their product by whatever value they ascribe to your timeshare weeks or points. But there is still a sizeable balance (thousands of pounds) to pay as their product is always more expensive than the trade in value they give you for your timeshare. In my case they valued my timeshare at 14k and told me their platinum level membership was 20k, leaving a balance of 6k to pay.
In order to make this pill slightly less bitter to swallow, they tell you that you will be still be able to end up well in pocket after 3 years through their cashback scheme : they issue you with a cashback certificate under the Cashback Europe scheme for the same amount as the trade in value of your timeshare and tell you that if you follow the Cashback Europe claim process properly, that you will receive between 80 and 100 per cent of the amount on the certificate back in 36 months. So in my case above, my cashback certificate was for 14k, implying I would get between 11.2k and 14k back in 3 years time if I followed the claim process properly, thus meaning I had paid 6k for their product in order to get back between 11k and 14k in 3 years time.
If you go ahead with the deal, the documents you sign only concern membership of Club Class Concierge and the transfer of your timeshare into their name. You do not receive any details of the terms and conditions of the Cashback Europe scheme until after the 7 day cancellation period of the Club Class Concierge membership and then you discover that Club Class Concierge only pay 12 per cent of the money you have given them to Cashback Europe and that there is no guarantee of you getting anything back.
They claim that many large well known companies such as Next, Currys, RBS, Kodak etc use Cashback Europle plc but it is almost certain that the only companies that use Cashback Europe plc are the companies in the Club Class Concierge group.
If you ask Club Class Concierge, they will deny that there is any link between Club Class Concierge and Cashback Europe or between ETOO and Cashback Europe. They may admit that there is a connection between Club Class Concierge and ETOO by saying that ETOO is a subsidiary company of the same group.
If you cannot afford to pay for their product in cash, Club Class Concierge will try to persuade you to take out a loan using their broker by saying that the repayment amounts will not be much more than the amount you pay for your annual maintenance fees to your timeshare resort, when calculated on a monthly basis. In fact the figures they quoted me were under a loan taken out over ten years, in order to keep the monthly repayment amounts down. They tell you that once you get your cashback cheque from Cashback Europe in 36 months, you can use the cashback money to pay off the outstanding balance and then pocket the rest.
Of course, if you get nothing back from Cashback Europe after 36 months, and bearing in mind all the lies that have been told it seems highly unlikely that you will get anything back, then you will be left with seven more years of a loan to pay off, you will have paid Club Class Concierge thousands of pounds for their product, given them your timeshare, and you will have paid ETOO hundreds of pounds for the privilege of setting all this up.
If you have been conned by Club Class Concierge, cancel within the 7 day cooling off period if you still have time, and if you are past the 7 day period then contact your credit card company immediately and fight tooth and nail with the card company for the payment to be reimbursed because of fraudulent misrepresentation. If you are threatened with legal action by Club Class Concierge, just ignore it, they do not have a case against you
A Cautionary Tale GB Marketing acting as distributors for Club Class Conceirge
My wife and I have just returned from a holiday in Tenerife,where we too where sucked in by the Scratchcard Tout and were asked if we had 60 minutes to spare,like fools we went along as we had won something,we were offered coffee in a bistro setting and then a lady whom we shall call Mrs A appeared and asked questions then after 5 minutes the salesman appeared we will call him Mr A,three and a half hours later we had signed up , although I did not give them my Bank Details they had some how persuaded me to part with my credit card and to my amazement this had been put through, with the promise do not worry we will loan you £6000 into your bank account, someone will phone when we get home and if we give details the money will go into our bank on a certain date to pay for the £1800 deposit they had perloined from me and we would then set up a direct debit of £100 per month all this in return for a promise of 5 European holidays and 1 Worldwide all with accomodation and flights.
To cut a long story short, we thought about it over night and decided it was not for us, fortunatly I had internet access and found this website and smelt a rat.
I phoned my visa card company and asked their advise and was told we must ask the company first for a refund of my deposit and if not satisfactory their reclaim dept will persue the case. We approached GB marketing and explained that under EEC law we were entitled to a 10 day cooling off period, we were blatantly lied to and told we we had no redress. I contacted our holiday rep and she put me in touch with the local consumer office and then went along with all our papers and was told they had broken the law by not putting the cooling off period in writing on their contract, she phoned Gb marketing and typed a letter out in spanish for us to take along and see the boss man.
Their faces were a picture when they saw the letter and we got our money back after 2 days although they still made a small amount due to the exchange rate.
My advice to anyone reading this whilst on holiday and have been approached by these type of companies is to steer clear!
Please could the writer Pineapple king.Send us details of consumer office and address to helped us.We only have 3 days to make a claim. Thanks
Mr C Watson
Sorry I have just seen your comment, we went to Oficina Municipal de Informacion al Consumidor in Adeje Village opposite Town Hall, phone no 922 75 6213.If the worse has happened and you are home go to http://forum.holidaywatchdog.com/Timeshare-&-Holiday-Clubs-Club-Class-Concierge-Thread-8556-Page-145.html This will take you to 152 pages of threads on how to claim your money back even after you have returned to UK.
Regards Pineapple King
Have just seen this interesting post on the holiday watchdog site:
The Sales Manager of Club Class Concierge in Fuengirola, Spain is Stephen John Lawrence, previously the director of UK based scam timeshare resale companies Yacht Trading UK Limited and T One UK Limited, which you can read about on :
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2008/01/toni-muldoon-scams-holidaymake.html
and
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/columnists/article.html?in_article_id=430168&in_page_id=19&in_author_id=5
Following the BBC Watchdog programme about ETOO broadcast on Monday 17 November, if enough people from this site post their comments about ETOO onto the comments section of the BBC Watchdog site as well then it is more likely that ETOO will be mentioned again on Watchdog in the future, which can only be a good thing. See:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2008/11/the_timeshare_resales_with_a_c.html
My parents have been conned by this same company CCC & ETOO. CCC have advised my parents they will pay maintenance fees 2 yrs later they are still waiting and now the original company are sending threatening letters of non payment.
My parents are also still waiting for the reclaim voucher which I believe is not existant. Can somebody please help or advise what I should do to help my folks.
Can’t bellieve we fell for exactly the same scam in Fanabe, Tenerife, last August. Promise of flights at cost, a holiday for 6 for £1800, 4 star etc. etc. We paid £1800 on credit card and then got an 0% interest card, which we then paid cash into our Barclays account out of which we paid the outstanding £4200. Reps were completely convincing and I hope they burn in hell. Didn’t receive our membership details for 4 months, there’s no sign of a Cashback Certificate. Thanks for the advice above. We are going to write to every address possible and ask for a refund then try and get Barclays to recoup the money for us. Not very optimistic. We feel sick to the stomach that people can do this to you when you are at your most vulnerable on holiday. Probably won’t be able to afford a family holiday this year now unless we can get this sorted.
Jackie said it all did’nt she.
On another post I said that it is so easy to scam Brits because they always want something for nothing.
Do the Dutch and Germans get conned so easily – this is a serious question, which I dpon’t know the answer to.
Yeah, thanks Jackie and Stuart. Perhaps its more to do with the fact that we as Brits are too ready to believe in the goodness of other people and trust them too readily. I didn’t want something for nothing, I didn’t even want a meeting in the first place. We are all ordinary people who work damned hard all year and want the best for our families. Someone comes along, a fellow Brit(!), looks you in the eye, and tells you they can help you provide better holidays for your kids – and like idiots you trust them. That’s what its about. Perhaps other Europeans are more honest than some of our lot.
Hi, unfortunately not onle English peopele belive that something good can happen to them. I do live in England 5 years but I am Polish. The same story happened to me and my husband last year. Everything exactly the same, nice story about holidays for quite cheap money, promise of a cash back (which was very tempting). At that time last year we have signed the pappers with “devil”. We knew that the first time we are going to use this option will be March this year (I was pregnant that time). So in January i have started to book my dreamed holiday and all the problems began. All of you know the story. I was sure that I paid for the holiday and the lady in Golden Travel explaind that it was for the membership in CCC. So i have started to look for info in network and I had found this side. I went with this problem to the Citizen Advisors, where i was told to write complaint letter, demanding the explanaitions from Great British Marketing at Teneriff. Have anyone tried this? Then if this doesn’t help they told me to go to webside to European Consumer Centres where I can fill in the application form againts this holiday company.
http://www.ukecc.net or call 08456040503
The lady also ask if it is possible to do something like the pressure group, but honestly i dont know how this could help. Maybe if there will be many of us we could do something (I dont belive we could get our money back, but at least we can warn others).
having lived in spain and various places around the world, a word of caution, there is no such thing as a free lunch, these people know how to manipulate. They appeal to the worst human instinct, which is greed. Do not listen to these people. Also never ever stop your car on request of any one, inspect police documents through closed windows. If in doubt diall the police to check, be one step ahead, just because the sun is shining, be alert, things never change.
Hi everyone, We too were taken by CCC. We were contacted by DGS Brokers first, who said they had a buyer; which did not materialise. This was after paying a ‘Holding fee of 1200 Euros[ which we were told that we would get back] We didn’t. Then we were forwarded to another ‘Buyer’, had to pay more money; but turned out to be another Time Share for Full circle Holidays, which they said would make it easier for us to sell our original Time share with Club Greece ‘Sun Beach Holiday Club’ Yes we were Gullible, we are not greedy people, all we wanted was a fair price for ‘our’ Time Share. Next we were contacted by Club Class Properties, who said that they had a Buyer for both of our Time shares, They wanted us to go to Malaga to pick up the money for the Time Shares, but we only had a short time in which to this. Yes you’ve got it… Club Class Concierge. NO MONEY, Just wanted us to buy into their deal. We signed over our deeds, after nearly 7 hours of talk. Only gave them a small amount of Euros as a down payment. Once back in UK,said we did not have the money. They gave us a while, then said they would sue; so we said Go Ahead, we have no money. We were lucky, we only lost £1500.
Has anyone been contacted by ‘Key Properties Town Advisory S.L’ Are they legit? They said they are Solicitors who are going after CCC,DGS Brokers; and the rest. They want a small fee of 788.80 Euros to retain a fully qualified lawyer to take on our case, and others. Then take 10% of what we get back. This sounds too good to be true, What are your thoughts… Also ‘Selling Time’ has made enquiries about our time share, does any one have anything on them also. Please advise. GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE THAT HAS BEEN TARGETTED. iT’S ABOUT TIME THAT THESE PEOPLE ARE PUT IN PRISON.
We have been in touch with the European Consumer Council who believe that when people have been conned in the same way we were they may be able to fight a case under Doorstep Trading Law in Spain, plus if you actually signed the contract on the trader’s premises that also contravene’s European Law (although this has been untested as yet). Write to;
European Consumer Centre
1 Sylvan Court
Sylvan Way
Southfields Business Park
Basildon
Essex
SS15 6TH
They are very helpful and promise to reply within 2 weeks of your query with them. The more of us there are for them to fight a case against GB Marketing, Club Class Concierge and all the other associated companies the more powerful the case, and even if we don’t get any money back we might be able to close the swines down (for a while at least)
The timeshare we traded to CCC say they’ll take us to the small claims court. CCC say we can’t be sued for non payment of maintenance fees. Please, which is true?
We get letters & phone calls saying we’re still responsible for payment, which goes up each month. We’re afraid to answer the phone. We say we’ve handed the deeds to CCC.
We believe in being honest. We’ve always paid our debts.
This puts us in a bad light, gives the family a bad name.
To think, we joined CCC primarily to be free of our timeshare & RCI Points
Colin, so far CCC have never taken anyone to court because they know once they start operating under UK Law they haven’t got a leg to stand on. If you visit ‘Holiday Watchdog’ site and search Club Class Holidays you’ll see lots of others like us and plenty of advice going back 2 years!
Thanks Gary, but it’s the people from Pueblo Evita in Benelmadena & their sister company in Tenerife which we joined in 2002, who write & phone & say they’ll take us to the small claims court becaus they say we’re still responsible for maintenance fees. CCC say not to worry just keep sending any correspondence to them, CCC, as we’ve handed the deeds over to them (for a price). It seemed the only way to escape from our timeshare & RCI Points, who are also chasing us. We are still hoping we are in with a chance of the cashback in 2011.
We faxed the court claims to CCC & they have paid the money owing to the resort. Pity they didn’t do it sooner.
we where nearly con but we did.rt have anought money in the account we gave them our details and a deposit of £100 .they ask us to put the rest in when we got home which we agreed .we signed up to ccc .we went home and change our bank details so they could not take any money out .now they say we owe them £4900 and will be taking legal action .THE NAMES ARE ANDY DIXON .JOANBE ALLEN DIRECT NUMBER )0034922724564 )in emergencies BECKY HARRIS on (0034922715771) address is G B MARKETING AVDA BRUSELAS S|N.CC FANABE PLAZA.L237.ADEJE.TENERIFE.tel 0034922-724564 fax 0034922-714060 this mite be all bu****it but you could try if you was con good luck
If you are a victim of Club Class Holidays/Concierge then look at http://www.timeshare.org.uk/hc.html
Sandy Grey
Timeshare Consumers Association
I was taken in, like many other people, by the ETOO/Club Class Concierge scam and payed out sums of money to get rid of our time share. I thought I had at last closed the door on the whole sickening incident.
Today I had a phone call from someone calling himself David Wall, telephone number 01942 498017. He said that after the Watchdog Investigation I would be getting my money back and payment for the time share. He then went on the mention a transaction fee. I told him that if money was due to me, I was happy to have it, but that I would not be paying anyone a single penny in regard to this time share business. He hung up.
I doubt there will be any money paid to my account and strongly suspect this is yet another money grabbing scam.
Trish West