UK Ferry Tickets

In the 1970s, hundreds of thousands of Britons were ripped off by timeshare rogues promising the earth and delivering very little. Nowadays a similar number are losing money to holiday club scams.

In the past few decades, timeshare has become respectable. Companies like Disney, Marriott and De Vere all offer it, or ‘vacation ownership’ as the Americans like to call it. They have strict codes on how the product is sold and gradually the stigma of timeshare is going away.

But the new menace is holiday clubs, which charge a substantial joining fee on the promise of discounted holidays. These clubs don’t own any properties and often the deals you can get are not even as good as you could find by doing a simple search on the Internet.

The Office of Fair Trading has warned the situation is so bad that up to 400,000 Britons are losing a staggering £1.2 billion each year. It works out at around £3,000 per victim.

There are only five or six companies – so-called Discount Travel Membership clubs – behind the majority of frauds.

Just like the old timeshare rogues, they tend to target people when they are holiday, particularly Spain, which makes it difficult for the OFT to secure prosecutions.

On holiday, we’re relaxed, have more time on our hands and are often more willing to listen and chat to people that we usually wouldn’t give the time of day. In short, we are more vulnerable to slippery salespeople than we would be at home.

Frank Chapman, the chairman of The Timeshare Council, the British arm of the Organisation for Timeshare in Europe, said: “Bogus holiday clubs are a ticking time bomb that could have a devastating effect on consumers in future years.”

If you’re approached by holiday club salespeople, politely but firmly say that you are not interested and move on.

Has it happened to you?

Guest Article by Jeremy Skidmore

Wednesday, January 31st, 2007