Holiday Club Scams, Avoid Scratchcards
What started as a gentle walk by the harbour one morning ended up with us losing a whole day our short seven day break and had we know been such hard asses possibly a lot more. We were soon approached by a young Scottish lad with scratch cards, we gave the usual “we’re not bothered thanks” but this one wouldn’t leave it. It got to the point where I wanted to flatten him but the wife being a good soul thought it best just to take a card and then get shut of him. Surprise, surprise, she won a free holiday! Now my wife loves holidays, a lot, no sooner was the card scratched than a taxi was ordered and we were whisked away to a luxury resort. We were assured that a quick 90 minute presentation was all it would take to secure our free membership.
After being met by a large east Londoner with a sales patter obviously practised hundreds of times it was soon apparent that they were wanting us to join there exclusive “Designer Vacation Club”. Unlucky for him, my wife is a trained purchaser (i.e. trained product negotiator) and swiftly pulled everything he said apart. Perhaps even more unfortunate for him was the fact that I have little patience for the hard sell or having my time wasted. They were showing us websites of their booking partners and what sort of deals they could get us for a one off £12000 payment! After being told several times that it would be in all our best interests if we left now he called on some backup, a business partner. I’m not saying that this bloke wasn’t a business partner but I’d question the business they were in, he was obviously the enforcer. We spent several hours being moved from one quite spot of the hotel to another, it did get a little worrying especially as we had our young daughter with us. After being told no for the hundredth time they finally got the hint, called us a taxi and got us back to our hotel. We’d lost a day from our holiday and felt like we’d been scammed. I suppose looking back it could have been a whole lot worse.
What it taught me was to not even acknowledge the scum pushing these cards. No matter what they are trying to put on you it will always end up costing you your time at best or a lot of money at worst. In the several holidays we’ve had since I’ve seen several people fall for the same trick, please don’t fall for it, avoid these holiday club scammers like the plague.
