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They seemed to offer a lifetime of holidays without hassle. | :00:12. | :00:15. | |
The chance to have your own bit of the sun forever. | :00:16. | :00:18. | |
And Britain s sun seekers snapped them up. | :00:19. | :00:23. | |
More than 600,000 of us have bought time-shares. | :00:24. | :00:26. | |
But what happens when you've had enough of your holiday hideaway? | :00:27. | :00:35. | |
I'm now 76 and I m getting too old for this nonsense any more. | :00:36. | :00:39. | |
Many ageing owners are now struggling to sell | :00:40. | :00:41. | |
A lot of these historic contracts are weighed quite heavily in favour | :00:42. | :00:48. | |
of the time-share companies with no get-out for the consumer. | :00:49. | :00:51. | |
Tonight, we ll reveal the methods of one company offering to help | :00:52. | :00:58. | |
you would buy my mum's time-share from her. | :00:59. | :01:04. | |
What, to write you a cheque now? | :01:05. | :01:07. | |
I'm a financial journalist with an interest in how people | :01:08. | :01:37. | |
save money, make money, and look after their money. | :01:38. | :01:39. | |
And I help people understand their consumer rights. | :01:40. | :01:47. | |
That'll impact people who do not go on holiday. | :01:48. | :01:51. | |
Much of the work I do involves helping people save and plan | :01:52. | :01:54. | |
Because old age brings many challenges, and it s hard | :01:55. | :01:57. | |
And I ve become aware of a growing issue among our | :01:58. | :02:01. | |
I first got interested in the whole time-share idea | :02:02. | :02:09. | |
about 20 to 25 years ago, when I was invited to a couple | :02:10. | :02:12. | |
I was told would give me access to a free holiday. | :02:13. | :02:16. | |
And the time-share sales tactics that were used in those days | :02:17. | :02:19. | |
But what s'become apparent now is that it s very, very, | :02:20. | :02:26. | |
People took the chance to buy guaranteed weeks in resorts all over | :02:27. | :02:38. | |
Europe and back here in the UK. They could stay in the same place | :02:39. | :02:41. | |
every year, or join holiday clubs, swapping their accommodation | :02:42. | :02:43. | |
They accrued points and bonuses to help with holidays. | :02:44. | :02:50. | |
It was a huge business, and Brits were the biggest buyers. | :02:51. | :02:57. | |
For a while, this was the future for many of Britain s holiday-makers. | :02:58. | :03:05. | |
The company selling the time-share arrangements offer one, two, three | :03:06. | :03:13. | |
bedroom apartments, fully serviced. You can buy weeks together or | :03:14. | :03:17. | |
staggered, choosing dates to suit yourself. | :03:18. | :03:20. | |
Time-shares came to occupy a big place in the British | :03:21. | :03:22. | |
Well, I think there s an aspirational element for people | :03:23. | :03:30. | |
that are able to buy into a property that they would never be able | :03:31. | :03:34. | |
to afford and it also has all those facilities associated with it, | :03:35. | :03:36. | |
There s also people that like to know what they re | :03:37. | :03:42. | |
going to get every year so if you know you ve got a week | :03:43. | :03:45. | |
in Madrid for example every year then you know what you re getting, | :03:46. | :03:48. | |
it's predictable 'or you, you know what you re working with. | :03:49. | :03:52. | |
And I think it s those types of people that really like that | :03:53. | :03:55. | |
But there was always a dark side to the time-share boom. | :03:56. | :04:13. | |
If you don't know wh't time-share is by now, you haven t been | :04:14. | :04:16. | |
reading your newspapers or opening your post recently. | :04:17. | :04:19. | |
Hundreds of you have protested to us about the way time-share has been | :04:20. | :04:22. | |
sold with so called free gifts, competition prizes | :04:23. | :04:24. | |
Surely the most despicable form of this is to old people who cannot | :04:25. | :04:37. | |
afford the cost. As holidays abroad became more | :04:38. | :04:40. | |
affordable, and more and more people flocked to the sun, | :04:41. | :04:43. | |
thousands of them encountered Their stories usually | :04:44. | :04:44. | |
followed the same pattern. I spoke to a business colleague | :04:45. | :04:47. | |
who fell for the patter. We got approached by a person just | :04:48. | :04:50. | |
walking along the beach, saying that we could enter a prize | :04:51. | :04:53. | |
draw and you ve probably heard We didn't know at that time | :04:54. | :04:56. | |
it was a time-share. They didn't say anything, | :04:57. | :05:03. | |
they just said you know you could win a meal or something | :05:04. | :05:06. | |
if you enter this competition and the competition was so easy that | :05:07. | :05:09. | |
everyone s going to win, When did you actually realise | :05:10. | :05:11. | |
it was a time-share presentation At that time it was really | :05:12. | :05:15. | |
when we sat down with a sales person and the first question they asked | :05:16. | :05:24. | |
was where would you like to go, what is your dream holiday, | :05:25. | :05:27. | |
and that s when I thought, there s a catch here. | :05:28. | :05:32. | |
The greed factor comes in to a certain extent, | :05:33. | :05:34. | |
because they say if you come along we'll give you a voucher up to ?300, | :05:35. | :05:38. | |
or we ll give you a television, portable television, so you think, | :05:39. | :05:45. | |
that sounds very good, I'm only going along for an hour, | :05:46. | :05:49. | |
but that hour takes three Alistair, ' ve known you for a long | :05:50. | :05:52. | |
time and I ve always considered Do you think you were duped | :05:53. | :05:56. | |
by these people? Salesman are the easiest people | :05:57. | :06:01. | |
to sell to and and at that time I would say that I got taken | :06:02. | :06:05. | |
in and if I d known then what I know now I would have, | :06:06. | :06:09. | |
I would have said no. Alastair spent years trying | :06:10. | :06:16. | |
to sell his time-share. But like many others, | :06:17. | :06:20. | |
he s come up against a problem. For every one person that | :06:21. | :06:23. | |
wants to buy a time-share there are something like 400 people | :06:24. | :06:26. | |
that want to get out of that contract now that they re realised | :06:27. | :06:30. | |
that it actually wasn t for them. of the Ochil Hills, | :06:31. | :06:37. | |
the home of retired couple They raised three children, | :06:38. | :06:45. | |
and time-share seemed like a good They have two weeks in Spain through | :06:46. | :06:53. | |
Scottish-owned Macdonald Resorts. And two weeks in Portugal | :06:54. | :06:57. | |
through the MGM Muthu group. But after many years of happy | :06:58. | :07:01. | |
holidays, they re increasingly I had great difficulty getting | :07:02. | :07:03. | |
health insurance and I need to get health insurance because I had | :07:04. | :07:17. | |
a cerebral haemorrhage And about ten months after that | :07:18. | :07:19. | |
as a result of the cerebral And at the moment I m | :07:20. | :07:25. | |
in a dreadful state of health. I can hardly walk | :07:26. | :07:31. | |
because of disc trouble. And it s recurrent, I ve had it two | :07:32. | :07:34. | |
or three times where I ve been They're paying more | :07:35. | :07:37. | |
than ?1,600 every year in maintenance fees, | :07:38. | :07:49. | |
with little chance of further They've been trying to get | :07:50. | :07:51. | |
out of their contracts. And in 2014, they believed they had | :07:52. | :07:58. | |
a way out when Macdonald Resorts, who manage their Spanish | :07:59. | :08:02. | |
time-shares, got in contact. I got an uninvited letter | :08:03. | :08:05. | |
from them and in it it said, we're aware that a lot of people | :08:06. | :08:11. | |
want to relinquish That's the words | :08:12. | :08:14. | |
they used, relinquish. And they said we have been looking | :08:15. | :08:21. | |
at this, our committee s been looking at this, | :08:22. | :08:24. | |
and we have decided to offer I got a letter six weeks or maybe | :08:25. | :08:26. | |
a couple of months later saying that since there was no general agreement | :08:27. | :08:34. | |
about relinquishing, In other words all this, | :08:35. | :08:37. | |
I couldn t get out at all. What's your plan now, | :08:38. | :08:45. | |
have you tried any other way to get Oh now the latest thing was, | :08:46. | :08:48. | |
which was quite recent, we got a letter saying | :08:49. | :08:56. | |
we could buy ourselves out. We could pay them | :08:57. | :08:58. | |
to take it from us. I don t think so. | :08:59. | :09:06. | |
Over ?3,000 for the two weeks. For the two weeks, and they wanted | :09:07. | :09:10. | |
to take it off my hands You know the thing's absurd. | :09:11. | :09:15. | |
So to get out of their contract with Macdonald Resorts, | :09:16. | :09:21. | |
the Byrnes would have to pay We asked the company whether this | :09:22. | :09:23. | |
was fair, given the There are so many owners | :09:24. | :09:27. | |
trying to get out of their time-share contracts that | :09:28. | :10:32. | |
pressure has mounted on the resort developers to come up | :10:33. | :10:35. | |
with a response. Among the many organisations | :10:36. | :10:37. | |
which speak for the time-share industry is the RDO ? | :10:38. | :10:39. | |
the Resort Developers Organisation. Essentially if you're in ill | :10:40. | :10:43. | |
health and can t travel, if one partner dies, | :10:44. | :10:46. | |
and the other partner doesn t want the time-share any more, | :10:47. | :10:49. | |
or the children don t want it, if there's personal bankruptcy, | :10:50. | :10:52. | |
these are all reasons A large number, a number | :10:53. | :10:54. | |
of our major developers allow surrender without any conditions | :10:55. | :11:00. | |
whatsoever as long as the fees are paid up, the maintenance fees | :11:01. | :11:02. | |
are paid up to date. Some developers charge a fee | :11:03. | :11:05. | |
for doing it but again you can do it at any time you want and also some | :11:06. | :11:09. | |
developers have an age level whereby if you get to that age you can | :11:10. | :11:12. | |
surrender straightaway. But it s clear from what we ve | :11:13. | :11:16. | |
learned that people still have trouble getting out | :11:17. | :11:19. | |
of their contracts. And that leads them | :11:20. | :11:20. | |
to find other ways OK, so imagine you're | :11:21. | :11:22. | |
an ordinary punter looking to sell your time-share, | :11:23. | :11:28. | |
for whatever reason. You go on line, type | :11:29. | :11:31. | |
in I want to sell my Lots of different companies | :11:32. | :11:34. | |
offering advice and help. So it looks as though the choice | :11:35. | :11:41. | |
is good if you re looking to get rid of those holiday weeks that you're | :11:42. | :11:45. | |
not using any more. quickly, we started finding stories | :11:46. | :11:48. | |
and complaints online about people We travelled to Manchester to meet | :11:49. | :11:54. | |
a lawyer who specialises and it s becoming more and more | :11:55. | :12:00. | |
of a problem actually, clients are not coming | :12:01. | :12:07. | |
direct to me very often, ironically they are not coming | :12:08. | :12:09. | |
to the solicitor, your usual source of legal advice, | :12:10. | :12:12. | |
they come to you after they ve gone to some other company | :12:13. | :12:14. | |
to sell their time-share, to dispose of it in some other way | :12:15. | :12:16. | |
and they end up signing some other contract and by the time they come | :12:17. | :12:20. | |
to see me they ve got two problems, they've got the original time-share | :12:21. | :12:23. | |
which they are not out of and which they haven't disposed | :12:24. | :12:26. | |
of and they ve got a second contract which they have spent a lot | :12:27. | :12:29. | |
of money with and which very The traditional way they go | :12:30. | :12:32. | |
about it is they ll phone you up, or they will advertise | :12:33. | :12:36. | |
and what they ll do is they ll say, great opportunity, I can | :12:37. | :12:38. | |
sell your time-share or I can Or I can get rid of it | :12:39. | :12:40. | |
in some way for you. Some of them will even for example | :12:41. | :12:45. | |
give you a valuation on the phone, they'll say, I ve got some great | :12:46. | :12:48. | |
news for you that resort, that time-share with that | :12:49. | :12:51. | |
resort is worth 20,000. Now for the person who picks | :12:52. | :12:53. | |
the phone up that s the best news they've ever heard c's of course | :12:54. | :12:56. | |
for years they haven t been able to get rid of it let alone get any | :12:57. | :12:59. | |
money back and what happens is they then go to a meeting, | :13:00. | :13:02. | |
and they tell you that if you buy their product you're out | :13:03. | :13:05. | |
of the time-share and importantly you re out of this | :13:06. | :13:08. | |
maintenance fee problem. The only reason anybody enters | :13:09. | :13:16. | |
into this contract is to get But you haven t, you're | :13:17. | :13:18. | |
still in the time-share you re We'd uncovered a number | :13:19. | :13:22. | |
of complaints about one company in particular, | :13:23. | :13:26. | |
and got hold of one It made for interesting reading. | :13:27. | :13:28. | |
This is a fascinating brochure. The company s actually | :13:29. | :13:31. | |
called sellmytimeshare.tv. But of the four options they list | :13:32. | :13:32. | |
here, only one of them actually involves them getting rid | :13:33. | :13:36. | |
of the time-share for you. The other three options include | :13:37. | :13:38. | |
upgrading, exchanging or trading in for another time-share or | :13:39. | :13:41. | |
holiday product. Fascinating. | :13:42. | :13:44. | |
We decided to phone them I used my own name, and pretended | :13:45. | :13:45. | |
to be looking to sell a fictitious time-share in Florida, | :13:46. | :13:50. | |
which I said was owned Hello there, I wonder if you can | :13:51. | :13:52. | |
help me, please? I am looking at your advert online | :13:53. | :13:59. | |
at the moment and I m trying to help my mother with a time-share | :14:00. | :14:02. | |
she s got that she wants to sell. Can you kind of give me a bit | :14:03. | :14:06. | |
of advice and talk me through how it Having given some | :14:07. | :14:09. | |
details to the person who answered the call, | :14:10. | :14:14. | |
I was put through to an advisor. To protect the privacy | :14:15. | :14:17. | |
of the advisor, her words advisory service for | :14:18. | :14:20. | |
the time-share industry. So we re not linked or affiliated | :14:21. | :14:32. | |
to any resorts or points, which means we can give legal advice | :14:33. | :14:36. | |
and help people that are looking to come out of their | :14:37. | :14:39. | |
time-share ownership. What we do first of all is, | :14:40. | :14:43. | |
so we re not wasting anybody s time, take a few details of the ownership | :14:44. | :14:48. | |
and put them through our system to our senior consultants | :14:49. | :14:52. | |
because they re the ones that will exit people out | :14:53. | :14:56. | |
of the ownership, so they re the ones that have to say | :14:57. | :15:00. | |
whether it is one that they can assist with cos they have | :15:01. | :15:03. | |
to abide by the legislation. I told the company that I have power | :15:04. | :15:06. | |
of attorney over my mum s affairs, and that she is keen to get money | :15:07. | :15:09. | |
back on her time-share, I was told that they could provide | :15:10. | :15:12. | |
us with a valuation. But I wanted to check something | :15:13. | :15:18. | |
first. to sell this time-share for me | :15:19. | :15:20. | |
or for my mum or will you be trying to sell her some other type | :15:21. | :15:26. | |
of time-share instead if you take Right, we don t sell time-share | :15:27. | :15:29. | |
so she s not going to be buying another time-share | :15:30. | :15:33. | |
through our company. We're not a time-share company | :15:34. | :15:38. | |
we re an advisory service But you're selling holidays, | :15:39. | :15:40. | |
try and sell her a holiday? No, no we don t sell any time-share | :15:41. | :15:46. | |
products so she won t be buying a holiday, | :15:47. | :15:50. | |
she won t be buying any time-share. So you haven't got | :15:51. | :15:53. | |
the worry of that. Though there are some companies that | :15:54. | :15:55. | |
would come over to Spain or whatever and they will try and do | :15:56. | :16:04. | |
a promotional where she s got They'll say they l' get her out | :16:05. | :16:07. | |
of it but all they ll do is try and sell her something else, | :16:08. | :16:13. | |
we don t work like that, we do get her out of the time-share | :16:14. | :16:16. | |
so she s not got that maintenance Which all sounds great, but by this | :16:17. | :16:31. | |
point we had found out that sellmytimeshare.tv and the parent | :16:32. | :16:34. | |
company Monster Travel are under serious scrutiny. We had recently | :16:35. | :16:39. | |
written to Monster Travel SLU in Tenerife and I have 250 or so | :16:40. | :16:43. | |
clients have what they are alleging is that the answered in ad or to a | :16:44. | :16:50. | |
cold call from a company that promised to sell their time-share | :16:51. | :16:53. | |
and when he went to a meeting that was not what was going to happen at | :16:54. | :16:57. | |
the hat to buy a product, and they were promised there would be | :16:58. | :17:01. | |
financial return. These clients said that is what they were told in the | :17:02. | :17:06. | |
meetings and the financial returns never materialised, and the | :17:07. | :17:13. | |
time-shares in many cases, they still had to pay the maintenance | :17:14. | :17:19. | |
fees. We found someone who had dealt with sellmytimeshare.tv, she is in | :17:20. | :17:24. | |
her 70s and recently bereaved. Our resort said they would not take the | :17:25. | :17:27. | |
time-share back or sell it for her. Desperate, she saw a newspaper | :17:28. | :17:32. | |
advert for sellmytimeshare.tv. She has asked to remain anonymous. I did | :17:33. | :17:38. | |
not realise to be perfectly honest with you that there were so many | :17:39. | :17:42. | |
countries involved with this. They were certainly very persuasive. It | :17:43. | :17:47. | |
will be the would sell my time sure for roughly, I would put a valuation | :17:48. | :17:53. | |
on it of around 14 the half thousand. They were quite persuasive | :17:54. | :17:58. | |
at that time and I decided that I could not get a contract from | :17:59. | :18:01. | |
someone unless I paid the money for the solicitors, and they wanted to | :18:02. | :18:07. | |
and half thousand initially. I said I don't have that much. So they said | :18:08. | :18:14. | |
1000. Then they told me I could get it back if I did not want to do it | :18:15. | :18:18. | |
within 14 days and that is exactly what I did. A few days after I spoke | :18:19. | :18:24. | |
within 14 days and that is exactly to him on the phone, | :18:25. | :18:26. | |
sellmytimeshare.tv came back with a value for what they called the | :18:27. | :18:29. | |
direct purchase of the time-share I said my mother wanted to sell. Your | :18:30. | :18:36. | |
valuation has come back in. It has come back and had a total price for | :18:37. | :18:44. | |
the two weeks at 9400. OK, right. How does that sound? To be honest I | :18:45. | :18:49. | |
think that sounds they do better than I was expecting. Good. The 9400 | :18:50. | :18:57. | |
is after all legal fees and expenses have been taken into account. So | :18:58. | :18:59. | |
is after all legal fees and expenses would give my mum a cheque for | :19:00. | :19:05. | |
?9,400? That is the valuation, yes. That would change. If you accept | :19:06. | :19:12. | |
that valuation it is logged in. You heard that. I asked directly. Would | :19:13. | :19:20. | |
you give my mum a cheque for ?9,004? He replied, that is the valuation on | :19:21. | :19:24. | |
it, yes, neighbours and 400. That sounded like a good deal. They | :19:25. | :19:30. | |
offered us an appointment in Stratford-upon-Avon and said they | :19:31. | :19:36. | |
would provide a hotel room. I was charged ?199 for what they said were | :19:37. | :19:41. | |
administration costs. But I had already spoken to a lawyer who had | :19:42. | :19:46. | |
about this. It cannot take money upfront any longer. It can only seek | :19:47. | :19:51. | |
payment once there has been a sale of the time-share. Navigating away | :19:52. | :19:56. | |
from it because they say it is to pay for accommodation or something? | :19:57. | :19:59. | |
You'll might be probably say it is a marketing fee or administration fee. | :20:00. | :20:04. | |
I paid up and armed with hidden cameras I went to the meeting. | :20:05. | :20:08. | |
Remember, they believed I was looking to sell my mother 's | :20:09. | :20:12. | |
time-share apartment. They have promised not to try and sell me | :20:13. | :20:14. | |
time-shares are other holiday products. Good to meet you. Good, | :20:15. | :20:22. | |
take a seat. The working to let me know I was lucky to be there. You | :20:23. | :20:32. | |
were lucky. This difficult. Really? Then came some interesting legal | :20:33. | :20:36. | |
business. I will go through everything with you. The only thing | :20:37. | :20:39. | |
I need to do is this, this is a disclosure. That all the information | :20:40. | :20:46. | |
you give me and the information I give you is kept between us. It has | :20:47. | :20:52. | |
taken a long time for this company to get where they are and a lot of | :20:53. | :20:57. | |
work and money, and how we deal with clients and how we deal with the | :20:58. | :21:01. | |
time-share with our lawyers and barristers, we make sure that no one | :21:02. | :21:07. | |
goes away from here and start spreading, quite often not what | :21:08. | :21:12. | |
we're talking about, it is like Chinese whispers. I was surprised by | :21:13. | :21:17. | |
this. And there was disappointment, she showed me how cheaply people | :21:18. | :21:19. | |
were selling the old time-shares for. I could buy that for ?10? You | :21:20. | :21:27. | |
could buy that for ?10. Then you end up in the contract, maintenance | :21:28. | :21:31. | |
costs, and nowadays Uganda's random. You don't even need to own them to | :21:32. | :21:34. | |
be able to go to resorts. Just read them. So why are you off my mum nine | :21:35. | :21:40. | |
at half thousand pounds for this one? That is what we can be good for | :21:41. | :21:46. | |
you. That is not what you will pay me? Now, it says here that there is | :21:47. | :21:50. | |
no guarantee that either of these options will be available in your | :21:51. | :21:59. | |
case. We will give you options, of exactly how it works. I took from | :22:00. | :22:02. | |
the phone call that you would buy my mum 's time-share from me. That is | :22:03. | :22:11. | |
what you are checking out? Yes. Now. People come to us for advice on how | :22:12. | :22:16. | |
time-shares work, on how to get out of the time-shares. Did he say to | :22:17. | :22:20. | |
you that you are going to get a check when you arrived here? Now. | :22:21. | :22:24. | |
But he said it had a guaranteed value of ?9,400. That is what we | :22:25. | :22:33. | |
could give your mother. How do you do that? That is what I'm here to | :22:34. | :22:39. | |
do. She suggested I pay upfront for the illegal disposal of my mum 's | :22:40. | :22:43. | |
time-share, in return she we -- we would be given online credits for | :22:44. | :22:48. | |
the company, that could be used for discount holidays or travel or other | :22:49. | :22:57. | |
goods. They would -- it cynical but they do. I understand that my mum | :22:58. | :23:02. | |
would not get... We can sell the time-share, no one buys them. We | :23:03. | :23:06. | |
can't get that money back. So the time-share go to the lawyers and | :23:07. | :23:12. | |
after the package you get credits. The credits U-Haul for 14 months and | :23:13. | :23:20. | |
it will not cost you anything to hold them. So we can go any time | :23:21. | :23:24. | |
within that 40 months and go on that site and use the credits we have? -- | :23:25. | :23:34. | |
14 months. And if we don't sell over 40 months, we have used them? You'll | :23:35. | :23:37. | |
might be will give you some to sell and some for personal use. It is | :23:38. | :23:43. | |
worth selling -- stopping here to look at the figures. ?6,740 was the | :23:44. | :23:48. | |
total they wanted us to pay upfront for legal fees and other costs | :23:49. | :23:52. | |
associated with the sale of the time-share. Then they would give us | :23:53. | :23:59. | |
286,000 ?953,000 -- things called credits. But we could use them to | :24:00. | :24:05. | |
buy credits -- use them to buy fighter holidays online or even | :24:06. | :24:08. | |
vouchers in high street stores. In 14 months' time we could sell these | :24:09. | :24:15. | |
credits for ?70,216 which magically covered the ?9,400 that we were | :24:16. | :24:20. | |
paying for the time-share plus the ?6,740 and paying up for legal fees. | :24:21. | :24:24. | |
If you are confused, can you imagine how I felt on the day? After three | :24:25. | :24:29. | |
hours of this I was keen to bring the meeting to a close. I think I | :24:30. | :24:34. | |
suppose because when I spoke to Chris on the phone she said the 9400 | :24:35. | :24:40. | |
was guaranteed, I suppose that is what she intended. But then a | :24:41. | :24:42. | |
slightly different way than I thought. I think I need to go away, | :24:43. | :24:47. | |
I presume I can for you next week and say we can go ahead? Week cant | :24:48. | :24:57. | |
do this over the phone. -- we can't do this over the phone. And I would | :24:58. | :25:03. | |
have to wait for the next available appointment? At this point I had had | :25:04. | :25:08. | |
have to wait for the next available enough, I made my excuses and some | :25:09. | :25:11. | |
error. The meeting has played out exactly as the solicitor said his | :25:12. | :25:15. | |
client had described. The company had no intention of buying the | :25:16. | :25:19. | |
time-share, he wanted money from me upfront and they promised a | :25:20. | :25:22. | |
financial return more than one year down the line, every time Stephen | :25:23. | :25:26. | |
Boyd's client claimed they never saw. I have to say that is one of | :25:27. | :25:31. | |
the hardest morning I have had in a long time, I am shattered. Three | :25:32. | :25:35. | |
hours of being talked to about the time-share we were trying to sell it | :25:36. | :25:38. | |
was clear that they had no intention of giving my mum the ?9,400 they | :25:39. | :25:43. | |
talked about and that I thought was a promised fee for them taking the | :25:44. | :25:49. | |
time-share offer hands. They wanted me to pay ?6,740 today in exchange | :25:50. | :25:55. | |
for ?17,000 14 months down the line. That is not why I thought we were | :25:56. | :26:00. | |
here today. It would be very easy for people not quite as awfully | :26:01. | :26:02. | |
about the things that I have been and not as involved to sign on the | :26:03. | :26:07. | |
bottom line and not realise what they were spending. We asked the | :26:08. | :26:11. | |
company to respond to what we have found. A company spokesman said... | :26:12. | :27:05. | |
Let's face it, all anyone wants is a hassle-free holiday. You pack your | :27:06. | :27:15. | |
bags and off you go. Nobody ever signed up for a time-share thinking | :27:16. | :27:19. | |
it would become a source of anxiety and debt. I am getting too old for | :27:20. | :27:27. | |
this nonsense. I think 75 is a reasonable time to retire from these | :27:28. | :27:35. | |
things, these commitments. Have I got to stay until in 120 something? | :27:36. | :27:40. | |
All of this is solvable but it takes time, effort and money. If you seek | :27:41. | :27:46. | |
advice and are prepared to be realistic. You sign up to a contract | :27:47. | :27:53. | |
is 20 or 30 years ago and a lot of these historic contracts are weighed | :27:54. | :27:56. | |
heavily in favour of the time-share companies with no get out for the | :27:57. | :28:04. | |
consumer. It is highly, highly unlikely that we are going to make | :28:05. | :28:11. | |
money, it just doesn't happen. What have we learned at the end of all of | :28:12. | :28:15. | |
this? The time-share industry has cleaned up its act since the early | :28:16. | :28:20. | |
years and thousands of people are botched time-shares have a really | :28:21. | :28:23. | |
great holidays. A lot of these people are getting an update now and | :28:24. | :28:26. | |
we find the getting -- having trouble getting out of their | :28:27. | :28:30. | |
contracts, which seemed to last forever. It is not impossible. You | :28:31. | :28:34. | |
need to stay calm and talk to your resort manager and your solicitor. | :28:35. | :28:40. | |
There is hope so be patient and make sure you take the right advice. | :28:41. | :28:46. |