Target practice with the touts anybody??

[Cornholio]

Office of Fair Trading: The Office of Fair Trading: making markets work well for consumers

Timeshare Consumers Association: Timeshare Consumers Association

As the saying goes: "Forewarned = forearmed". Don't become yet another gullible victim!!

[Cornholio]

The following article appeared on the BBC's World News website on 22-10-2008:-

EU aims to curb timeshare scams

By Chris Mason
BBC News, Strasbourg

The European Parliament has passed a law to crack down on rogue timeshare and holiday clubs.

About 1.5 million people across Europe have bought timeshares, which provide access to holiday homes for a certain period every year.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7684360.stm

[grumpy001]

Good post Cornholio, but sadly these regs will take a long time to take hold, and the squirming worms that cheat, and con their way to our wallets will continue to "distribute" in the same and even more underhand ways.

We have just been down the harbour and were approached no less than 6 times, including 2 youngsters who tried to run us over on one of these mopeds.

[Nigel Howarth]

The EU is planning to better protect consumers with a new Timeshare Directive:

"THE timeshare holiday rights of some 1.5 million European families will soon be better protected, as MEPs in Strasbourg are expected to endorse a compromise reached between Parliament and Council on the new Timeshare Directive. The directive seeks to enhance consumer confidence and legal clarity, which are essential to the growth of this sector, via simplified EU-wide rules."

For more details, follow the link below

Cheers,

[Cornholio]

Time-share menace out of control
By Bejay Browne
(archive article - Sunday, 12 April, 2009)

AGGRESSIVE time-share touts have resorted to hassling guests inside top-class hotels along the Paphos seafront in a desperate attempt to drum up new business.

“Most of the hotels along the Kato Paphos and Yeroskipou seafront have recently been subjected to the increasingly aggressive behaviour of these people trying to sell time-share and holiday club ownership. They are venturing into the hotels and harassing guests, it’s become out of hand,” said Nassos Hadjigeorgiou, the tourist manager of the Paphos regional board of tourism.

“We’ve had numerous complaints from hotel guests and visitors to Paphos who said they would never come back."

An emergency meeting to discuss the situation was held at Paphos Town hall, which Hadjigeorgiou attended along with Themis Philipides, the President of the Paphos branch of PASYXE, the Cyprus Hotels Association, Paphos assistant Divisional Police Commander, Nicos Sophocleous, the Mayor of Paphos, Savvas Vergas, members of the CTO, and other concerned official bodies.

"Urgent steps need to be taken to stop the behaviour of these people, and we pledged to start working on the problem immediately," said Hadjigeorgiou.

He stressed that the problem didn’t lie with time-share or holiday club ownership as a product, but the way in which it was promoted.

Cyprus Mail Internet Edition Click on "Search by Date" hyperlink