Club La Costa - sound or con?

[Storminorman]

Please remember Do NOT pay any fees inclusive of Timeshare Compensation Group fees upfront, this will just add to your debt, the Timeshare Consumers Association is not a Government sponsored organisation neither is it an independant consumer organisation it takes a commission from all clients passed to their recommended lawyers, for your own piece of mind seek legal advice from your own lawyer.

[redkt102]

firstly thank you for getting back in touch so quickly and iv taken note of your reply

the letter iv received off ashwoodsis a 14 day demand letter stateing iv got to pay 725 euro

and that it has got to be paid in full by the 4th of march

am i going to have time to do what you said

or is the bill going to just get bigger

these are worring times and clc just seem to do what thay want

dick turpin comes to mind

im not a good letter writer so any hints or help would be much appreciated

again many thanks kt

[toprobroy]

Hi

Info is correct in that you need to be aware you will risk losing a further £235 as there is no Guarantee from Linda Myers Group.

 

Although you might not want to hear this, but if you've signed an agreement with anyone, you must honour it. If however, you feel you were mis-sold in the first place then thats a different matter and you should take legal advice. The TCA is gathering people to see if a Claim can be made. You'll know the link, but if not, its TCA - Compensation Group - Club la Costa

There is no guarantee here, and of course TCA could be getting something, I just don't know the facts, and thats what you should deal with. I imagine if they are successful, then people will view them differently. But anyway, there must be some cost if a Solicitor is going to do some work. It would have been more convincing, if the Solicitor gave a No Win No Fee guarantee. So one must judge that as it is and make up their own minds.

No one here can give you Legal Advice, unless they are going to give you full indemnity on that advice, should you end up paying more or getting deeper into trouble. If I were you I would try talking to CLC and make them an offer. Even if its only £10 a month, its an offer. CLC won't want to publicise court cases, but they also need to try and keep their own financial committments going, in the interests of the remaining owners of products. If not, then an owner will have to bear the increasing costs. My own Members Site for CLC owners is making headway in meeting with the Management as a Group. I have got the Operations Director to attend our 2nd annual meeting in April. However this will be mostly about listening to constructive dialogue from Owners, and you can be assured that we're going to try and get things changed for the future, as not everything is at its best in terms of the selling and ownership. But CLC do have good products and some happy people. I've surveyed our 3000+ owners recently where approx half of people are happy. We need to change the figures to sort the unhappy ones, but we need to be constructive about it and not look for overnight change. But Change we need, and now we have a voice, we need to use it wisely. I'm sorry about your situation and I hope you can get it sorted one way or another. I feel you must keep a dialogue going with them, despite your obvious feelings which I'm sure are justified. Remember, no one should be advising you to break the law. Be constructive and keep talking to them, and or the Debt Collectors. Don't put your head in the sand.

Edited February 22, 2010 by toprobroy

[MCANNEY2K]

hi all, we 're in the same boat, been missold, wrote telling them so, received the same letters back and owe thousands to ge money who have now said that they have sold the debt to a company called LINK. Has anybody else had this? Is it legal as we didn't make any contract with them?!

HI NATALIANJOE OUR LOAN HAS ALSO BEEN SOLD TO LINK AWAITING TO HEAR FROM THEM THE GUY AT GE WAS REALLY HELPFULL SAID IT WAS THE BEST THING FOR US TO STOP INTEREST CHARGES... HOPE HE'S RIGHT HAS ANYONE ELSE GOT ANY UPDATE'S ON THIS ACTION............

[MCANNEY2K]

Any Joy With Linda Myers Group Anyone Bit Worried About Loseing £235 And Adding To Dept.............

[MCANNEY2K]

toprobroy Hi Ru More On The Side Of Clc Trying To Read Into Your Post's....... Edited March 8, 2010 by MCANNEY2K
WANTED TO TALK TO RIGHT PERSON

[toprobroy]

If you mean my posts here....I'm not bothered. I've nothing to hide.

We are having our 2nd Physical Meeting this year in April. I'm expecting around 70+ Members at the moment attending, (we have 3200+ Registrants) and a Representative of CLC is attending for the first time ever. We plan to be positive, constructive and critical...but most importantly we plan to be professional, and I'm pleased that they are coming to listen! We think as a group of Members we have a valuable contribution to make, to further feed into what they are trying to do. This will include the Sales Process, as many do get mis-sold, but there are lots of things to do....but getting it right..paying the right price...etc means its a perfectly good product. A recent survey on my website shows that 50% are happy...and so it follows 50% are not...so we need to do some work together.

[Storminorman]

MCANNEY 2K,

 

Sandy Grey and the Timeshare Consumers Association/ Linder Myers were representing a Sunterra class action group under the banner of Vogas, a lot of unanswered questions were left with a lot of very unhappy timeshare owners who felt duped again.

 

 

QUOTE ""Just as added info I have checked my email and have correspondence from Linder Myers on 20th Dec 2006 indicating that things were moving towards a class action (apparently lots of details provided by Sandy Grey) so the facade continued to quite late on, hence the fact that I did not pursue other actions as a priority earlier."" UNQUOTE

 

An Undertaking from Stephen Cloobeck - Timesharetalk Forum

 

Class action suit x 235 x 1000 is a very nice income for sending 1 email.

 

If they are sure of winning then why not "No Win No Fee" or do they know that this will end the same way as the other previous Class Action Groups. ;-);-)

[MCANNEY2K]

Hi thanks for your reply is the meeting in uk and is it possible to attend i'm just trying to get this sorted out and wan't to go the right way abouit it we have had some good holidays with clc but can no longer put up with the yearly charges just cannot afford to use clc feel we were more than mis sold this product ourselves to blame for being pulled in just need some help.........thanks

[toprobroy]

Hi, Yes the meeting is in the uk, but it is only for members of our site. Club La Costa Members. What you have to understand is that right now, we're not looking to hit CLC with everything we've got. We're interested in a long term solution, so its not proposed that we have a "shouting & griping" meeting with them. Yes, there are issues, and we've discussed them at great length with the members of our site, but we do agree that we need a planned approach. CLC want to listen to its customers and then when it has, we (as a body of owners) can and should work with strategies and solutions that benefit all. We're not looking at doing what TCA is doing with a Class Action, which incidentally isn't about the Product, but more about the way that its sold; and we have ideas around that as well. I don't want to deeply discuss it all here, as that is why we have our own site, and that is supported by the owners who join us, admittedly they make a £5 donation, but that is worth it for many of them, as I'm told so by them. We don't have advertising revenue etc, but we do now, have the Ear of the Management through adopting the strategy I've just outlined. I hope that gives you some insight for now. I agree with the comments on here, that the Class Action proposal is just for sure, another lot of money for a Solicitor. At least if they were sure, you'd get a No Win No fee Option, so it should be treated with Caution. All the best.

[solana]

Hi everyone,

 

Has anyone been contacted by Linder Myers? We filled in the form about 2 - 3 weeks ago and have not heard anything, still being bombarded with phone calls from ge money, but have heard nothing from club la costa.

[Storminorman]

Solana, I am sure the company in question will be contacting you soon, as they do read these threads, have you paid any money yet? and if so has it increased from what you were originally told?

[bristoltiger]

Hi all,

 

My girlfriend received a phone call a few weeks ago to say that we had won a holiday but we had to attend the 2hr talk. Alarm bells instantly went off, so I phoned back and asked more questions. The woman on the phone promised me that there was no commitment and that the holiday would be to a Club La Costa resort, to "sample" what was on offer. As we were in London that weekend anyway, we decided to go to the meeting at their offices on Windmill Street.

 

I really wish I'd Googled them first as it would have saved what turned out to be more like 4hrs of wasted time - however that's a lot better than some of the stories on here.

 

I must admit I was expecting it to be a hall with a speaker at the front and a load of pretty pictures of holiday venues, but they started to drag people off in couples to their own table. I thought this was very odd, so again more alarm bells. We were first introduced to Gill, who was the main sales person, but she kept bringing over her "managers" to at every opportunity there were two people trying to convince you of their b*llsh*t.

 

I said at the start can we just cut to the chase, what's the amount of money you want? and they said no I had to go through the whole process. So we sat there being patronised about where our dream holidays would be and how they could make it all a reality, etc. We even had to watch 2 DVD's one with Jenny Bond saying how safe and secure an investment it was. Does she even know how much of a con this is ??

 

They told me that in the room opposite me (I could see people going in and out of it) was where you signed up for the deal and I did see a lot of couples going in there, shaking hands and coming away with a nice silver welcome pack. I thought at the time - poor lambs! There was a big ugly South African bull dog of a man sitting behind the desk - not exactly customer friendly!

 

Anyway the bottom line was they were going to offer me full membership for £10,995. But wait! Today I only needed to spend £3995! But wait! Today only, I could just pay £495 and then spread the cost of the balance over 3 years with BARCLAYS. But wait! They could also knock off a further £400 from the balance. In return, we could be members for 3 years and get 7 weeks of free holiday time.

 

He wasn't interested in selling me the membership he just wanted me to take the loan out. No doubt they're all on commission.

 

I really feel sorry for all the people falling for it on the day.

 

Now the bit that angers me the most, after giving up my time for them, they then presented us with the "free holiday". The free holiday is not with Club La Costa and you don't go to their resort. It has so many T&C's that you're likely to get charged in full for the trip if you go on it so my advice is definitely RIP UP THE INVITATION and DO NOT GO to one of their meetings.

 

Good luck everyone else.....

[nosh56]

hi bristoltiger and anyone else out there you will do well to walk away from club la costa . we are in a spiral thats out of control not only have i paid GE MONEY over £20000 but still owe more than that for one lousy holiday can anyone out there help !!!!

[nosh56]

i guess its only a matter of time that our dept is sold on. This whole thing is causing so much stress i wish i had never heard of club la costa

[bristoltiger]

It seems Club La Costa is a member of the RDO (Resort development Organisation) - Club La Costa Resorts & Hotels | Resort Development Organisation

 

I suggest everyone sends a complain to them - contact details here

Resort Development Organisation

 

It's shocking that companies like this (and there are a lot!) are allowed to trade within (or on the fringe of) the law....

[bristoltiger]

This is the code of conduct they are supposed to obide by as a member of the RDO

 

http://www.rdo.org/sites/default/files/RDO%20Code%20of%20Conduct%20&%20ADR%20Scheme%20Jan%202010.pdf

 

They fail incredibly well

[nosh56]

This is the code of conduct they are supposed to obide by as a member of the RDO

 

http://www.rdo.org/sites/default/files/RDO%20Code%20of%20Conduct%20&%20ADR%20Scheme%20Jan%202010.pdf

 

They fail incredibly well

thanks for info bristoltiger

[nosh56]

thanks for the info bristoltiger .Has anyone out there getting their case heard by club la costa or GE money ??

[Folkiedave]

Let me just add that if you were told that the offer was available for that day only and it was a lie (it is) then they are breaking Consumer Regulations.

 

Tell Trading Standards.

[riverdoe]

I too have gone to TCA and have been passed to the sols in manchester. My loan with GE has been passed to link. I am only just starting to fight them. We were missold and I have a link http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/debt-collection-industry/250098-urgent-link-ge-money.html

I have sent a letter of misseling to them and even got Inventory solutions to write to them. Some 18 months down the line and they are not budging. Have read many threads all over.

Think of this, you buy a new house and it is wrong and you argue over it for 2 years, you refuse to pay the mortgage and it is repossesed. It is then sold on what do they do to you----advise you the mortgage is still due in full or take the amount it was sold for off your debt and chase you for the balance. It is the latter and they do not care if you have paid the council tax or factor fee.

Why can CLC reposses the timeshare and not pay you the current price for it to be transferred back. This must be totally unfair and should not be in the T & C of purchase. Many of us will have the holiday club withdrawn as no fees paid and still have the loan pursued by the courts and Link or whoever else they are using.

[toprobroy]

I think the difficulty is that its GE you owe money that youve borrowed..just the same as if you went to a bank....you would owe them. But if you haven't paid for your house, then you don't own it.

 

Having said that, I agree that you were likely mis-sold, but what Proof is there of it. Without Proof, its difficult to get your money back. Inventory Solutions and many others will happily take your money to try and help you, but rarely do they win.

 

What we need to do is change the process of Selling and get stuff in writing, so thats it's clear, and then you'll have proof IF, there is a case for MisSelling. I'm continuing to work with CLC to try and get them to introduce this, and as I represent the Members on the Members Website Club La Costa Members I have over 3200 voices at the moment, and continuing to meet with Management on matters they say are important to them. However, I doubt we can do anything much about the past, but we can work for the future.

 

I wish you all the best.

[Storminorman]

I agree with Toprobroy in that proving your verbal mis-selling would be a very hard nut to crack, even though there is probably hundreds if not thousands that were sold the same way as yourself, if on the other hand you have written evidence that your timeshare developer has breached the said laws in place such as taking an illegal payment during the cooling off period, which this company had been doing then that is a different story.

 

What I dont agree with is the statement " I doubt we can do anything much about the past, but we can work for the future"

 

 

Surely in the light of all the bad publicity out there regarding timeshare memberships inclusive of Club La Costa, would it not be better to address the problems from the past, as this must be having a detromental affect on new sales, resales especially with the power of forums such as these.

 

Toprobroy, of your 3200 voices what % were mis-sold in some way, when they first joined, and have they just decided to give up complaining because there was no light at the end of the tunnel, or do they think that if timeshare pressure/compensation groups become to big it could spell the end of Club La Costa, like John Palmers resorts in Tenerife, which are and have been sold off.

[toprobroy]

Hi Storminorman

 

I guess we may have to agree to differ on that point about the past. My thinking right now is more about how I can continue to build a relationship that "might" enable me to get to a position when I could ask about that. But if you were in any business, and you suddenly had to return very large sums of money, you would have to ask "can we afford it?". If it was no, then obviously it would not happen, but there has to be some commercially sensitive info to protect that company as it should be for all. You also have to think of the many existing owners, whom this would also have an effect on, and who in this case, are expecting to have their planned holidays. So I believe a balanced professional approach is the best way forward for now, rather than not having any relationship at all. I've fought for 5 years now to get to this stage, and I believe Wisdom is the order of the day. I don't disagree, where its proven, that those who were mis-sold, should not be entitled to some return. I do disagree in paying people for the service of Non-Guaranteed Litigation attempts. Hopefully that clears my stance on that for now. On the subject of % of Mis-sold, not all of my members voted, so projections have to be made, but around 50% believed they weren't and of the rest only about 3% believe they have any evidence. I don't know all the date and circumstances so you must be clear that you can't make inferences or suggestions that they were without knowing all the facts.

 

So you see, one must try to make change for the present and future, without causing further harm to those still in membership. I hope folks can understand this!

[riverdoe]

My other point is if you do not pay the maintenance fees for 2 years they will repossess even if you still owe GE or other companies. If they take back the product they should pay you for it. this is like saying have your cake and eat it.they will then sell this product to someone else. THEY HAVE BEEN PAID BY THE FINANCE. If they want it back then they should pay you for it. if not why not. Most of us had finance for it that they set up. I understand it is in the small print somewhere but this is not explained to you when you purchase. Thus mis sold it is only when you join a forum like this you find this out...