Impact Promotions - Exmouth

by **lua** on Sun Mar 29, 2009 21:37 pm

Hi -

My Husband and I went to one of those presentations yesterday. Have to confess that I am still fuming with anger at being so naive. BEWARE!! I have years Marketing professional experience, hate cold calling and am extremely suspicious of 'free' offerings of any sort, yet, not quite sure why, feel on this one.

Can't remember exactly how it all started, but they were persistent. Got an invite sent to go collect our free holiday on what looked like a home-made school project presentation letter and completely ignored it. Then got a call by one of the 'managers' who was actually someone I could believe and had perfectly good answers to my obvious questions - such: -was it about timeshare? How were we selected?, etc, etc. Thought it might be worth trying it out, even thought I knew I should know there is no such thing as a free lunch!

The whole thing looked wrong from the start. Posh cars (probably rentals) strategically parked outside for them to refer to and scarily looking staff. The sales force also looked very scary and immediately we felt like going home. Been assigned an elderly man whose experience looked minimal but tried to convince us (despite the fact we didn't ask any questions) he had 'plenty of cash' and just loved his job - despite having a wife 23-years younger than him and a very sexually active life!! Anyway, as soon as he mentioned the word TIMESHARE, I got really cross and said I was ready to leave. He called his Boss, Andy, who seemed a savvier shark and clarified that the system is to use different companies to get people in and they are free to use any means they have to get people in.

Anyway, I still felt like leaving but thought about the free holiday we were promised and the fact we drove from Bristol to hear that. So, stayed. The timeshare company they are selling is Atlas. It retails for £11,998/week share, which on top you have to pay £531/week/year to keep. If you do not use it, you can rent it through their agents and reportedly receive £1,200/week in rental income. Sadly enough my in-laws are elderly and fell on this hard selling some years back. Names were different (as they seem to change a lot), but are operating under Atlas and after concluding that it was actually a pretty expensive way of traveling and wanted out, have had no other option than to give it back - for FREE - loosing their lifetime savings through this scam. Please do not fall for it, they will not buy it from you with a profit as I have been told by our elderly salesman, Mike, or pay you a great rental income. You will be stitched up and never see your money again.

They also promote a travel agency for members that offers discounts of up to 25% on flights, hotels, cruises, shows, etc; which is meant to be a great perk to become a member. The big guy, Andy, with polished look and white teeth was trying to convince me he got tickets for the Easter break with Virgin Atlantic worth £4K upper class (they would not cost that even on 1st!) for £1,050 through this scheme. Later we were seen by a lady who also mentioned she got same flights it down from £3k for £1,050 - at which we had to jokingly ask if they were going together as we are not that stupid!!!! Clearly they all have a line to memorize!

Had to leave after 1.5h - luckily had mentioned from the beginning we had to leave at a certain time - got our £20 Next vouchers and Sugar Reef holiday. We were promised by the Andy guy it would be a top of the range Thompson one, which was the only reason I stayed. Had I known it would be another dodgy company I would have just gone home!

Anyway, hope it helps avoids other people avoiding this scam. As for the holiday vouchers, no way we are being made fools of twice by the same people!!

Good Luck

by **office dude** on Mon Mar 30, 2009 16:19 pm

Be warned do not touch sugar reef travel linked to the dodgy company

by **EDaines** on Wed Apr 08, 2009 16:53 pm

We also recieved several calls and promotions that told us we won either a beach holiday or a weekend away. All looks very professional but I can assure you that once I recieved a voucher asking me to send a deposit of £75 per person to retrieve the prize and that it would be refundable I decided to look them up........not to my surprise was the comments you have ALL made regarding this company and have probably saved me money. Thanks to you ALL xx

by **echandler** on Sat Apr 18, 2009 12:44 pm

Hi,

Just to say many thanks to all of you who added your comments. I too recieved a phone call saying we had won a free holiday and just needed to attend a conference in Exeter. I was due to go tomorrow, expecting it to be a scam! I am now not going and have phoned to tell them I am aware of their scam! Thanks again!

by **The Fishes** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 18:36 pm

We have just attended a presentation in Exeter with Mike and Andy in full flow! Having very clearly said "No" we came away with our Sugar Reef Brochure,Mini Break offer and £10 M&S voucher, but still felt sceptical about the offer. Some of the small print rang warning bells so in true "Silver Surfer" fashion we started to investigate Sugar Reef on this site and what a can of worms has been revealed!
Thank you to all who have written - you have certainly stopped us from going any further with it and have saved us from the stress of being involved in any way with a scam!

by **_assassin_** on Fri May 29, 2009 23:49 pm

if you want to know where to find the ones to blame for all this....

by **JJoeLily** on Mon Jun 08, 2009 09:52 am

Yes I think I have been well and truly had. We told them on the phone that we wasn't interested in timeshares etc but they still wanted us to go ahead and visit them for a free one weeks holiday.
Upon arrival we were met by some really smarmy men at the door who obviously thought a very lot about themselves. We were then took to see a lady who was heavily pregnant to discuss all about the deal. After 5 mins I told her that we wasn't interested so she got someone over to chat to us who was not vbery nice at all, he then went after flogging a dead horse and after an hour of flicking through brochures we was given 2 x £10 vouchers and the envelope to fill in for a free holiday which was totally free.
I hate to admit that I sent the money off to them in the form of a personal cheque and we have yet to receive anything back and this was in February. I have called them and wrote a nasty letter threatening legal action. I then received a phone call from a man who was nasty, unprofessional and kept swearing at me. I only said that I needed to get a pen to write things down and he said "For F***S Sake". Since then I have not heard a thing but want my nearly £300 that I sent to them back, any ideas on how to get it back? Please help, I have been conned!

by **wills15** on Mon Jun 08, 2009 10:46 am

Hi JJoeLily
What have you paid them nearly £300 for? It was your choice to visit them presumably from a cold call! As many on HW forums write cold call = scam. You say the holiday was free so why did you have to pay any money at all? However the deed is now done and needs undoing. Have you spoken with your bankers to see if they can advise?

by **Darcey2** on Thu Jun 11, 2009 20:05 pm

A friend of mine has won two weekend trips on scratch cards. One for London and one for Dublin. Both through "The sugar reef travel club" . They ask for a £75 refundable deposit.

Because I got caught with something similar some years ago, I decided to check it out which has led me to this site. By the sounds of it my instinct was correct.

Does anybody know if they have been reported?

by **toco** on Mon Jun 22, 2009 10:00 am

Hi have just attended a promotion in Taunton where my new best friend the most unpleasant pushy person I have ever met was trying to tell me about the joys of joining the club.
As those of you who have been caught on this sort of thing before will know the easiest way out is to say " I am very sorry but we seem to be here on false pretecences as we do not meet your criterion, to old/do not have the income,etc
This realy puts the cat amongst the pigeons,because they have invited you to the session and you have a number to prove it you are entitled to the vouchers/holiday. They know that they are not going to sell you anything and if you create a scene you will put other people off, so you will be out of there in no time at all and they will never call you back.
I have done this twice now and it never fails
One point never tell anybody who calls what you earn, say you are on benefits or something that generally gets rid of them.