Lion Resorts holiday club

[GenesisDevice]

Hi all.

Mmmmmm. There seems to be a pattern here. Scratch card in Greece, have a look at the apartment, endure the hard sell, endure more hard sell because you say thank you but no thank you. Take up your free holiday. We went to Egypt. Got moved to the creative mexicana hotel. No explanation until we pressed the KLR sales reps who stalk you like vultures, and get told that their wonderful hotel seems to concentrating on the Italian guests so they thought it best to move us brits some where more friendly. Personally we think Italian people are wonderful, infact we were in Rome last year. Have our week in the mexicana, have another hard sell session that we apparantly agreed to whilst in Greece, we dont remember this but my memory is like a gold fish. Anyway we looked at the £13k to £15k they they want over 10 years and decided no we dont want a time share which is what it is after all, even though they call it a 'holiday club'. In our opinion an onion is an onion no matter how you cut it up.

Another consideration is that they say you have 'won' a holiday but the sales reps we had who i must say we did play with their minds a little just to see how excited we could get them if they thought they might be on to a sale, did say to us that 'it had cost them nothing for us to be there'.

When we gave our final no, one of many, the sales rep Gill decided to have a little bite at us so to speak by telling us in no uncertain terms that we would be unable to join their time share oooops holiday club (sorry Gill) as we would be taken off of their list of customers.(look out everyone they have us on a list) Anyway - Yipeeeeeeee, that means they might leave us alone. One can only hope.

A few questions remains.
Why has no one ever heard of them?
Why do they use such a tacky approach (scratch cards)?!
Why do they pretend not to be time share when they are ?

In conclusion - our opinion is - go no where near these scam merchents.

Happy holidays all.

[niquette]

hello and welcome to the school of scam/scum

while on holiday on samui (actually two days ago, and obviously it's their new destination), we were stopped on a street by a desperate english bloke called kirt who asked if we speak english, which we did. he then complained that oh everybody around is russian and can't speak english and went on to thank us and blah blah... unfortunately we are polite people which resulted in the loss of 3 hours of time.

anyway, after scratch cards and all that, we were told that we were invited to look at a new resort to possibly come back there next year. we didn't mind that, because we love thailand and probably will come here anyway. so up the hill we went, free taxi and promises of free food and drinks, which we declined so as not to be obliged.

on top of the hill, a French woman in her 60s called christine started our detailed interrogation - as to where we travel, were we stay and all that. it lasted for about two hours, and after that she was obviously able to tell that we had a bit of money for travel and holidays. The psychology of this was clearly to find out if we had enough disposable income for them to rip off.

then, the english man of a younger age with a clear northern accent took over to discuss the money question.

i didn't know anything about the system at all, but the picture started to emerge for me too, as my husband already sussed what it was all about. i started to have fits of giggles, as i knew one couldn't make him spend a 100 squid without having a good thinking about it.

also, the fits of giggles came from the part when my husband started his own interrogation regarding the policy of the alleged 'hotel club'. he had previously mentioned to the northern bloke that he had worked in the law enforcement investigating deception, and the northener was already pretty ****** off with them being so unlucky to pick this particular couple on the street.

anyway, they tried hard!!! having read a part of this thread where people lost from 300 to 4000 squid, we must have given the impression of being minted, because when i got bored i demanded the sum to be declared.

guess what. these nice people were trying to squeese from us 15000 pounds for a 30 year contract!!!

my husband then asked them if we could take some brochures with us to study it overnight (not that we intended to do that), they said they had no printed material to give us, and that we had to make a decision right there and sign for the whole thing immediately or never. obviously, we said no, and were taken down the hill to collect our lawfully won fee t-shirt and some fake paper about the free 7-day holiday that one of our cards won.

we don't know exactly what these people were telling you, but as you can see now, asking someone to immediately sign and pay 15000 pounds for god knows what, and not giving the chance to think it over and come back, is stinking of scam, isn't it.

Maybe they should change their name to LYING RESORTS instead for greater accuracy!!!

[hotblack]

We have just returned from our first week's holiday with Lion Resorts at Capital Coast Paphos and I have to say that overall we were very impressed with the accomodation and Lion Resorts delivered on everyhing they were supposed to.
Our room was amazing with three large flat screen TV's, two bathrooms, fully equiped kitchen, very confortable beds, daily room cleaning.
We arrived at the airport and immediately were shown to a cab which took us straight to the resort - the only downside here was the cab driver who made three mobile calls whilst driving with no hands-free kit. He even complained about a slow driver in front who slowed down whilst making a call.
We arrived and had a 15 minutee wait for our room to be ready despite it being after the check-in time.
The following morning we were met by the Lion rep and given complementary breakfast. Later in the week we were subjected to another meeting with the Rep when they attempted to persuade us to part with over £17000 for the full membership. We decided against it, but for some people I think it would work for them.
There were several features that really impressed us - there are free towels available everywhere and so despite taking loads with us we didn't need to use any - this makes life realy easy. Also, the room had a free safe on a simple pin number system - no deposit required, which made keeping our valuables safe easy.
There were some unfinished features about the hotel but overall it was fabulous.


So, despite the weather being a bit dodgy in early season (Feb) - we had a great time and are looking forward to our next trip with Lion in July.
We are no-longer concerned about Lion as they delivered on everything promissed and think that overall the cost to us of the 4 weeks we have paid for will end up to be reasonable value.

Regards
Tony
Milton Keynes, England

[lucky2]

My husband and myself have just returned from holiday in Paphos where we almost fell victim to the Lion Resorts.SCAM We were stopped at the harbour by a young English lad who gave us a scratch card each. We then went to the holiday place and were there for five hours. We were also told lie after lie about it being a holiday vacation club. They drew up finance for us which we said we did not want. We paid a deposit of £500 (which I successfully stopped). We were given an invoice for £3895. We thought we were buying 4 years' worth of holidays in a 2-bedroomed luxury apartment but after we left noticed they had put at the top of the invoice "1 x 4 weeks in a 2-bedroomed apartment".

I suspect the con is that once you sign for finance you are stuffed. I doubt if you part with a deposit that you will have it returned.

Anyway, I am going to pursue this matter. They will not receive a penny from us. I doubt an invoice would hold any water anywhere. The invoice is so you think you have purchased a holiday.

I have noted some information which may be useful to the authorities if the matter can be pursued but I am going to spend a lot of time on this and hopefully I can prevent people falling victim to it. I will be contacting the Tourist Information Office at Paphos, The British Embassy at Paphos, the Police at Paphos, Companies House in the UK and anyone else I can think of.

I think the good comments found on these pages come from the scum doing the con.

[SouthCoastRichie]

Wow. I've been watching this forum for 5 months now, ever since my parents rang from Cyprus saying they had taken up a 3 year option.
We've been keeping in touch with a few people who have bought into this scheme which although technically not a timeshare, IS a holiday discount scheme with some free accommodation thrown in.
The risks are pretty obvious, primarily I think;

a) A large and growing membership will put pressure on availability of apartments, especially in high season. For this reason maybe not a good idea for families with school-age children.
It must be said they are buying into new hotels all the time. I don't think they OWN hotels, but might be wrong.
Crucial will be the on-going upkeep of these apartmments - the new ones are fantastic but will they be re-furbed every 2/3 years, ensuring they stay desirable?

b) This company is based overseas. There is no real likelihood of any come-back at all if they go into liquidation.
Perhaps investors should take their 'free' weeks as soon as practically possible after paying their cash, thereby ensuring that they receive some value at least?


I plan to report back to the forum when I have more replies from holidaying members I am in touch with already. Re-scheduling of hotels is a concern.

I felt I had to respond to the last post, as although I do think there have been some spurious posts, perhaps from staff members, I feel that happy campers will not have even looked for this site, and will not know about it. Therefore feedback of positive experiences will be low.

The great majority of posts are from hysterical holidaymakers who feel affronted and embarrassed when they think they have been scammed, and should have known better in the first place.I'm not judging, it's just that our defences are low when we've just arrived at a well-earned holiday destination and these salesmen who I very well know will do anything to earn a crust approach and take advantage of 'holiday hormones'.

I will continue to watch the site and feed back. I am a professional on the South Coast in Sussex and for me, the risks of investing are too great. However, I feel that for (especially) newly retireds, a short contract could well pay dividends because they will holiday out of season and thus should get the accommodation they want. I hope Lion don't spoil it for themselves by being too pushy at up-selling when clients visit on their 'free' weeks...In my view a long contract is almost madness unless someone has a great deal of disposable income.
It's an educated gamble mainly because of the overseas status I described above in note b).

[SouthCoastRichie]

I ought to add that to people who have not yet invested, I would recommend they not invest in this company, in view of the under-hand sales techniques, lack of explanatory paperwork and the need for instant decisioning.

Lion need to up their game and become outwardly more open and honest. Their lack of customer service post-sale with bookings, flight cost quotations and emails/phone calls is evident from postings.

Let's invite senior management to reply and provide a once and for all clear statement on how the company actually works? No-one will deny them a profit if the business delivers what it promises.

[FullMonty]

However, I feel that for (especially) newly retireds, a short contract could well pay dividends because they will holiday out of season and thus should get the accommodation they want.

I sense you are being optimistic here. Any investment in property is dodgy at the moment. I would say that with a firm like this there are no guarantees - especially if they are currently investing in new property. They may not be here tomorrow.

Anyone wanting a value for money holiday is best advised in my opinion in booking an apartment and a separate flight i.e put your own package together. Eat in restaurants. Cheaper than taking on annual maintenance which you have no control over and a timeshare/points deal that you can't ever get rid of. If you want to buy a timeshare anyone with one will sell you one.

Many will give it you for nothing.

[SouthCoastRichie]

hi Fullmonty, I don't disagree but don't wish to contradict myself either .

I must own up to being a regular 'point-and-go' person myself. I personally don't like having my resort locations restricted and do regularly use cheap airlines.
My comments were more directed at people returning from holiday, having already enrolled and probably panicking like mad.

I like flexibility and quite honestly this scheme involves too much 'messing around' if you want to travel further afield.

I agree that in the current climate the club is likely to enrol less people. And I think this business depends to a large extent on new cash. Perhaps the bell is tolling..?

[steve1966]

Me and my girlfriend Sue ,We were in Pathos in Cyprus a chap called Julien came up to us with some scratch cards ., and guess what i have won a prize sue had won a bottle of wine it did happen to be my birthday so i was on aroll
He said the he only gets one winning ticket a day and i was lucky , THE CARDS [WERE MARKED AND THE GAVE THE MAN THE WINNING TICKET , THE WAGES EARNER but you have to look carefully on the back of the card to see the mark anyway

so off we trotted to a very nice hotel in a taxi , the guy Julian said to say that we do not have credit cards with us they are locked up ina safe at the apartment alarm bells ringing at that point
Met by some overweight rotund stumpy Chap called EDDIE , who was basically a conman , giving us crap about moving over there he had two kids with red hair and all his life story ,,,,but he was worming info out of me all the time , there was a vulture who had the credit forms , and basically you sign a LOAN with barclays , they get there money straight away you are left with the debt ,But with Barclays you get a 14 day cooling off peroid ,you dont with Lion

Once upon a time he lived in sale just off washway road , strange how he could not remember the name of the pub at the top of his road , that was a lie i saw through
:
after what seamed like two ice ages , we went to the main room , sat at round table i had been moaning about not having a beer as it was my birthday , first of all they said they could not supply beer as it was not there poilcy, but changed there minds when they thought i was going to sign
i was going to make up a name and address , tell them we were going to go for a meal and call back on the way back , at least that way they would not keep us waiting ages for a taxi , but after taking about it , it was surprising how much inforamtion they had wormed out of me , and i had not had a beer , very good trick questions to find personal info out about you , anyway we did not sign and got a taxi back after a wait , a very close call if you ask me

[susiewong48]

Just wondering if anyone knows how long this company has been established?