Lion Resorts holiday club

[browneyes]

Looking forward to hearing what your 'big boss' had to say to you today!
As far as i can see everyone has been as you say 'ripped off' as we were assured it was not a timeshare company when it is registered as one.
We had 7 people pressuring us to sign as it was a resort only sign up and i am convinced the rooms they showed us were made up to look like that purely for our visit!
Everyday I am more and more angry at myself for being conned into this.
Apt with solicitor who specialises in this type of fraud is booked.
will keep you all updated
x

[Jilly1]

Just returned from Conrad Hotel in Sharm 2nd May 08. We booked a presentation through Vanessa with Lion resorts which lasted over 6 hrs. We assumed the company would be legitimate as First Choice were dealing with them.

We were told membership would cost �2995 and were impressed by the apartments we saw. We had a nice lunch and were given a �50 voucher. We were initially v interested but said we would like to research the company on the internet. The Australian girl then immediately started to put the pressure on, insisting that we had to give an answer yes or no before we left the hotel - otherwise they would be breaching their contract with First Choice. We said we could come back with another family member if we were interested.

We were concerned that the prices of apartments were not guaranteed for the 3 yrs and may increase in price, though suposedly 89.6% of people renew their membership. One of the guys in the office was showing us prices of packages but kept pointing to 2/3* holidays when during the tour we were told they only deal in 4/5* properties!
After reading this site will not go ahead. If only 1 in 10
people who attend presentations sign up and everyone is given �50 and a meal they are making their money somewhere!!!

[FullMonty]

I would certainly complain to First Choice as well, often this sort of thing is done by a resort representative on the take - or sometimes (First Choice's name being "borrowed" by another company) goes on without First Choice knowing.

So it might be worthwhile establishing that FC at Head Office are actually involved.

You might also ask yourself why FC would want to introduce you to a company which will take you away from them as a potential customer. I would certainly ask FC that question. Point out the length of the 6 hour presentation - were you told it would take that long or did they mention 90 minutes as most companies seem to?

That figure of 89.6% looks damned precise to me!!

(I should add that one of the timeshare companies used Thomas Cook's name in the Canaries. It stopped after a couple of complaints).

[Mr Nokia]

We had a similar 'introduction' to Lion - scratchcard in Pathos etc etc. and signed up for the 3 years - we paid our �3000 last year. My wife and daughter recently went on the introductory holiday to Sharm - unfortunately, due to work constraints, I had to cancel my trip a couple of days prior but my wife and daughter still went. On arrival, they were informed that their promised luxury apartment was not completed and so were put in a very nice room but 'package holiday spec'.
Hotel staff were very good and my family had a good holiday and were well looked after. They were collected at the airport and taken back by taxi as agreed.

On their return, my Wife wrote to Lion to complain and today we have received an apology and compensation to cover another 2 week holiday to any Lion Resorts owned property with a voucher for �300 towards airfares.

I, like many of you have been sceptical about this company and I certainly do not like their sales methods. Having said that, at present, we have been treat professionally by them and will have to see how we get on with the next holiday, which I will definitely not miss this time.

[woodies]

We have also just returned from Paphos and having signed up to what I thought was a vacation club, I thought I would like to see some reviews on Lion Resorts and RCI. Holy Smoke! if this is the tip of the iceberg I think some stronger action may well be needed. We were also introduced by our Thomas Cook Rep to a rep. of Lion Resorts who booked us an appt. The presentation took 90 minutes and we were told definitely not Timeshare, and it all looked ok and above board even the conditions on the back of the invoice. We have not paid the balance of the �2995 they wanted and I definitely will not be doing so until I have investigated further. Who officially can help. ABTA? The Cypriot authorities? Thomas Cook etc for recommending and endorsing this?
With the labour party in the doldrums at the moment maybe they can recover a few votes by getting the Foreign minister to look into this. Lets not look at this as a personal problem it is clearly far larger and perhaps we start to need a common voice.

[ilinia]

HI everybody,well we have just had confirmation of the first holiday, unfortunately back to paphos for us in November.because thats when we could get the cheapest flights (�400) and paphos was the only place available,for the flight dates. so i will let you know what happens when we get there. Incidentally i have got aholiday to turkey for four adults fortnight A/I for �1,300 from teletext can you get cheaper than that?.

[mizzbonita]

I have just come from a 2 week holiday in Egypt and was asked to go to one of these presentations. The guy who spoke to us said they were trying to attract more British tourists and wanted us to go along to check out the hotel, no mention of a holiday club or timeshare! Dont know why I didnt clock on though. Anyway, they offered us �35 hard rock cafe voucher and a weeks free accommodation so we went having been told it would last 90 mins!
Anyway we ended up spending 3 1/2 hrs in there to which i started to get annoyed cos I wanted to go and in the end told the man to wrap it up! He kept repeating himself and trying to instill in us that we would get VIP treatment on holidays and massive discounts. When he showed us prices on the computer, they were no different o what I see online. They wanted �2595, I said no thanks! No way am I being roped into some dodgy holiday club where they lie to you from the beginning to get you to go to the hotel in the 1st place! The free accommodation room only isnt worth bothering with as after flights and food etc you will be paying alot more than just getting a package. We were flying home 2 days later so I swapped the hard rock cafe for a massage on sharks bay beach!
I wanted to have a go at the man who told us to go and lied but funny enough, he wasnt at the beach either days having known we were leaving soon!
Please do not get fooled by this rubbish, you can find cheaper holidays online every day, you do not save money on these things unless you travel very often!

[European]

I just wnat to tell you Russians are Europeans, before you write anything check maps.

[Lucky Escape]

Bear in mind whilst reading this that I CALL MYSELF A SCEPTIC!!

My partner and I were approached with scratch cards in Paphos this week and I was told I had won the star prize (either a dream holiday, 400 euros or a camcorder!!) As we had nothing planned that day, we went along, the rep treated us to lunch and she gave us the sales talk.

By the end of the display (about 3/4 hours) we wanted to join...we were offered a similar package to everybody else on here...a weeks holiday at a Lion Resort destination (the accommodation shown to us was out of this world) plus 3 year membership to RCI...we were shown fantastic hotels across the world and were told that they would cost �99 per week...they even showed us the website where the prices were confirmed! From this point, we were sucked in! We do not have �2600 to waste, in fact we live hand to mouth most of the time but we were so drawn in by the sales woman, we believed EVERYTHING she told us and we were racking our brains as to where we could find the money to pay for it. We were told that we needed a �500 deposit and we could pay the rest interest free. I asked if there was a cool down period (like in the UK) and we were told no, I asked if we could go away to think about how to raise the cash and go back the following day, we were told no because of some sales licence law in Cyprus! Regardless of this, we still wanted the offer and still believed that the deal was genuine so we said yes and completed an application form. Once completed, we uncovered that our 'star prize' was a dream holiday. We were told that this was now useless since it was �99 to register for the prize and it was only a 2/3* hotel...it would be ridiculous to claim the prize as we could now get a 4/5* hotel for the same price! They instead offered us a book that entitled us to 50% off hotels across the world...absolutely no use to us and we told them that! I asked them for one of the other prizes (ie 400 euros or the camcorder) and was told that that wasn't possible. Needless to say I ripped up the application form, told them they were a load of cons and we left!

I am so angry after reading these stories...if I wouldn't have won the 'star prize' and smelt a rat, I would be in exactly the same position as a lot of you...and to think that companies like First Choice are recommending them...what a disgrace!

Good luck, hope you all get your money back...I honestly do not know how the bosses at Lion Resorts sleep at night...from what i've read, they should be put in prison!!

[blueye]

Glad you were smart enough to tear up the agreement lucky escape. I wish we had acted like that, just shows you though how good they are at fooling people. I, too am usually sceptical but was taken in by them. I am only glad that we didn't have more than �300 to give them at the time! I hope there will be some action against them before long.