RCI Holiday Club scam

by **eric the sad** on Mon Aug 27, 2007 10:38 pm

I'm currently sitting in the hotel room in St Julians, Malta on the last evening of my holiday having lost an hour of today on one of these scams. We thought it was dodgy from the start but quite enjoy giving as good as we get so went along with it for a while to see what happened.

The bloke engaged us in conversation and asked us to complete a questionnaire, claiming he was working to promote Malta tourism. When asked directly whether he was selling anything he replied that he was not.

Having provided the answers to his questionnaire he was able to issue us with two game cards which you needed to tear the perforated ends off. Thinking back my wife believes he handed her one - a free bottle of wine - but invited me to choose from a number held out. What are the chances that they were all the same as I won the star prize a weeks holiday. Whereas my wifes card was cleanly perforated at both ends the star prize was unperforated at one end and had to be torn - makes you wonder if they'd later use this as to say it was defaced and invalid. The cards had Visit Malta in white on a red background but no promoters name anywhere.

There were only 500 such prizes so we would take us straight to the hotel to pick up the prize. Funnily enough, though he was not expecting anyone to win this prize, his partner we sitting behind the wheel of a parked car a few yards away ready to go.

On the way we learned a little about the 'perp': he comes from Leicestershire, but worked briefly in Acocks Green as a plumber, he has been in Malta for four year, he may have been called Michael. Unfortunately I neglected to take his picture it would be useful for the website I'm planning: www.betyourmothersproud.com.

In the first hotel, the Kennedy Nova, no one was available to deal with us. He suggested a drink up on the roof, but I preferred to stay in the shade (largely to mess up his plans). We were then taken to a second hotel were 'the manager' would be ready to meet us.

On the way we asked
"Who do you work for?"
"We're promoting tourism in Malta"
"Yes, but who are you working for?"
"We're working with Malta Tourism" (indicating the logo on the hotel)
"and who is 'we'?"
"hrumph"

We were met at the entrance of the next hotel the Fortina by 'Dave' similarly dressed in T-shirt and shorts with a small bag at his chest concealing his ID, and were led in throught reception towards the lift. He didn't appear to be associated with the hotel so we asked did he work for them, 'no', were they aware of his presence, 'I should think so'. He then mentioned the one hour presentation before we could have the tickets. This was becoming too stereotypically timeshare so I pulled out his ID from behind his bag to confirm this. We forcibly expressed our opinions on timeshares or more specifically their marketing techiques and demanded to be returned to the point from which we were abducted.

On the way out, I decided to check with reception. These people were operating out of the hotel but were nothing to do with it. They were passing themselves off as the hotel manager and I reckoned this made them their problem as well. We spoke to the real manager (shirt and tie, affable and efficient). The timeshare company RCI have a number of apartments in the building but the hotel (which looked very nice by the way) had no control over them. The manager was concerned to hear of the misrepresentation as Malta Tourism and the hotel and would be taking the matter up with RCI. 'Dave' having scarpered, the manager arranged a taxi back for us at the hotel's expense, stating that he would be claiming it back from RCI.

by **Danger Man** on Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:22 pm

I used to work for RCI. They do not sell timeshare nor do they own any properties but act as a "swap shop" for those people who do own timeshares.

Dodgy timeshare salesman are everywhere unfortunately and give the industry a bad name. The scratch card scam is common and generally involves the "losing" card coming from one pocket and the "winning" card from another. This is usually accompanied by a flabbergasted sales person amazed at your luck at winning the prize!

My advice? Like drugs, just say no and walk off. (Or say you work for RCI - this always worked for me and soon got rid of the touts!). To be frank, anyone who accepts the offer and sits through a two hour hard sell presentation has the word "MUG" written all over them.

If you want to buy a timeshare wait until you get home and look into it with an open mind.

by **samnalan** on Mon Sep 03, 2007 8:39 am

We have just returned from Crete and the same thing happened to us we inredibly won the star prize (there is only 2 a day how lucky are we) and the girl told us it would take an hours tour and we could have our prizes. We don't normally fall for these things and as we were waiting for a bus which would take 30 minutes to come we thought we would use the free taxi ride to get to the beach and so only waste 30 minutes of our holiday with a possible prize at the end.

We were introduced to the Rep Mark and had the usual talk but he went on for well over an hour and would not answer our only question, "how much will it cost". By this time we had had enough and the tour hadn't even started so i asked him how much longer this was going to take as, "well you know where the taxis are" he said. Anyway he calmed down and gave us the tour and took us back inside where he called over the same Welsh bloke (it's Glyn not Glen) who was very nice and said it didn't matter if we took the offer or not we were all great mates, he told us how much it would cost �3895-00 for 5 weeks over 3 years without flights and could we take our 1st week next year without our kids and at Easter (no chance we have 4 kids and we not leaving them behind) they then asked for a deposit of �500 and we could cancel when we got home when we said no Glyn simply said well i'll leave it at that and stood up and left without a word (rude prick)

Yes we won the "free" holiday aswell but there will no doubt be a catch so we won't be taking them up on it, but the wine was quite nice and we did get a taxi to the beach so it wasn't too bad, but there were an awful lot of people signing up that afternoon. Please don't.

by **Uxor** on Wed Sep 19, 2007 6:48 pm

Having read this thread through - please go and look at the Clb Greece thread too - it has much the same in terms of content and tales of gullibility (yep, I was one of them) but it also has lots of info on how to get out it without losing your shirt!

Wish I'd seen these threads first, it's spoiled Rhodes for me!

by **vicnic** on Thu Sep 27, 2007 6:22 pm

But does anyone know what rules apply if you want to cancel an RCI timeshare if you booked it in the dominican republic? i hear that they have different rules and are lawless?

by **Tangmad 1** on Fri Sep 28, 2007 2:09 pm

We too were abducted and got the hard sell for nearly 3 hours then a guy came over and tried to close the deal with 2995 he wrote this well upside down and when i said not a chance he became even more stern and said what about a 500.00 pound deposit i said i do not understand greak laws about a cooling off period if i want to get out of the contract i said i also work in a sales enviroment in the uk which i am use to and i know the cooling off terms and conditions he was very unhappy that we were unwilling to sign and sent us on our way

P.S we also won the holiday (Another scam read the terms and conditions on that leaflet)
plus we won a t shirt and 2 bottles of wine which were confascated at the airport because we had them in our hand luggage and they dont allow liquids

The truth of the matter is if its to good to be true it probably is stick to your instincts and give them a wide berth DONT SIGN

by **EIRE18** on Sat Sep 29, 2007 11:34 pm

My husband & I were in Puerto Rico in the Gran Canaria recently & were caught by one of the 'ANFI' agents. The guy on the street said that because we were with Budget Travel, we could use the beach & pool in Afni for free, all we would have to do was listen to a guy for a short while, & we'd be left in peace. If he calls 4 hours a short time...I was absolutely livid...what a waste of an afternoon. There in your face the entire time. My only advise to people is to avoid these people like the plague...tell them to piss off & they'll soon get the hint!

Maria from Ireland

by **Meropi Kreta** on Sat Oct 06, 2007 11:01 am

We are from Holland and they tried the same scam in Crete with us. It is all very recognizable the stories I read. I went exactly the same with us and we almost signed the contract but my boyfriends asked them when we the internetcode would get. They told us after we revisited this resort next year. For us this was not acceptable and their attitude changed. We both got a very bad feeling and we got out off there, luckily. After reading all these stories we are very happy to be home without lossing Euro 5.000,00

by **starfish** on Thu Nov 22, 2007 4:05 pm

I have friends who own a Timeshare in Tenerife and seem to enjoy it. However, they are business owners who enjoy (IMHO) expensive holidays (cruises, long-hauls, world tours) and view the �15000 for a week in the sun as a good deal.
Having been on one of the "tours", it all seemed very nice and I was expecting the price of a week's 2-bed apartment to be about twice what they were asking. The cost of rearranging flights andthe basic upkeep seemed a little steep, though.
Then, during the sit-down hard-sell, I thought, "What if I had the money to live like this for a whole year?..."
This made me realise how much I'd be paying. In Tenerife, they can sell this one-week apartment 52 times (as the sun shines almost as much in Winter as in Summer). This means that having the basic 2-bed apartment for a whole year would be:
to "buy" �780,000 (or about �1,300,000)
"upkeep" �10,000 (�16,600)
Imagine if you had that kind of money. You could quite easily buy a sumtuous 4-bedroomed house with garage, swimming pool and few acres of garden in one of the quieter, less touristy areas of Tenerife, and you'd spend far less than 10 grand on decorating, cleaning and general maintenance! At the time, the property prices weren't nearly as dear as now and I could've bought a decent sized house not far from the resort for 1/3 of this (although I couldn't afford it, but can always dream).
When seeing these schemes, I always think that, if you and your family/friends like travelling to the same place, it's probably more of an investment if you club together and buy a house/apartment to share. If you decide that you don't want it after a while, you can actually make a profit on selling. Try selling one of these Timeshares.

by **larakevin** on Sun Mar 16, 2008 12:29 pm

in all fairness,rci are an exchange company.if you buy into a holiday group,ie buy a time share, you are more than likely to become an rci member.it the holiday group that tries to sell you holidays, not rci. ive been a rci member(through my time share)for 6 years, had fantatic holiday exchanges through them . if i had to pay for some of the accomadation we ve had, it would have cost me a fortune!and you dont have to book flights through them.being an rci member , i have access to more than 3,800 resorts. never had a problem with them.