RCI Holiday Club scam

by **Jamesr** on Tue Mar 18, 2008 12:55 pm

We joined the Nostos holiday club. Found that it was a timeshare scheme and asked to cancel. Nostos refused so we got the credit card company to claw back the money. Problem solved.

by **vicnic** on Tue Mar 18, 2008 2:21 pm

i wish we could claw back the money from them, but it was taken on one debit card and one credit card and done last july. it looks like i have lost �3500 for nothing because what they sold us was based on lies and now i am suffering for it but will rather take a loss than continue paying these crocks. but it is so unfair.

by **Gullibles Traveller** on Sat Jun 07, 2008 7:26 pm

It's all a total scam. Last year in Tenerife, everywhere we went I was such a lucky lady. I kept winning the star prize on the scratch cards, YEH, WOO, AMAZING rang through my ears everytime we reached a tout!!

Same old, same old crap. Ironically, this is how we ended up buying our Club La Costa membership and don't even go there with that one! I just felt sorry for the young girls on the front as they were desparate to get paid for our visit to the office to collect OUR PRIZE so we were conned in going in! Check out the forums on CLC though!

Being members already in the end we said 'don't even bother' as it became so tiresome. If they persisted we informed them we were CLC members. One of them even tried to convert us! Q. For goodness sake do they stop at nothing - A. No!

What happens it that each time my card was lifted from the bottom of the pile. They all do it and besides, i've never been genuinely lucky in my life so why start now!

Remember, you NEVER EVER get something for nothing!

by **stez_2** on Thu Jun 19, 2008 9:59 am

can anyone advise please? my friend has purchased one floating week with RCI she has 6 weeks holidays from work and has been told that she can book any, if not all of her weeks holidays thru RCI exchange. I thought if you only purchase one week you can only excahnge one week, other than special offers etc. She telephoned them to double check & they confirmed what she thought, have things changed or has she misunderstood?

by **tsuser** on Thu Jun 19, 2008 4:36 pm

If she owns in the Weeks system then you are correct, exchange is week for week apart from special promotions. If she owned in the Points system she could in theory at least get more than one week off season as each week required fewer points. There is absolutely no way that she could effectively do 6 for 1 exchange in either system.
She could take any number of short notice holidays, assuming availability, as these operate on a rental basis i.e. no week deposited.

by **Jo Hol** on Fri Aug 01, 2008 11:26 am

The exact same thing happened to me and my husband this year in Malta, we were told we would get £300 of holiday vouchers redeemable at First Choice and a lift back to our hotel as public transport was on strike. As soon as we said we werent interested in buying that was it. We got some holiday promo where you had to pay £100 just to find out about a free holiday and they left us stranded with no way to get back to our hotel.

by **JacknJen** on Mon Sep 22, 2008 3:49 pm

We have just returned from Paphos, Cyprus where Lion Hotels, who seem to be RCI under another guise, are building a new hotel. We were stopped on the road by a couple in a car who at first appeared to be asking directions. The woman then got out with two scratch cards telling us that a new hotel was being built just down the road and they had a number of prizes to give away. She invited us to scratch the cards. One showed two euro signs and a cross, which she said would be a bottle of wine. When we scratched the other card it showed three euro signs at which the girl went wild, laughing and shouting, telling us that we had just won the top prize which would be one of three fantastic prizes, either a weeks holiday for two, 400 euros [about £320] or a Sony digital camera.
All we had to do to claim the prize was to spend 90 minutes viewing the new developement, but if we were short of time we could get round in half that.
On arrival at the 'hotel' we were subjected to about 30 mins. of questioning followed by an RCI timeshare presentation lasting almost two hours at the end of which we were asked to join a four year holiday scheme by paying £2,795 up front.
The hotel wasn't started, but merely planned. They did show us some fantastic appartment accomodation, to standards which were clearly 5 star plus, but the appartment complex was still in the middle of a building site.
We turned down their offer, although several people seemed to have swallowed the bait. We asked if there was a cooling off period should we agree to sign up, such as one would get in the UK, but we were told that that could not be offered under Cyprus law.
THIS WAS A MAJOR INTRUSION ON OUR SHORT HOLIDAY TIME. AND THE PRIZES? A BOTTLE OF CHEAP RED PLONK AND A HOLIDAY OFFER WITH SO MANY STRINGS ATTACHED THAT IT WAS WORTHLESS.