Mike Southby

Hey, great article Mike.
We had a very similar call last week and have been contemplating going to the ‘information evening’ as we were told, it’s about 20 minutes drive over in Leeds for us. I came across your site and others using Google and am glad I did. Something didn’t ring right about all this and you have reinforced my inner common sense, as you say, you don’t get anything for free in this world, certainly not in todays economic climate.
Surely something should be done about companies like this? Misleading – oh yes.
We won’t be going to Leeds. Or any Club La Costa ‘sales holidays’ for that matter, think I’ll just get the wife to check the local travel agents for last minute deals next year – probably cheaper anyway.
Steve

We have read your above comments. We have been taken in by it all completely and feel very angry that we have actually been lied to on various aspects and wish we had never taken up the trial period. It is all a complete and utter con. Looking back, you can’t believe you have been gullible and taken in by it. They do actually lie to you about things and because it’s not in writing you can’t prove it. The “free holiday” is going to have to be taken in December and god knows what airport that will be from or where we will end up. We got hooked into the trial period and have had our prelude holiday in Costa Del Sol where we were subjected to 7 hours of complete hard sell, where we were made to feel stupid because we refused to sign up for the points system, which would mean parting with a lot more money. Nevertheless, we are now stuck with the trial period and because we didn’t sign up for the full thing, they seem to have lost interest in us and we are not getting the service that they promised and not getting the choice of holidays they promised either. Very angry, upset and disillusioned by the whole affair.

My wife, my two young children and myself attended one of these meetings about four years ago. We felt really pressurised and kept saying we did not want to join, but they kept on and on, even saying to our children “how would you like to go to these places every year?” while showing them lovely holiday brochures, making us fell like terrible parents for refusing this “great opportunity”. After continually refusing to join, after about 4 hours, my wife went to the toilet, and the rep left me after a few moments – he had gone to speak to my wife alone, before she came back to the table. We signed to ‘escape’ the meeting, and as our kids were really bored. We want to know how to get out of club la costa and get our money back especially as the maintenance fees are extortionate.

Excellent article Mike. I had a call from this outfit this evening, most interesting thing was when I asked him the name of the company before he hung up he clearly dtated SELECT which are also assosciated with this type of scam.

regards to the post above i have the same problem i purchesed but i have never used it i paid just over a £1000 deposit then signed up then about 3 weeks later lost my job used to get calls from clc to check how it was going have i done this done that then i told them i lost my job and couldnt pay calls stoped now just dont know what to do i have not paid and not used just want out no money back

Good post, thanks. I just signed up to your blog rss feed.

For the last 2 days I have started to get calls from CLC, I asked why would you want to give me a free holiday and is this a scam that I might have seen on Watchdog, they said no but the internet says yes, also many years ago I git caught out by this trollop in Majorca and ended up wasting a whole day of my holiday trapped in one of these presentations. STAY AWAY

I attended the CLC Exhibition on Saturday (6th March 2010), and the holiday Rep who was assigned to us was a gentleman called ‘Chris’. We had to take our passports with us for identification, which we did. As soon as we got there we were given a form to fill out asking us for all our personal details. After completing the form we were introduced to Chris, who sat us around a small table and tried to be friendly by asking us alot of questions about our relationship as if he did not believe us. We felt quiet humiliated. After an hour and a half of showing us all these lovely brochures and videos and other rubbish, he gave us the cost of how much we would have to pay every year for the rest of our lives, but failed to mention how much we would have to pay for the ‘one-off joining fee’, even after I asked we would need to know how much the joining-fee is so that we can weigh up the Pros and Cons before coming to a decision. He called one of his colleagues over and told him that he felt like banging his head again the wall because we were not buying-in to this scheme. He was very pushy and did not want to take no for an answer. It was glaringly obvious that he was on a 100% commission for him to get so worked up about the fact that we were not interested in his stupid scheme. So he carried on showing us more brochures, which made no sense to me, buy hey ho! After another half an hour went by he called his Manager over to say, I’ve tried everything and they just don’t seem interested, so the Manager said that’s fine there’s no obligation, give them their ‘Exclusive Holiday Passport’ and ‘shopping voucher’ and see them out, she handed him a customer feedback form to which he said ‘yeah, just tick the friedly box’, this made me want to tick the ‘pushy’ or ‘rude’ boxes even more. It was outrageous the way we were treated for not wanting to buy in to this scam. On the way home I was reading through the Free ‘Exclusive Holiday Passport’ which we had apparently won, in the Terms and Conditions it stated that we would have to attend a Holiday Tour, which I assume is another CLC Exhibition run session, which put you under pressure to buy. This is just something we don not need on holiday. If we do not attend this Holiday Tour we would be charged £250, which is an absolute joke!!
CLC Exhibition is a joke! KEEP WELL AWAY FROM IT, UNLESS OF COURSE YOU HAVE MILLIONS OF POUNDS TO SPEND ON YOUR HOLIDAYS. IT WAS A WASTE OF MY 2 HOURS. COMPLETE JOKE!!! DO NOT GO THERE!!!

Dont you just love the internet, i received my voucher with my appointment to attend the meeting next saturday 20th march, i am very good at not getting sucked into anything but this one almost had me. I just thought i would look on internet and i am glad i did, i will not be going next week. Thanks for this information, it has saved me and my husband a lot of grief.

I received phone call yesterday telling me I had won holiday for 4 persons and that all we had to pay was the booking fee. I felt something was not quite right as I hadn’t entered any such competition. I am glad I checked the internet and found this to be a scam. It is totally wrong that they be allowed to deceive people like this.

I received a call tonight to say I had requested details on discounted holidays whilst I was at the Ideal Home Exhibition this year. Having just spent the day retrieving my family from a port miles away after they had travelled over land for 2 days following the Volcano / no flights fiasco I asked what they had in Britain. They offered my accomodation in Scotland at a place called Duchally. They said I could go for 4 nights for £39! Sounded fab! I asked if it was time share and was reasured by ‘Alex’ that it wasn’t. I still wasn’t convinced because he said the holidays were so cheap because they were just filling in gaps between regular visitors to Duchally using the accommodation. I actually told him I had no intention of sitting through a long sales pitch and he told me the staff would ‘show me the facilities’ when I arrived ‘just so I would know where every thing is’ and that would be it. Looked it up on the internet and it all looked lovely. Luckily for me I also looked them up on Google. That guy that left that other comment about Google being a mans best friend was dead right! Can’t wait for ‘Alex’ to call back in 30 mins!

OMG! We went a couple of weeks ago, same old story, won a holiday. Who did we get at the presentation, the lovely Chris! Not! He made an interesting statement at the start of the presentation ‘we take the yes’s as well as the no’s’. Acted like he was our best friend, until we said NO! Pouting and sulking like a child, he had to call upon Landice (or whatever her name was) for back up in the hoping we would say yes. But we stuck to our guns…stay away from CLC! We are adament the company you book the holiday with are affiliated to CLC, and if they know you never signed up, chances are the dates you select will all be fully booked. We wont be taking the holiday. Be careful.

Well I can tell you we have had the experience only last weekend

The presentation and persuasion to buy a trial memebership for £3999, which would come of the full memebership if you eventualy join as a full memeber but thatchanged as we discussed using up the trial and the more of the 6 weeks you take the less of the £3995 comes off the full memebership

the salespeson gave us their personal phone number just in case we changed our mind, and we were there 2 1/4 hours.

They suggested they had rushed it and so we would not fully understand the real value, and they were suggesting we could save significantly on annual holidays if we used their exchange company where there are hundreds of resorts!

We were told the free holiday was not at a CLC centre but were purchased through another travel agent and nothing to do with them and in fact they did not allow non memebrs in to a CLC location.

We said no thanks but wanted the free holiday, but the lie was in factthat the “free” holiday is at a CLC event AND we have to endure another presentation as it is part of the terms and conditions of going on the holiday.

So if you want the facilty of trying to get popular dates on the trial for around £810 a week plus food transfers and flights then CLC is good and of cours if you have full memebrship that will decrease a little eventually, but with your £500 per year maintenance costs!!..

So a rip off it certainly it is

Thanks for your comments so far everyone. Clearly, there does seem to be a pattern developing here. This page is indexing well in Google so hopefully others will be able to check and view our experiences and save themselves a lot of grief.

I too have just received a call about a free 7 night holiday, after reading the above posts and other found on the internet I will definitely NOT be taking it any further. The saying ‘if it sounds too good to be true it probably is’ seems to apply well here!

i wonder if you guys can help. Last year i also filled in a questionair on a plane and surprise surprise last week i got a phone call to say i had a chance to take up a holiday for £29.50 each person. me and my husband are aware that this is a time share and are willing to sit for a few hours of pushing this on us for a holiday for our family if we don’t have to buy!!!! my husband is a man that sticks to his guns and will say NO NO NO and not feel bad for saying so. will we be hit with other costs???? as i am willing to go to get my family a holiday plz is there anybody who has taken the holiday???

Heather, in honesty only you can make that call.

My understanding of the whole setup is that even if you have the presence of mind to say no throughout the meetings and any subsequent holiday, you will not be left alone by the sales people and as such would have to question whether it would actually be a holiday for you and your family. I know in my case, I’d need to holiday to get over the ‘holiday’ which surely defeats the point? In terms of monetary issues, again my understanding and the general consensus of others is that there are indeed many hidden costs. In actual fact, I think it would cost a lot more than the initial sales spiel suggest, of course they can get away with this by saying that it is taxes and surcharges etc.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised actually if you could not get a late deal at a local travel agent for near as damn it the final cost of a ‘free’ holiday with CLC. Of course the benefit of this is that you can lie on a beach all day and not be subject to sales talk and coercion.

I wish you well in what you decide, but please, research, research, research before agreeing to anything.

Had a call on Friday 20th June from Club La Costa saying I could have a holiday for only £99 in Tenerife or Costa Del Sol. I was going to take a week in September for £99 for 6 people and told him to ring me back as I had to discuss it. Luckily I looked up this company on the internet and realised it is a scam. Although I have been to quite a few of these for timeshares (but never signed up) I have never had one like this offering a holiday for £99. I suppose they get you there and then do the hard sell. Not sure what the scam is on this but as you all say you can get a late deal for the same as I would have had to get the flights to tie in it would not have been much of a deal if my flights were expensive. This seems to be a new way of getting people to sign up.

Just had a call, from a ‘very nice young man’ who told me I had done a survey and had been picked to win the fabled prize – 4 people, 1 week, spain, portugal or tenerife (no kids under 7 though, due to health and safety (they obviously know about my grandkids!)) and only 29 quid per person for admin. Fabulous, thought I, could do with a holiday…but perhaps there is a catch. Then a lovely lady confirmed my address (from head office) who said I had to go to london with my partner to pick up the tickets. Gave me dates and times. When I said I cannot say when i could go, she got a bit defensive and persued the ‘Well if you don’t come you wont get’ route. She did quote the CLC website though.
I could not be bothered to ask the timeshare question.. I had a holiday in lanzarote ruined by timeshare people years ago which ended with me ‘accidently’ smashing the bottle of cheap cava they had given me in the reception to their complex when they would not organize the taxi back to my resort they had promised..
Perhaps the offer may work if you are an MI5 agent who has been trained in interogation resistant techniques and can sit throught the brow beating you are bound to get… I know I won’t try it.

Guys, we were sucked in to the presentation and after around 3 hours took up the trial membership via GE Money. 2 months later I found out I was expecting and we couldn’t give it up. For the first year we couldn’t go anywhere. Our prelude “free” holiday was finally taken after the birth of my child. We arrived at Duchally, stunning and lovely. We couldn’t fault it, however we weren’t looking forward to our “free breakfast”. It was pouring of rain and the rep came to get us from our apartment with a large brolly. We had 2 children with us, so we were hoping for a quick tour and blether. I had warned my husband to say nothing and give no details out except that there was a chance I could get made redundant and money was becoming tight. After breakfast they took us for a “hard sales pitch”. With 2 children they say going through facts and figures all morning. I told them we couldn’t afford to become members, but they didn’t take no for an answer, not until they applied to GE Money and they said no can do. I now have from now until May 2011 to take 4 weeks holiday. It is going to be impossible and I just feel now we could have used that money better.
It all sounds great, but in the end you have to be able to live within your means. If I could give it up and stop paying the end of the loan I would.

Hello, Just done a presentation bottom line is £13,995 joining fee plus £500 first year maintenance to join until 2057 (40 more years if you live that long but you can will it apparently. There is a taster deal of £3,995 for 34 months (take the finance it is around £128 a month payment) which you get back if you upgrade to the whole thing after a year or so. The maintenance charge will be at around £500 a year it is supposed only to go up with inflation so it will go up! Add wole hog joining fee plus the maintenance charges over 47 years (static at £500) simple arithmetic works it out at £808 (plus admin charge of £30 or so on booking each time)per annum for a 1 week share in their own accommodation if you want to go further afield to Asia etc., or somewhere else they don’t have their own property they have partner organisations which will be an extra £157 or so for a week so you are looking at about £1,000 (todays prices no maintenance charge increases) for a weeks accommodation anywhere else except for their own UK/Europe and maybe Florida places granted the quality is good and it can host up to 4 people I think if you want more people to stay you need to pay extra as a one off on a sliding scale. Bottom line what would you get for £1,000 for a week- don’t forget travel to/from is additional. Only the joining fee stays constant not the maintenance charge so it would be very good if it was still £800 or £1,000 (plus admin of £30 a go for a booking) for a week say in 20 years from now but I’ve worked it out on a constant maintenance charge at £500!! Work it out or yourselves it might be good for your circumstances but I don’t think it is a cheap way of holidaying unless you are a routine 5 star accommodation holidayer which most aren’t! Also note if you get fed up or can’t afford maintenance charges and sell it you will never get back the same amount it does not increase in value as property prices etc., increase so it is NOT an investment product like buying a house!

Thanks Mark, some really useful and helpful facts and figures for those researching.

Thanks to everyone else for your comments also, apologies that I have not had time to respond individually. Please, keep your comments coming…

We have just had a phonecall saying we had been awarded a holiday as a thank for a survey I completed at the beginning of the month(?). It will be £99 for the two of us for a week in Teneriffe and we get our own flights and transfers. I know this is timeshare and have no problem in saying “no” but has anyone been lately to the accommodation and how pushy can the “welcome sales breakfast” get?

Hi Vivienne, the presentations from combined expereinces do seem to be very ‘pushy’, that being said, only you know your own ability to say no and how this would effect your enjoyment of any possible holiday; personally I feel on balence, there are more cons than pros so will continue to stay clear of CLC.

Hope that helps.

We too got sucked in by Club La Costa.a few years ago. We paid for the 3 Year mambership after being told that it would be “no problem taking the holidays in school holidays”. What they omitted to tell us was that the full members could book the accomodation up to 18 months, and longer in some cases, in advance. So everytime I tried to book I couldnt. I even said I did not mind where we went but to no avail. We were very frustrated. Complete liars all of them. HOW DO THESE REPS MANAGE TO SLEEP WELL AT NIGHT??

HAS ANYONE BOTHERED TO TAKE THEM TO COURT FOR MIS-REPRESENTATION UNDER THE CONSUMER CREDIT ACT 1974? I AM INTERESTED TO FIND OUT HOW IT WENT.

Got a call last week from ‘Select Holidays’ saying we had ‘won’ a free holiday. Confirmation of our ‘no timeshare/no sales promotion’ meeting arrived in post and is from ‘Club La Costa’. To get these people off the phone it is easier to say yes and agree to meeting. Just don’t show up, costs them the stamp and paperwork and mantime. As suspected, if something seems too good be true….
Paperwork features Jennie Bond, you’d think she would know better
Thanks Mike for confirming our suspicions.

@ Ann – that’s an interesting question.

@ Maureen – no problem, I’m glad you had all of the facts available to you to help make an informed choice.

I have a invite to a presentation at Duchally House this weekend. I am now not going. We had been going to go as we have had a positive experience of Club La Costa through my wifes parents and had 2 or 3 holidays at various locations in the UK (We have stayed at Duchally and it was excellent), Spain and the Canaries.
We sat through one of these presentations in Spain and it wasn’t too bad, but i know how to say NO and have a thick skin.

I entered a competition to win a Holiday at the Highland Show and then got the call from Selct Holidays saying that I’d won. Woo Hoo one cries. Even the letter through the post still looks like a prize. It skirts around the presentation and highlights the £29 per person etc and has the lovely Jenny bond on the supporting literature from Club La Costa. I’ve now been poring over the various Forums and can not be bothered with time wasters. Free Holiday, not really…

On a plus point we did just win a competition to join Seasons Holidays as well… Low and behold, it turns out to be above board and our first holiday is booked with another free week next year. (Obviously this was also not a competition but a marketing ploy, but we got 2 weeks holiday for very low cost).

Do your research, ask all the silly questions up front, weigh up your pros and cons. ALWAYS SO NO until you see everything in black and white and you are happy, not when you are told to be and occasional there is a good deal to be had.

Thank you everyone for helping me not waste a Saturaday…

Hi, Ive just returned about an hour ago from Duchally Country Estate where i attended a presentation by reps of Club La Costa who basically tried to hard sell me a time share, (and that is exactly what it is) as its mentioned twice in the presentation video by the founder of Club La Costa) who starts by explaining he started out in 1984 by purchasing 10 apartments in Spain all these years ago, and has moved on and owns 1000s of apartments all over the world now, which no doubt he does, and who has given him the money for them !!! I would suggest probably a lot of gullable people who believe what they are listening to, He goes on to say that there were rogue companies out there who misguided the the people who bought time shares, but no longer as they are all regulated through the time share watchdog, which if im right in my asumptions, He is probably the senior regulator, (Well he does have to look after his investments and his company) and he wants more of anyones hard earned money, Why because its easy, we all want lovely holidays for our loved ones and we do need that break after working so hard. so we go along to this presentation because well this might just be real, no hidden catches, no hard sales pitch, maybe there are real honest people out there, after all they told me on the phone… You have won a holiday in either Portugal,Spain, or the Canary Islands and its yours to take for up to four people for only £29.99 per person, All they require is you attend their presentation and if its not for you then you still have the free holiday, Oh and £50 worth of vouchers if you confirm you will attend. (Simples I say) so my partner and I attend. We ended up with five different sales reps trying to convince us that this is what we have been waiting for, For £13995 we have holidays until 2057, great we think, but hey ho im 56 and my partner is 52 so thats fantastic I would be 103 and my partner 99 and we can still enjoy the night life in Sunny Spain, Well ok we might be using zimmers by then, but not to worry we can pass it on to our family or leave it in our will, yeh that sounds great, we can leave our Grandaughter the management fees to pay until 2057, God knows what the cost will be in years to come, but im sure it will be plenty, but hey is this guy who founded the company clever or what, while we are leaving our family and loved ones with bills he is leaving his loved ones millions, (Think about that before signing anything) Oh you can take the 34 month deal and recieve 7 weeks holidays for a nice little round figure of £3995 with the option of paying the other £10000 if this deal is for you, and i just bet that these 7 weeks holidays will be the worse you ever take with a rep at every holiday you take of these 7 weeks hounding you to go for the big one, Oh i just bet once you take the trial for £3995 and decide to then pay the other £10000 they will leave you in peace. Just great. But what happens if you lose your job, become ill, or are no longer with us, who pays the yearly bills to Club La Costa, what if you dont pay, well i can tell you what happens, you break the contract, you no longer have holidays, your family doesnt have holidays, they sell it to someone else, they might even take you to court. We all Know if you default the chances are you end up with nothing, This Company know this to and my partner said today she did not want to commit because of the financial situation and other commitments at the present time, did it bother the Club La Costa Reps, No it did not, they tried hard to sell it to us, even to the point of trying to embarras us by insinuating we could not afford this and we could pay it up. I do hope that someday soon someone somewhere will look at what this company are actually doing and speak to the ombudsman about their practice and the way they feel they have the right to steal hard working peoples money. Trust me you will find great holidays on the internet for a fraction of the price. Try Onthebeach.com/cancellations Your sincerely James.

I feel I have to come to Club La Costa’s defense (to a point. My wife and I signed up some years ago, went through the same experiance as detailed in yor comments, the only difference was that they told us they would try and sell it to us and the free holiday did require us to spend most of one whole day being sold to, we bought (yes presured to buy) and have some fantastic holidays over the last 8 years, I still get invited to attend sessions when they will try and up-sell, however, I am not made to feel under any obligation to attend, we are left to enjoy a quality holiday with fantastic and consistant accomodation, it is expensive and you could probably get more holidays per year for the same invetsment, but CLC takes the risk out of the holiday, its great every time and you are made to feel you belong to a club, the people are very helpful and the service is excellent. You can also let anyone else use the points, so my children and thier young children have been able to enjoy holidays that they would not probably be able to afford.

Pete, thanks for your comments. I don’t understand the logic though (and please, do correct me if I am wrong), you say that ‘it is expensive‘ and that ‘you could probably get more holidays per year for the investment‘ elsewhere. Surely if that is the case – irrespective of any sales presentation – you’d be better off doing that and not having the ongoing, long term commitment?

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