If you have been conned by Club Class Concierge, you are not
alone. Thousands of people were pressurised into signing up for a Club Class Holiday Club Membership often after deliberately long presentations accompanied
by a very slick sales operation to make it all sound credible. Once you
realised you had been scammed, to add insult to injury, in October 2012 seven Club Class companies went into compulsory liquidation, leaving many wondering if they will
ever see their money again.
Club Class – The Scam
If clients already owned a timeshare, Club Class told them
they would transfer ownership into their name and the client would therefore no
longer be liable for the onerous and ever increasing annual maintenance fees –
this didn't happen.
Clients were told that on joining Club Class they would have
access to 5 star exclusive worldwide resorts at much reduced prices, typically
less than half the usual High Street Price. However, once they’d returned home, paid the full balance and actually
got their membership details they found that this wasn't the case at all. The
website they had ‘exclusive’ access to in fact listed holidays at the same
price or more expensive than those on regular high street travel agents or
internet sites. What they had actually
been shown at the presentation was a dummy website.
Club Class clients were also told that they would be repaid the cost of
membership via a ‘Cash-back Rebate Certificate’, which would mature after 3-5
years. This system was designed to fail,
customers had to adhere to incredibly rigid criteria for submitting their
certificate and if they made even the slightest error they would be ineligible
for a pay out (for example they emailed a copy certificate in JPEG instead of
GIF). In addition, those customers who
did fulfill all the criteria either got paid out a very small percentage of the face
value of the certificate or in most cases, nothing at all.
So in summary, clients paid Club Class on average about
£8,000 and received absolutely nothing in return.
Frequently asked questions by Club Class members:
1. Will we get any money back from Cashback / Reclaim?
Unlikely - anecdotally we've not heard of anyone getting any money repaid in the last 6 months
2. Can we get our
money back from Club Class?
Unfortunately not, as seven Club Class companies have been compulsorily wound up
3. Why are we still
getting requests from Club Class for our annual fees?
We don’t understand how this can be happening as these 7
Club Class companies are now in liquidation
4. How could we have been so gullible and fall for the Club Class Scam?
You’re not on your own; thousands of people were duped
into parting with their money by Club Class. They have a very slick sales operation with sales people who are skilled
at making this proposition credible. They put clients into a very pressurised environment, presentations
often lasting 5-7 hours by which time, weary & bamboozled by all the
information clients capitulated.
5. We have been approached by a company who are offering to
sell our Club Class membership, what do you think?
No one can sell your Club Class membership, it has no
value. If someone is contacting you, by
phone, email or letter you have to question where they have got this
information from, our guess would be that they are in some way linked to Club
Class. In addition, never ever pay any
money in advance. If you pay no money up
front then you have got nothing to lose.
6. How can we recover our money lost from Club Class?
The only way to recover the money lost by joining Club
Class is through Section 75 of The Consumer Credit Act 1974. Aequiam specialise in reclaiming money back from
Credit Card companies for mis-sold holiday clubs such as Club Class. We have a very high success rate and are an
extremely competent & professional organisation; we will take care of your
claim from start to finish, keeping you updated throughout the process. Once a settlement is agreed it is repaid
directly to you & it is only then that we invoice for our fees.
This post is written by Aequiam Limited, a company that helps victims of mis-sold holiday clubs and timeshare resale scams claim their money back on a no-win, no fee basis. You can find our more on our website http://incentiveleisureclaims.co.uk, email us on info@aequiam.co.ukor call on 01525 384422 / 384477
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