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Apparently, i've been drawn from a high-street survey i completed recently and won a weeks free holiday for 2 with GVC.
all i have to pay for is £34 booking/admin fee per person and i go to the algarve or canaries, with flights, luxury self catering accomodation, and car hire.
is this a wind up, they are sending me the stuff through the post, and i do remember doing the survey, so whats the catch??
Blag the holiday, check about any extras, hol/travel insurance, car hire insurance, airport fees etc. AND GET IT IN WRITING!
If Timeshare expect that you will have to sit through a lengthy (4hours or so) sales session follwed by a high pressure salesperson following your every move until you give in and sign on the dotted line
No such thing as a free lunch (or hol). The 'high street survey' will have identified you (rightly or wrongly) as a likely target for them.
If you think you can put up with the sales stuff and are thick skinned then go for it.
__________________ The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing - A. Einstein
Good advice Paul, I get texts and letters all the time saying Ive won Jag's, TVR's and holidays, sometimes even hard cash but you only ever get something worth just over the prive of the call you have to make.
Normally a voucher for £10 off a Thompson Holiday or something, if your not sure though, go for it but be careful!
I had a similar one to this from a "new" internet holiday company. All the speal about no timeshare they just are giving aware a few free holidays to get the name going and use our quotes in the press. Package arrived and the conditions were that we had to attend a welcome meeting (obviously the sell bit) and we had to be a homeowner (for a free holiday ???) I gave them a call and told them I didn't own a house (I do but I enjoy annoying people ) and they said I was not eligble for the holiday and withdrew their offer.
Remember if its too good to be true it usually is.
they want me to go to some place in kent, but are sending the gumph through the post.
it seems strange that they only wanted to see me on specific days, surely if i had one a legit holiday, they would come to me, and get the press involved.
i'm gonna pish them about and see how far i can stretch it.
even if i did get out there, i probably wouldnt enjoy myself, funnily enough, and always have some niggle in the back of my mind.
these timeshare bods are absolute thugs, and if it is true, i'm gonna expose their little scam, just for the hell of it.
i'm sure there are people, just like me who receeved the same phonecall, and they are probably doing cartwheels and celebrating, but me?? - i'm not so sure.
I am a member of GVC, and it isn't a scam. It is however a business with a product to sell. If you sell cars you sell them on the strength of test drives, they are basically doing the same with holidays. You will get a holiday, the resort will be 1st class and you will have to go on a presentation for min 2hrs. But if you still don't want it you just walk away at the end and enjoy the rest of your very cheap "test drive".
What they're selling is like timeshare, but instead of being fixed into set weeks at set times and set places, you buy points which are then exchanged for holidays of your choice wherever and whenever you like. The problem is availability. If you have family and are fixed to holidaying at peak times it may prove both expensive and unworkable. We don't have kids and can holiday when we like so it works better for us.
The points will be priced at around £200 each and you'll need at least 60. I've seen them on ebay as low as £18 a point. Then there's an annual maintenance fee (est £350 for 60pts) They'll prob try and flog you a finance package from 1st National (IIRC) at 19.9% over 10yrs. Stay well clear of this.
We were impressed with the scheme for the 1st couple of years, but availability is getting harder and we're losing interest. Their resorts are excellent, especially the UK ones on the cut price midweek breaks. I personally wouldn't recommend joining, but do take the free hol. Just be strong when the hard sell comes in the presentation.
__________________
Diesel, goes like stink. Eat my soot !
so why not be up front about it and tell me so???
this is a fookin scam, as far as i'm concerned, why should i listen to some salesman's bollox, just give me the holiday and leave me alone,. - I supposidly won it after all.
its not as if i cant afford a trouble feree, hassle free, salesman free holiday of my own after all!!!
lowlife scum, they are, creating false illusions for the ill-advised.
i'm gonna go head to head with the w4nkers now, coz they've pi55ed me off!!!
if you are a member, then more fool you, myold mate.
Go along to the meeting, then, just as they are about to launch into their patter, stand up and hand out printouts of the above link to the assembled congregation - see how many people you can get to walk out there and then!
exactly bb, thats what sucks about the whole thing, its all a web of deceit, I remember looking at some timeshares in tenerife several years ago and was blown away cos they were just so good, got me thinking why did the guy say I'd won a prize on my scratch-card!
All they would need to do is let you stay there for a week and you'd be sold, instead they treat everyone like complete f**king idiots by trying to trick them.
Be prepared for some really hard sell, at the tail end of the presentation and afterwards when they get their representatives to come and speak to you.
Firstly, you'll get a run of the mill salesperson, but if you keep refusing, they'll send in one of the heavy patter sales bod who'll lay it on with a trowel.
In all I was there with my Ex for about 3 hours. The bloke who was heading it was pretty slick. His method of sell was along the lines of "Hey, come on, you all look like intelligent people. None of you are naive enough to come here thinking that you're really going to get a free holiday for absolutely nothing. Hands up who really thought this ?"
Good way of pressuring people not to alienate themselves and be suckered in to taking in his hard sales pitch.
I think, even if you get out of there without signing and think hey, I've now got a free holiday, they give you another similar sales session out at the resort.
If you can sit through both then, cool, you pretty much have a free holiday I suppose.
My gf "won" the same thing. I kept telling her to tell them to feck off, but she was like - a holiday in the canaries, that would be nice wouldn't it? i was like - yes it would but in the long run it'll be easier to pay for it ourselves than mess around with these scammers. In the end she never went to the meeting thing; told them she was pregnant and therefore couldn't listen to thier bulls*t for 3 hours.
Location: Aberdeen, White Classic Wagon, 6-Speed, Track Car
Posts: 698
I too am a member of GVC and this will not be a scam. However, they will expect you to spend a morning or afternoon with one of their sales team in the 'Sales Suite' as they try to get you to part with your hard earned. They work on a points system and points mean accomodation. You basically buy the points and exhange them for time in a certian location at a certain time. We have been members for 5 years now and cannot fault the system. We only bought into it for easter breaks and october breaks (mum is a teacher and has MS so summer is too hot for her to go on hol) but we've found they have so many different locations and access to Interval International locations that we've bought more points now to allow a crimbo break too. I think we've got approx 250 at the mo and it gives us the opportunity to choose where we want and when we want.
If you get the choice of where to go i can recommend some decnt locations if you're a golfer. My family is golf mad so that makes for a simple decision about where to go......does it have heaps of golf courses....yes, then book it!
In Tenerife their property is the Santa Barbara which is simply stunning. Incredible views, just along from a marina (almost finshed last year so should be done by now...i hope!)and plenty of golf courses. It's about 5 miles from the built up areas (and Veronicas!) which we like as it's quieter but there is still an active commercial centre just a short walk away that has some excellent restaurants and live shows on every night.
If it's Portugal you're going to then GVC own a property just across from the Four Seasons Algarve Country Club that is fantastic. It's perfectly situated in the golf area and has an excellent level of accomodation (individual villas). There is also a good nightlife here but it's still quiet compared to most party towns!
There's a great go-karting circuit nearby (well 20miles away) that senna used to own. His family's villa is withing view of the fairway on the Algarve Championship course....they even named the street after him!
Location: Getting slated in the press, Northampton.
Posts: 20,307
Just found this thread through a blog. Anyway, the company have changed their name to Choose Travel now and I recently "won" first prize in a draw. Hurray!
Googled and decided it's not for me.
Thing that bugs me is I asked if it was timeshare and they said no. I asked what the catch was and they said nothing.
Whilst these are a pressure sale, if you're not susceptable to their hard sell techniques, then you can have a nice holiday for very little money. I've been twice now, the first time I had to pay for our flights as we wanted a sensible time - not the middle of the night. The second we had to pay an arrangement fee. Of course you have to attend their presentation (usually in the UK and on location), but they leave you alone for the rest of the holiday Just remember, do not buy their wares!
Location: Drink, drink, wherever you may be, we are the drunk and disorderly (owner of 5 fairy tokens)
Posts: 4,217
There's a few companies that offer these things, not just Sunterra. My parents have been to one, already Sunterra members, for a diferent company, and as soon as the place they were visiting found out that they were already members of another company effectively told 'em to get lost. Sent 'em away, with free holiday, but no presentation/look round etc.
Parents have been members for several years now and we've had plenty of brilliant holidays with them, managing to get in to the resort of our choice when we wanted (more often than not during school hols). Nver had the original 'free holiday' that we had to go to the presentation for as we already had a holiday booked that year so got some points instead to use the following year.
