I didnt notice a report for these con artists so I thought Id make one.
I was tricked by Vacaciones Wide Plus, a holiday club, when I was in Palmanova earlier this year. The usual thing, stopped by touts in the street who told me they were doing a "tourism survey". They gave us some scratch cards as a thankyou, and when my wife scratched hers off, it said that I had won either a luxury holiday, 1000 in cash or a plasma TV. All we had to do to claim it was go for a "90 minute" presentation and the prize would be ours!
Well the 90 minute presentation turned out to be a gruelling 5 hour of brainwashing to join their "holiday club", I paid a deposit of 950, thinking I was getting a great deal on future holiday prices, only to be told that I had to pay another 8,450 within a month. I thought I had lost my deposit so I foolishly signed their deeply unfair contract... Realised it was a con almost straight away and tried to cancel, they refused saying that the contract was binding and that they dont have to offer cooling off. BULL!
Consulted holiday lawyers when I got back home, and after weeks and weeks and WEEKS of email battles back and forth I managed to cancel the whole thing, and after a lot of hard work managed to get 600 deposit refunded. I lost 350 but it could have been a lot worse. If I had taken out a loan to pay the upfront fees I would have ended up with about a 12k debt.
Anyone else had an experience with them? I know a few people who have been investigating VWP and its quite disturbing the way the business is set up. Seems the money goes to Huntingdon Holiday services, a Isle of Man company that NO ONE CAN FIND TRACE OF. They have a bank account full of victims money, yet technically they do not exist. The same goes for their parent company New Century Group, after lots of investigation this company doesnt exist... Quite worrying for those of us still trying to get our money back. Seems the whole scheme is setup so VWP can dissapear with our money and set up as someone new if the heat gets on. A nasty business altogether!
Holidayclubwarning
Sussex
United Kingdom
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