I received a call tonight from a representative of All Seasons Travel to congratulate me on being one of only 300 people selected to receive a holiday at an 85% discount, 6 nights in Orlando, 3 nights somewhere else in Florida that I had never heard of, and a cruise in the Bahamas for 6 days.
After having two employees explain the details of the "holiday offer" I had won, they asked for my card details. I must emphasize that they had mentioned that the holiday would cost me 400 and when they asked for my card details I asked if they were planning to debit my account with the 400 this evening as it had not been made clear to me what they required them for exactly. They proceded to evade this question several times.
I kept asking however till I got the answer I was looking for as I always doubt anyone who asks for my card details over the phone. They did intend to charge me the 400 tonight as it turned out. After 15 minutes I managed to get them off the phone to discuss this with my partner. They agreed to phone back later.
When they phoned back, I politely told them if they sent a brochure I would consider the "offer" before I would be willing to make a payment although they'd assured me I would receive a full refund should I decide against the holiday.
In answer to this, I was provided by alot of information about their links with the credit card providers and pressured to make the payment today as otherwise the "prize" would be given to someone else. I told them to phone me back at the end of the day, researched the company online and didn't answer when they phoned back as I had already wasted 30 minutes of my night.
When researching the company I came across this site - this was the first I'd heard of any timeshare viewing being a requirement of this deal. If I had made the payment, I would have bought something which was not properly explained to me.
I have worked in Telesales and understand these people have a job to do. Both employees I spoke to were polite and no-one was rude to me, also I have no doubt after reading every comment on this site that if I were in fact to have paid for this holiday, I would have got the hotel accommodation at the prices quoted. However, it is still unfair to mislead someone and completely fail to mention the timeshare aspect of this deal and judging from the many comments on this site this is general practise.
To surmise, the misleading factors of how I was contacted with this offer were in my opinion based on the information I have since aquired are as follows; implying that I'd been selected out of a few people to receive this deal, failing to mention that I would have to view timeshares as part of this package and not stating before requesting my card details exactly what they intended to use them for.
Manners dont cost anything and some of the comments posted by certain employees are quite shocking. If they cant take the critisism dont step into the firing line. I do think a customer relations course would be beneficial.
There is alot of talk of the word scam. To me, this is a not a scam as such, but a misleading marketing tool which clearly has cost alot of people time and in a few cases, hard earned money. It is a shame for the legitimate companies that companies such as All Seasons Travel market in this way.
Surely if the company are actually giving all these refunds as requested as they persist to claim, there would be no point in the hard pressure selling unless of course interest is making them alot of money.
Nic
Aberdeen
United Kingdom
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