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Inside Out: Holiday hell for Yorkshire sun seekers
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Yorkshire sun seekers claim they have been conned out of thousands of pounds by holiday marketing companies operating in Spain and the Canary Islands.
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³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ One Yorkshire & Lincolnshire's Inside Out series this week hears the experiences of three holidaymakers who between them paid over £16,000 to marketing firms promising cheap holidays in return for a club membership fee, which they were told would largely be refunded.
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Each says they were targeted by "touts" operating on the seafront at popular resorts who lured them to presentations, either by saying they had won a prize on a scratchcard, or by pretending to run a holiday survey.
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Once there, they were offered membership of a holiday club for fees of between £5,000 and £10,000 – they were told they would get most of the money back after five years.
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But some say the cheap holidays promised by the firms never materialised.
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Paul Heaton from Wakefield paid £10,000 to a Tenerife-based firm in 2004.
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"They were basically offering me for £10,000 a 50-year membership to an exclusive holiday club that would give me five-star accommodation at two-star prices, flights to Europe and never pay more than £100," he said.
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But he says that, when the paperwork arrived, the reality was very different.
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"We'd go on the internet, we'd try to book a holiday and all the promises which had been made were just not available," he said.
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"I'd been had. It was a sales pitch that wasn't being delivered."
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And, although marketing companies were telling people they would get between 85% and 100% of their initial fee back after the five years, once the paperwork arrived they discovered they were only guaranteed five to 10%.
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The rest depended on other people in the scheme failing to make their claims.
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Inside Out sent reporters to secretly film the work of the marketeers in Tenerife.
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The firm they filmed, and the others complained about in the report, were all offering holidays from the same club, Malaga-based Timelinx.
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Timelinx is run by English businessman Garry Leigh. In the Nineties he had a number of companies in the South Yorkshire area, beginning with a chain of pubs in Sheffield which was wound up in 1992 owing at least £30,000.
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He went on to co-direct a Barnsley-based get rich quick scheme, the FPW club, which had around 8,000 members. It was shut down by the DTI in 1994.
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Timelinx says the marketing companies which recruit people to the clubs are separate organisations and that any complaints should be taken up with those marketing companies.
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They also say they do offer thousands of cheap deals and have many satisfied customers.
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However, they say they take mis-representation very seriously and have promised immediate action against any marketing companies proved to be in the wrong.
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There are many different holiday marketing firms, many with satisfied customers.
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But the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) says rogue firms have cost British consumers more than one billion pounds.
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Mike Haley from the OFT says: "This is the number one priority for our scambusting team... It's very, very tricky. The biggest operators are based in Spain, they have companies in Gibraltar, even based in places like Panama."
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Meanwhile the tide is turning against holiday scammers in Spain.
The Spanish government has begun a crackdown.
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And, in April 2008, new European legislation will clamp down on misleading selling.
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Meanwhile, Mr Heaton has his own advice for anyone approached by the scratch card touts.
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"Just walk away. If people approach you on the street while you're on holiday they're just after one thing. Walk on by," he says.
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Inside Out's investigation into holiday clubs is on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ One Yorkshire and Lincolnshire at 7.30pm on Friday 29 February 2008. Ìý
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