Today we have received excellent news from a timeshare consumer who contacted us 2 months ago with their concerns about what had happened to them on their visit to Gran Canaria.
News we are very pleased with although we remain worried about the fact that Reclaimgc and Voyager Travel continue their dubious business on the Islands of Gran Canaria and Tenerife and are seriously damaging the image of Happy Holiday destination of the Canary Islands.
This is what happened to Mr. and Mrs. L, but could have happened to anybody or can happen in the future still if these companies are not stopped by the authorities.
Mr. and Mrs. L are owners at Club la Costa and Resort Properties, and due to change in circumstances they wanted to dispose of the timeshare as they no longer were using all the weeks they owned.
They were approached on a cold call from the Canary islands by an agent from Reclaimgc (http://wp.me/p1kmoi-3q), who explained to them that actually they could claim a refund through their legal department and obtain a refund from the timeshare they owned. In order to put this claim in place, Mr. and Mrs. L. had to travel to Gran Canaria to speak to the “legal advisors” based in the C/ Clavijo Y Fajardo nₒ2, 35120 Arguineguin, but to their great surprise they were not only presented with the possibility to do a claim of the monies paid to the timeshare companies, they were also presented with a membership in Voyager Travel / Lifestyle Holidays Ltd, a Discount Membership Travel Club
Reclaimgc explained the couple that they can claim all paid monies back from the timeshare resorts, and in order to start this procedure they request an upfront payment of 5900€. After paying the first deposit of 1000€ to the account of Resalegc Marketing S.L. Mr. Keiron Day, the clients were taken to the office in Gran Canaria where a document was written out stating that Mr. and Mrs. L were giving power of Attorney to Reclaimgc.
But Reclaimgc is not only charging the 5900€ for this service, they will also take a 25% of the money that is recovered through the claim.
So how does one end up with a membership in a Discount Holiday Club? Well, if you sign the contract for the membership, Reclaimgc will only charge a 15% of the money recovered through the claim and the remaining 10% will be transferred to the membership of Voyager Travel and cover 5 weeks of holidays in the next 6 years.
In order to get this all done, Mr. and Mrs. L. had to pay upfront the costs of these 6 years of membership, which “in theory” would be recovered once the claim had been processed successfully.
So although with hesitation, Mr. and Mrs. paid 500€ deposit to the account of Lifestyle Holidays and signed a receipt of another 4630€ to be paid in the following months.
The payment was made in name of Lifestyle Holiday Ltd., registered in the Seychelles under number 014771 but with European address Suite 1, Garrison House 3, Library Ramp, Post-box 847, Gibraltar. The bank account was at the Societe Generale Marocaine de Banque on the name of Lifestyle Holiday Ltd, Agence zonde franche de Tánger, Boukhalef, Tanger, Maroc. So we have a company registered in the Seychelles, with a alleged European address in Gibraltar and a bank account in Morocco. Why not a simple Spanish bank account for a Spanish company? Is somebody trying to hide something or avoid uncomfortable investigations?
After returning home, they felt very uncomfortable about what happened on this visit to Gran Canaria. As they went to seek a solution for their timeshare and ended up paying 1500€ upfront and were supposed to pay another 10.260€ in the next weeks for what exactly? So they started to research the internet and read the numerous comments on the web about Reclaimgc and the people behind this company.
They contacted the Dutch Association TeCiN (Timeshare en Consument in Nederland http://timesharesprookjeofnachtmerrie.info) who gave them advice on how to handle next and refered them to Mindtimeshare. Mr. and Mrs. L urgently contacted Reclaimgc and Voyager Travel in order to cancel the agreements. They also filed a complaint with the local Consumer department in Gran Canaria;
O.M.I.C. C/ Tamarán nº 4, 35120 Arguineguín, Mogán, Las Palmas de G.C.
Tf: 928.568.566 Fax: 928.152.051
E-mail: bsantiago@mogan.es
Luckily the OMIC Office took the complaint very serious and placed a formal complaint to these companies and demanded on behalf of the consumers Mr. and Mrs. L a full refund of the monies paid. Reclaimgc, was the first one to return the money but for the 500€ paid to Voyager Travel another 8 emails from OMIC demanding a reply were necessary.
Last week, 2 full months after paying the upfront fees to these dubious companies in Gran Canaria, Mr. and Mrs. L finally received the news through the OMIC that the money was transferred back to their account.
So, conclusion…
First of all, congratulations to Mr. And Mrs. L for being persistent and acting so quickly with the result being this “happy” ending.
But then we look closer to what really happened and the role of the Canary Island’s Authorities in this issue.
The fact that companies based on these Islands are taking large amount of money for dubious legal claims from consumers, from Holiday makers at the end of the day…the fact they even talk them into a membership of a Discount Holiday Club when they were invited to dispose of their timeshare….what is the opinion of the authorities in all this?
The call centers where the agents call from on their cold call to the consumers are based in the Canary Islands, but are these employees registered in Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco or Seychelles?
How can the Town Hall and local authorities of places such as Mogán y San Bartolomé de Tirajana in Gran Canaria or Arona y Adeje in Tenerife accept that there are OPC’s on their streets, inviting innocent holiday makers to their offices and making them sign contracts for dubious holiday products or claims paying thousands of Euros?
What image does this provide to the Canary Islands? Do they realize there are tourists who most probably will never return to any of the Canary Islands due to the fact this happened to them and they lost so much money?
The money in this case was luckily refunded through mediation of the OMIC Office. Why did Reclaimgc and eventually Voyager Travel refund the money and not “put a fight” against this as they are supposedly acting in full faith, no? Are they? Or did they prefer to refund before more authorities would get involved?
The company on the receiving end of the deposits paid is Day International Marketing SL and another name mentioned on the receipts is Paula Beatson. This woman was arrested a few years ago, in Gran Canaria, by the Spanish Police together with Eugen Kaiser for alleged fraud. Our suspicion is that Eugen Kaiser a man with several court cases on his back for fraud related to the timeshare industry is the main man behind this whole set up.
We would request from here, that all consumers who have paid money to Reclaimgc for a legal claim or for a membership in Voyager Travel / Lifestyle Vacations, contact the OMIC Office on the address / telephone mentioned above and also start claiming back what is yours.
We received 48 complaints in the past 10 months, and sadly almost everybody who wrote to us had already paid the upfront fees to Reclaimgc and Voyager Travel.
Gran Canaria and Tenerife are both wonderful places to enjoy holidays of all kinds, and we need to keep it that way, providing these holidays and protecting the holiday makers
We want people to come back, because the Canary Islands have given them the best holiday memories ever and that is why we ask the authorities to take action and don’t let these kinds of companies spoil these holiday memories.
When will the authorities open their eyes and take action in this matter and show they care?
Mindtimeshare 
I too paid money to Reclaim but no longer hold the documents. I take it that I can’t do anything about it now but am just checking with you,
i went out to tenerife in may 2010 to meet with reclaimgc.i was told they wouldtake resort properties to court for me to get back monies and compensation that i paid for some timeshares.. they told me it would take upto 2 years. my case was supposed to be presented in court last april .i emailed reclaim to find out how it went on.i got an email back days later to say the lawyer would contact me as the paper work that he had was not correct. . i have since emailed them again and had no response , nor have i heard from the lawyer. i paid reclaim 5200 pounds up front.
Has anyone else had this problem
Hi Lydia,
Thanks for your comment.
We would like to help you further but the email bounced back.
Please send us a direct message to customercare@mindtimeshare.com and we will be in contact.
Kind regards
Customer Care
I have just got back from grand canaria and I got xxxx by voyager travel . I went for a week and got back recently and when I read the news papers in England I was shocked. and they xxxx me with the scratch card and taxi back to club Porto atlantica . We were there for 6 hours and I ended up signing for 3 years and paid them 560 deposit. I have since called my bank and stopped any payments to them and I have ordered a new credit card as they have the details.
Kind regards
Allan
Anyone heard of trading places we have just been contacted by them asking if we want to sell our voyager membership, they offered 10, 0000 euro ! We have never thought the membership very good , we were sca****, but cant believe someone would actually want to buy it , please advise.
Firstly I have never heard of Mindtimeshare; are you real or do you also have an ulterior motive and wish to extract monies from unsuspecting timeshare owners?
Secondly most of the comments left on your blogging pages seem to be using American style wording, spelling and dating conventions,(not to mention the terrible grammar and spelling). I am dubious about the origin of these comments,as I don’t think there are many Atlantic cousins who would bother to fly to the Canary Isles for holidays.
However, I too was approached by Reclaimgc in Costa Adeje, Tenerife last June and offered a deal that would relieve me of my timeshare commitment in Los Christianos.
Basically, for fees to be paid upfront at various stages during implementation, they would put in train a legal action through the Spanish courts for the return of all my purchase monies plus expenses and compensation.
I was not offered another scheme to buy points or holidays at discount or anything similar.
My involvement with them was limited to being taken to a notario in Los Christianos where he looked at passports and verified that we (my partner and I) were who we said we were, presumably so that he had some power of attorney for the future legal proceedings.
Although the notario’s fee was about 97euros,we paid had 1000euros to the company by credit card before we went to the notario’s office.
On return to England we decided not to proceed, informed the company as such and asked for return of the balance of our deposit after the notario’s fees were deducted.
After a couple of weeks of back and forth with emails, where they said they couldn’t put it back on the credit card for a variety of reasons, we insisted they do it, as we had been told by our bank here in England that what they had said was nonsense.
Anyway we got it put back after about three weeks without too much trouble.
Our experience doesn’t seem to stand very comfortably with rest of the comments about this company, as we appear to have got out very easily.
And we do have a quite lengthy legal document (12 pages in Spanish)which presumably has some worth in the Spanish courts should we wish to resume legal action in the future.
I should be interested in any comments about this.
Dear Charles,
Thank you for your comment on our blog.
The fact that you don’t know us, should not be a reason to distrust us. But of course you are not the first one to ask and we understand that consumers after being cheated by sometimes numerous companies, feel they cannot trust anybody.
In the section “About Us” on the blog you can see who we are, and also on the website http://www.mindtimeshare.com
Our main objective and commitment is to fight against fraud in and around the timeshare industry. Through our blog we try to prevent consumers from becoming victims of scams and dubious companies.
Main thing is, we do NOT cold call and no we do not ask for any money or handle in resales or disposals ourselves.
Our advice is free of charge and for anybody free to take on board or not.
We only provide advice to those who approach us, like you in your case where you leave a comment on the blog and ask for our thoughts about what happened.
If you have any further doubts please let me know. But rest assured that we will not be “harassing” you with dubious offers or be asking for money.
Regarding the company you mention Reclaimgc, you have seen the articles and indeed it looks like that you have been one of the few cases that have come out very easily. Still you had to send emails backwards and forwards and only after the bank said it was nonsense they could put the money back, they finally refunded you.
Many thanks for sharing your experience with us.
Kind regards
Customer Care
hi just returned from GC and was promised reclaim of my Club La Costa purchase price plus double of deposits paid over the 4 purchases made over the yrs to CLC plus maintenance fees, parted with 400 Euros at moment but req 12000 to start claim with a promise of all monies + exp returned within 2yrs no mention of Voyager, please advise also are reclaimgc the same company as gcresorts?
Bought a Voyager membership in June this year but wanted to cancel the contract at the end of July due to personal reasons. Got an email recently saying that they will not refund the deposit but will issue 2 world wide accommodation vouchers and 1 cruise voucher which will be sent to me by post.
I’m not sure at all that I will be able to use them next year when I could go on holiday.
Are these vouchers real? Should I demand a refund instead?
Please advise.
We have just returned from Gran Canaria and we were taken to a presentation about Voyager. Long story short…we parted with a £300 deposit and start to pay for our “holiday club membership” next April.We can access the Voyager site once we have paid 70% of the monies owing. We talked to other families who have dome the same out there and we all paid the same amount and have all been offered another week i Gran Canaria and a 5 day cruise from Miami.
I told them I had timeshare that I have been trying to get rid off for few years now, but we bought i the USA.They said they could not help us reclaim any monies from the USA, but they could take our time share off us(we transfer the deeds to them) and that would mean we no longer have to pay a lifelong maintenance fee to our home resort in the USA.
The way I saw it at the time was that losing our timeshare and ongoing maintenance fee(currently £500 and increasing yearly) was a bonus, now I have read these comments I am totally confused.Do they really take on our timeshare? I know I did not sell it to them but agreed to transfer the ownership.I have been trying to sell it for years but as soon as anyone realizes that it comes with a lifelong maintenance fee, o body is interested.It cost us £10.000 and I have seen similar units at our USA resort selling for 99p on ebay with no bidders. Therefore I am not worried about not getting our £10,000 back but thought we had a better deal than others in Gran Canaria because they end up with the Voyager ownership and so do we and no more time share. Have I been sc***** for e second time? PLEASE HELP with any advice.
i had a holiday nearly 2 years ago in Gran Canaria and whilst there was approached by a rep at the hotel asking if I was fed up with my current system with Diamond Resorts.She said they could get my money back but had to join Voyager first! being fed up with Diamond because of the rising maintenance fees I regretfully agreed and was taken down to the local offices etc as previously mentioned by most.I paid the fees when I got home and the process started.After a year it was still ongoing but it was time to renew Voyager,even though I hadn’t used it.Regretfully I did and now I’ve heard from Reclaimgc that my court case goes to trial in January 2013 and Diamond want me there to testify.I’ve just read lots about people trying to get out of Diamond and now about Voyager!! Confused,what should I do.Would like money back but really just want to be rid of both Companies.Any advice….
we have just come back from Gran canaria, and the exact same thing happend to us. We were shopping in the yumbo centre playa da ingles when we were approached by a friendley english speakin guy called Ben, he was good humoured and seemed geniune. he gave us scratch cards and when we got the gold star he was so excited and jumping around celebrating our win- a free holiday, bottle of wine and t shirst for the kids!! before we knew it we were being whisked away in a free taxi, for a free lunch to collect our prize- according to Ben we would need to give 90 minute of our time to attend a talk on voyager holidays, then we could leave with our prizes!!
when we arrived me, my partner my 7 yr old and 4 month old, it felt so wrong, but they dont give you time to talk or think- giving you tea/coffe/toasties and being friendly askin about the kids- all very informal and down to earth, the lady kept saying “lets get this talk out of the way, so you can get your prize”. OMG 4 hours later i catagorically refused to part with £ 3000 , for free membership and 3 free holidays to orlando, barbados and somewhere else, we were allowed to leave.
it was the biggest waste of time, and such a s***- the holiday we were on was allot cheaper than the ones they were offering, the hotel we were staying in was fab but the sales agent kept saying “but we would give you a fridge in your room and prpoer double bed, and a tv etc etc” wot aload of bullshit……feel sorry for my 7 year old who wasted a whole day of his holiday listening to that bullshit…..is there not anything that can be done to stop this??
I was contacted recently by someone from this firm. He insisted they didn’t want anything upfront as they operated on a no-win, no-fee basis. After saying they could get the money back from DWVC for me he dropped the bombshell, I would have to go to Gran Canaria to talk to their lawyers who would need to ask questions. I immediately began to suspect them as if they were taking DWVC to court surely they would do it on the mainland where DWVC have their base. Also the person I spoke to mispronounced Malaga which I would have thought anyone actually connected with a Spanish firm wouldn’t do. Anyway I’ve put him off for now as I’m having a few problems at home but when he rings back after reading the above I won’t be going to Gran Canaria this year (unless I go for a holiday of course).
We also got caught out by Voyager Travel by a street vendor handing out winning scratchcards last month during our 1st day in Gran Canaria and parted with £1200 (1438 euro) deposit for a 12 year package which we feel now isn’t really worth the paper its written on. We now want out and don’t want to pay the remainder they are demanding which is 10 monthly payments at 576 euro. They are refusing to give us back our deposit if we cancel. There is nothing written into the agreement stating that if we cancel we lose the deposit and there is absolutely nothing at all about cancelling or rights to cancel. Can they legally keep our deposit when it isnt written into the contract that we would lose it if we changed our mind? There is no cool off period either? What can we do to get this back, given that we haven’t received a service from them. Any suggestions here would help.
Hi
We too have been contacted by reclaimgc, twice yesterday by two different people. They wanted us to take a weeks holiday in gran canaria for £600 to meet their lawyers to get money back for two weeks timeshare we purchased before 1999, which they said was illegally sold to us because the timeshare company took a deposit. I have read about this on different timeshare sites but I don’t know how true it is.
They were very insistant and did not want to take no for an answer. Luckily I had been on mindtimeshare site and found that it is a bad company.
What I have just been reading sounds exactly the same as Carpe Diem who took us for a lot of money several years ago. Does anyone know if there is any way of getting money back from Carpe Diem, or has anyone managed to get their money back?
Regards
Marion
Hi Marion,
Thanks for your comment.
We can give you further advice and guidelines by email but we have tried to send you some information and the email bounces back.
Please can you send us an email a customercare@mindtimeshare.com and we can send you all the relevant info?
Many thanks
Kind regards
Customer Care
Hi,
Is Voyager Travel / Lifestyle Vacations the same as Lifestyle Holidays Vacation Club in the Dominican Republic, just using a different name? http://www.lifestyleholidaysvc.com/ Please advise.
Thank you!
Hi Ania,
Let us find out for you.
We will investigate and send you the details by email.
Kind regards
Customer Care
Dear Ania,
Thank you for your message.
Please note that Voyager Travel / Lifestyle Holidays – http://voyager-travel.net/ has nothing to do with Lifestyle Holidays Vacation Club.
Lifestyle Holidays Vacation Club – http://www.lifestyleholidaysvc.com/ – is a well-known prestigious timeshare company and ARDA Member.
Kind regards
Customer Care
Hello I have just paid a deposit to voyager holidays of £2500 should I carry on and pay the balance to see if I get what I paid for or try to get my money back before I loose any more?
Get your money back and I hope you paid by credit card. We had dealings with FMEsolutions but we got our money back. They are all cr***s but maybe we are a bit vulnerable when these people are just obvious c****s.
We joined 14 months ago for 6 years, we went for a free week to the CPA in Arguineguin 8 months ago and upgraded to the 12 year deal we have since tried to book a holiday and only just realised its not al it seems, they advised on the contract prices start at €199 and on the website they start at €399, i enquired by email if anything else was available as the dates on the website were no good, they did offer 8 deals for us all of which i found cheaper on alpha rooms, hotels,com and low cost holidays, i am now trying to find out if anyboby has had there money refunded we paid up front on a credit card, or who i can connact for advise.
I think i´m going crazy right now …. We made all those deals with Lifestyle Holiday and Voager Travel I was very happy about the deal but know when I´m home and read all this stuff on the internet I realize that what I have done probabley have cost me my life saving???? I payd 6000 Euro to life style holliday and a contract with Voyager fore 6 years. But right then it felt soo good….. it was three days ago and I´m back in sweden…can i get my money back and cancel my membership??? Please my head i now spinning ….. I must have a cooling off week during EU laws..right. In the contract it says that is under spanish law …..
Hej Eva,
Hoppas att du läser detta och återkommer med information till mig om hur det gick för dig och vad du gjorde för att lösa det hela.
Skriver till dig i min mammas och pappas ärende. De har för två dagar sedan
2012-09-25 blivit lurade på samma sätt som dig. De är kvar på Gran Canaria och är uppgivna, vet inte vad de skall göra. Ving har sagt att de inte hjälper dem. Har du ngt tips om vad de nu på plats bör göra. (Tänker på att det kanske är lättare att agera nu, de åker hem den 3 oktober). Snälla svara mig. Mvh Marie
I also just bought a membership in Voyager Travel Service / Lifestyle Holiday. Should I try to cancel or is the company for real and working, they claim to have 40.000 members…
We signed the contracts in Arguineguin, Gran Canaria and canceled them 2.1.2012 at the same place (hotel C.P.A). We got our deposit back immediately. We were lucky to do so. We thought that everything was too good to be true. Our New Years Eve was ruined after reading all those stories about Voyager Travel and Lifestyle Holiday in the internet. We f.ex could’t find anything about the cruise company that was mentioned in the contract. We realized that we were fooled. My advice is even though I don’t know if all this is true or not that you should cancel the contracts as soon as possible and demand the deposit back. I think that the best way to do so is during your holiday in Gran Canaria in the same hotel where you signed the contracts and with the same person. We said that we have 7days cooling off period (this we found from the internet) and refered to EU directives. You must be very tough, demanding and sure.
I really wish that these contracts and vouchers are true because at least three other sparkling wine bottles were opened during our visit at the hotel. I really wish that these other three families won’t lose their money. I hope that they really can travel to Miami, Bahamas and Orlando as at least we were promised.
Hi
We are members of Voyager and upgraded from 6 years to 15 years. The vouchers that you have received for the cruises are real but the travel agent rip you off with the airlinetickets. The person from the travel agency is a very rude person and patronizing. We had a fantastic vacation but much more expensive than if you organize it by yourself. What you can do is to ask Voyager for more hotel vouchers and refer to the airlinetickets. We payed 2600 punds and you will not find a ticket for 599 punds. I recommend you to buy your own cruise you can enter cruises.com and find great cruises. Good luck and enjoy your vacations.
I bought a membership in a travel club – Voyager travel and Lifestyle Holiday. Does anyone have the e-mailadress to Lifestyle Holiday?
Dear Unni,
You can very well send an email to: liesbeth@lifestylevacation.net
I hope this helped you to have so you can continue
Why can’t all these Spanish con merchants leave us alone and get lost?
Key Properties are now demanding another 320 euros for a court fee on top of what we paid a few years ago, it cannot apparently be taken out of the final settlement fee so he is now wasting postage and time sending information which will be shredded!!
hi i have just been contacted by hm holdings saying they have sold my timeshares but want £1200 UP FRONT what do you think i should do or can you advise me of a genuine company i can sell my shares to can anyone help
Don’t touch them, you will never see your money again, we did that, they come up with bogus buyers and then pass your details on to other companies!