Half Moon Holdings the dubious timeshare resale company from Torre del Mar on the Costa del Sol in Spain, and with contact numbers 0844 822 8128 and 0844 279 3891 continues their cold call campaign and continues with their lies about the resale of your timeshare.
The warning we placed on the blog in April http://wp.me/p1kmoi-2j received numerous visitors and we know from the comments and emails received that many consumers have been approached by this company and unfortunately some of these consumers did pay the upfront fee of 1200€ they were requesting.
After corresponding with all the duped consumers we have a more clear picture of the all the tricks on the books from HM Holdings.
After paying the upfront fee the consumers realized that all off the sudden no more calls were received from halfmoon holdings. Some could not get hold of them and when they finally were able to speak to someone the “unfortunate” news was broken to them, the sale fell through as the buyer had difficulties raiding the money, someone in the family was ill, and lots of strange excuses more with the bottom line…no resale.
It is then when the consumer realizes the following clause is covering this part of the pitch:
Clause 3: “The Company act solely as agent and therefore cannot be held liable in the event that a purchaser fails to complete. Should this be the case The Company will continue to market the ownership for duration of the Contract term of one year.”
Claiming back the money paid to Half Moon Holdings by cancelling the agreement also brings up another trick from them covered by clause 4 in their paperwork. Once the first and supposed guaranteed sale falls through, Half Moon Holdings states in the contract under clause 4:
“During the Contract term The Company guarantee to provide an offer…” “The Company will be deemed to have complied with the terms and conditions of the Contract should this offer be refused..”
And this clause covers exactly their next step in their dubious activity. The timeshare consumer is called after a couple of weeks and Good News! There is another buyer for their timeshare! This time through a company / corporate buyer. There is one thing though, being it a corporate buyer they need another fee for processing the paperwork so please get your credit card out and pay us another 1600€!!!!!!!
That’s 2800€ in upfront fees all together!!
Ah….and if you refuse to pay…well Half Moon Holdings has a nice reply for this, as per clause 4 we have covered our part of the agreement….as you refused the offer..
If in April we asked “Have you been called by Half Moon Holdings?” our questions is now; “How many times have you been called by Half Moon Holding?”
Please let us know if you had any dealings with this company.
Mindtimeshare 
Company called excalibur has just contacted me with the same sort of speel as HM holding claimimg to be acting on behalf of administrators .Reliaby informed not to deal with them.Once biten twice shy.
I too was foolish enough to agree to a ‘sale of contract’ and an “indemnity” payment (£845.05p) last week (17th Dec). Now, half way through the “cooling off period” I have cancelled my credit card but the payment has gone through. They are now closed for Christmas until 6th Jan 2014. I want to confirm in writing to Half Moon Holdings my cancellation (so the credit card company can at least back me) but do not have details of where to e-mail or write. Can you help urgently?
They are still at it. Contacted today by Lisa May on 08448228128. Story is now that Club Class is fed up with members not using the club and want to sell on to groups of golfers who want to use to play. Half Moon has been contracted to do this for them! Price is £12000 which is not negociable and suprise they want 1450Euros to guarentee that member will pass on the membership when paid which will be repaid as soon as membership signed over. Wanted me to sign up immediately but declined. Asked for more details and promised that she would email me am still waiting. I wonder if she will phone tommorrow as promised.
I stupidly signed up with Half Moon Holdings in February. For personal reasons I was desperate to raise some cash and the offer was to good to miss out on £15,600……it cost me 1,590 euro’s.
Unfortunatly the sale fell through and I never heard from them………I am pursuing my losses through the credit card company a very slow prosess.
They have just been on the phone to me – Amy Dickinson from Half Moon Holdings, very nice and saying a couple are offering £7300 for my timeshare 🙂 Glad I checked this website before forking out the money!!
My name is Keith and I have just put the telephone down on Half Moon Holdings havng listened to one of their fabulous offers. They are ringing me back next Tuesday evening to confirm the deal
Im November 2012 kam ich in Kontakt mit Half Moon Holdings . Im Dezember 2012 war ein Käufer da . Ich habe 1000€ Sicherheitsgebühr bezahlt , aber der Käufer hat bis zum letzten Termin 12.3.2013 nicht bezahlt . Ich wollte meine 1000€ zurück , aber die werden erst nach erfolgreichem Verkauf zurückgegeben . Nun wollen sie einen neuen Käufer finden . Sie erzählten schon von der Corporate Möglichkeit . Gut , daß ich hier gelesen habe , daß sie dann noch mehr Gebühr haben wollen !!!!!!!! Kann ich meine 1000€ wieder zurückbekommen
? Ich hatte sie ausgeliehen , da ich das Geld nicht habe . Ich muß mein Eigentum verkaufen , da ich die Jahresgebühr nicht mehr zahlen kann !!!
KÖNNEN SIE MIR HELFEN???
Just been reading all the letters re Half Moon ,we were approached on the phone too paid by credit card ,then went on line and saw all the bad press ,sent a letter cancelling the deal ,received an email to print and return to cancel .fortunately it was canceled and we got our money back LESS 234 Euros cancelation fee Better losing that than over a thousand Euros.So they are still making money every phone call if you respond so please DON’T
I have just been contacted by HM Holdings and was offered £8.000.00 for my membership. In the past I have had many of these call but I always stick to the golden rule “If it sounds too good to be true then it probably isn’t. I just string them along but Never ever pay them any money. Always tell them to deduct there fee from your capital sale and send you the balance. Funny, they never want to do this. Cannot understand WHY?
Norman
Hi my name is Peter I think we have been done as well we have done the same as many others please can you help us
Cheers
Peter and Kath
my elderly mother has lost £3,600 to you scum……i know where you are
Hi again,can’t take credit for turning thing aroung myself,congratulations must go to the effort of my bank .as i said before very helpful and understanding and explaining clearly how they would approach H M holdings ,It helped knowing they were confident on reaching a successful outcome
Ron
Julia from HMH phoned 11/4/12.Not in.Expecting another call somewhen.Am prepared now thanks to Mindtimeshare
Hi there, well thanks to the information on your blog explaining how the contract ect would be written up it was a great help in me getting things moving, just when i thought it was a lost cause. I contacted my bank to cancell my credit card and explain the situation, they were very helpful and understanding,but unfortunatly HMHoldings had already put it through, so they advised me to sent a letter off straight away on dec16 cancelling them as my selling agent before the 14 day cooling off period. they filled out the contract on dec5 but never posted it till dec16 so i would receive it on dec20 so when the contract arrived I posted it back unsigned .my money has since been returned to my account ,once again thanks to your blog I was able to turn things around regards Ron
yep i payed half moon holdings 1200 pounds for the sale of my clc membership!!! my husband payed 7 days ago got a contract thru post said that there is a 15 day cooling of period but that time i looked on the internet and found all this… alarm in my head they have my money!!! i sent it back un signed and faxed them saying that i want my money back and that im sending back the contract un signed… they told me that there was a 20% fee so i wont get all the money back,, after lots of rows and me saying im going to the news. they said they have refund my money.. called my bank but they said will take three days for it to show in my bank.. day two 2mora… hope my money is there!!!
Well HMH must be having a busy month. Like Alison above, I too have today had the resale offer to shift my DWVC membership. Again all I have to do is pay €1690 (on top of the €1295 that I paid in April) and I will be the proud owner of Principle Travel membership which ran an exhibition at the end of October and has lots of interested buyers. Kate (Osbourne?) said that this was a totally different sale to the original one that had fallen through hence the extra payment.
I did not turn her down. On the contrary I said I was delighted she had a sale for me and that I would be more than willing to pay the extra cost, but since this was a ‘totally different’ sale I would like a new contract for this sale. To keep things nice and neat I asked her to refund my €1295 and then I would pay the whole €2985 she was asking for the corporate sale. So I have stuck to my side of the existing contract.
After a small attempt at saying this wasn’t possible she relented and said that she would have to contact the Sales Dept (so what dept is she in then???!!!) to see if that would be possible. She is going to get back to me in writing by the end of the week.
I would put that I will keep you all posted as to how I get on but I think we all know the answer already.
Meanwhile the battle with my credit card company has yet to commence.
Thanks Mark for your comment.
Let us know the update please.
Do start the battle of the refund claim soon as it will take some time.
Kind regards
Customer Care
Well, as expected, after some stalling I was called by Mike Harris who basically refused to refund my deposit money back and “reminded” me that I was still under contract. I pointed out that what HMH was asking me to do was add more money to the sum already paid in order to buy into Principle Travel membership which would then lead to a corporate sale, and that this represented a huge change in the terms of our contract. Despite me being willing to go ahead with this and have HMH refund my deposit and then start the process afresh Mr Harris refused point blank to refund my money. He kept quoting clause 1 of the contract which means the money will not get paid back until my ownership documents have been transferred after a sale.
He also tried to get me to sign a document adjusting downwards the value of my DWVC to make it more marketable. Apparently there is a lot of bad press and blogs on the internet bad mouthing the wonderful DWVC membership benefits which is making it hard for them to sell!!!!!?? Although it doesn’t say so on the document my suspicion is that if I sign and adjust the selling price then this will be used to reset the 12 month clock that HMH have to market the membership. Naturally I declined his offer.
I have now asked for a full refund 4 times in writing and twice on the phone. The emails were ignored and yesterday I finally had a point blank refusal from Mr Harris who is now trying to turn the refundable security deposit into a marketing fee for HMH. I don’t know how these people go home to their families at night.
I am waiting to hear back from my CC company.
Hi Mark,
Thanks for the update.
Why are we not suprised with this reaction from Half Moon?
They have no intention to refund the money, never.
Let us know what your Credit Card company says, and if you need further help you know where we are.
Kind regards,
Customer Care
same story as the others, my credit card people want me to contact them first to ask for cash back any ideas john
Hi John,
Thanks for your message.
This is actually part of the refund procedure, the bank or credit card company will always ask if you have tried to cancel with the company directly.
So do send a letter of cancellation by recorded delivery to Half Moon and we will send you further information by email.
Kind regards
Customer Care
My name is Alison,paid Half-Moon Holdings 1295 euros in March 2011 when they said they had a buyer for my membership of D.W.V.C. of course the deal fell through as the buyer could not raise the money. August 2011 second buyer found but this time it was a corporate buyer called Principle Travel and to conclude the deal they would require a further 1600 euros refused to pay and a few days later received a form from them to fill in to say that as i had refused their offer i would have to re-apply for them to continue to market the sale of my D.W.V.C. membership.
Dear Alison,
Thanks for your message.
So sorry to hear you have paid Half Moon Holdings.
We will send you more information by email and let’s see if we can help you with a refund claim.
Kind regards
Customer Care
my name is Ann and today was contacted by Half Moon. Same patter as one of the above messages re credit card and same telephone no. we had been stung before so didnt believe a word and when he wanted the credit card details we declined. I am waiting for an email now with all the paperwork which I doubt will arrive. Beware do not give your credit card to anyone cold calling. Also where do they get our telephone numbers from.
Dear Ann,
Many thanks for your message and your wise words! Indeed you should never give out the credit card details to somebody cold calling with offers that sound too good to be true.
But it does happen, as these people are very convincing and consumers sometimes are desperate to sell.
Warnings on the blog and participation from other consumers like you is the best we can do to try and avoid more people paying.
Kind regards
Customer Care
Had a call today 08/11/2011 from Amber who works for Half Moon Holdings , she said she had a buyer for out T2 in Madeira, the buyer had offered 13.875 pounds which i thought was a bit odd as we were only asking for 12.000pounds, she then asked for 1200 pounds up front at which point i told her to do an almost physically impossible procedure with the offer, and we parted on not very good terms.
James Middleton.
Dear James,
Thanks for your message.
You haven’t gained a friend in Amber but you have saved yourself spending 1200 pounds and going to a lot of grief and hassle to get it back!
Kind regards
Customer Care
Half Moon Holdings contacted us on 12 Oct 2011 and unfortunatly I parted with 1400 euro’s, as yet I have not recieved any promised sales agreement. When I do recieve it I shall not be proceeding, also their Marc Devine is asking that you send a photocopy of your passport.
Is this the start of Identity theft?
I would appreciate any comments
I have got myself involved with this company too, the sale they promised me fell through so they sold my interest on to a company called Holiday Rentals Direct, I was dealing with a charmer called Susan Green who promised me a good deal, i paid them money an guess what i cant get a hold of them, what do i do now?
It’s me again, Lewis Waters. Yes, same story about Half Moon Holdings, about a week ago. After a second phone call I told her that I thought it was a scam. She said ‘Well I didn’t want to do business with you anyway.’ and slammed the phone down. She had been nice up until then.!!!
Hi Lewis,
Well how rude was that! Maybe they are gettin tired of customers who already know their name before they call, and are aware of their dubious offers…
Your luck anyway she hang up!
Kind regards
Customer Care
Had dealings with Half Moon Co. It was a woman who dealt with us. She seemed nice but I asked her if it was a scam company trying to get money off pensioners and she said no. This company was upfront and the only one available to help people who have been scammed. I told her I read on the net that they were a scam company out to rob people and I thought it was disgusting taking money off people. She said the company Half Moon was honest and above board. I told her I would make sure I would put a paragraph on the web stating that they were honest and not a scam co. if they sold my timeshare and sent me a cheque where I did not have to pay them money upfront. She was to phone me back but that was a few weeks ago and we have heard nothing since.
Jeanette Montgomery
Hi Jeanette,
Thanks for your comment.
Honest company? By the looks of the amount of comments on the blog I wouldn’t really use the word honest.
Kind regards
Customer Care
Hi Alberto
I have had a call from Half Moon Holdings this evening, telling me that they have had negotiations with a company called Premier Travel, and that they have a client who is prepared to pay over £11.000 to buy my membership to DWVC, which is over and above the original offer of £7,700 that they had secured for me, in an earlier deal.
The deal is to go through during the first week of October, and that I would get back the original €995 deposit that I paid as well as the £11,000 + (I can’t remember what the figure was because I was so dumbfounded at the amount).
The hook was that because of data protection (or some such legislation) they had to destroy my credit card details from the previous transaction, and needed them again to secure a further deposit of £1,660 to finalise the deal.
I said that I was unhappy to give my details again, so she said that she would pass on my details to the sales team for their approval and would be in touch. I think not!!
Another scam in the making I fear. Please warn others who may be called.
Colin Wilson
By the way, I contacted my credit card company, and expressed my fear of these people charging my account again, and asked to cancel my card.
They assured me that there was no need to cancel, and that my card would be watched for such transactions. They also sent me a questionaire to fill out for a refund of my original deposit of €995. I supplied them with all the information that I had on Half Moon Holdings, along with links to your blog, highlighting what a scam these people operate.
The upshot is that my credit card company have refunded my €995 to my account, and Half Moon Holdings bankers have 45 days in which to appeal. Hopefully they won’t notice, and I’ll secure my money back.
Thanks for a great blog and keep up the good work campaigning against these scamsters.
Hi Colin,
Thanks for your story and also thank you very much for your kind words about the blog.
We do what we can and we hope to do more and more!
Half Moon is very creative at the moment with their 2nd offers….and bluntly asking for even more money!
Let us know the outcome with the bank please.
Kind regards
Customer Care
Well put it this way. It is now over three hours since they called me so they must still be reading this blog huh ??
I just have no time for this sort of despicable scam. They prey on all ages with total disregard for feelings or the results of their deeds in depriving people of all ages of hard earned cash.
Yes I know there are those who say it is our own fault and say we should know better. This is possibly true but people who say that have never fallen foul of the scam and can not see how convincing these people are.
I was one of the lucky ones in that I managed to recover my money quickly myself but in doing so I learned a hard but valuable lesson.
I hope we can spread the word of the existence of this blog as it has saved a lot of people a lot of stress and money.
I would love to see this blog advertised on TV and would gladly donate cash to help fund such an advert.
I for one will be in your debt for a long time yet keep up the good work.
Thanks Brian,
We feel very honoured to have “fans” of our blog like you.
You support and information helps us tremendously, so thank you!
Regards
Customer Care
hi brian how did you get your money back we are still waiting for a buyer as the origional one fell thru i have been sat here waitin for a call for 3 and a half hours now who do we get in touch with to get our £1200 back
Hi Margaret
I was a little more than Lucky in getting my money refunded to me.
The document I was sent had the name of an accountant in Norwich as the postal address.
I did a search for this accountant and found his phone number.
He was a genuine accountant and said he did not have the accounts for this company but his friend in the same building did.
I asked why the postal address was his when he did not have the account. He said it was a mix up and was being sorted.
I told him I was giving all this to the police and Trading Standards and that I would be contacting a lot of other agencies such as TV shows and news papers and would not let it rest until I had my refund.
This accountant then said he would see what he could do to help.
The next thing I knew he emailed me to say my refund was on the way and it arrived two days later in my bank.
I don’t know what to read into this but he did not like the idea of publicity that’s for sure.
Good luck with getting you cash returned and I know you will get an email with information as to how to do it shortly.
Hi Margeret
I noticed that Brian managed to get his Money back from HMH via the accountant in Norwich,We would be very interested as to wh this accountant is and what his details are so we can contact him.
We have, like many been scammed by HMH, we paid £1260 as an insurance policy, as the lovely Amber pointed out that its so in the event that we do not send them the points certificate, they could claime and get their money back. we would get our £1260 back once they had received the documents.
We are now in our 16th week of waiting, even thou they had a buyer, and yes again three weeks ago once i had again contacted HMH, they told me that the buyers had a financial crisis and could not raise the money, they are giving them untill the 15/02/12 to come up with the funds, if they do not then we would get a new offer. We look forward to hearing from them.
Hi Andrew,
Sorry for the slight delay in reply to your message, but today your email is prepared and we send you all the information directly about how to go about requesting a refund.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards,
Customer Care
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for your comment.
We’ve send you the information by email.
Don’t hold your breath on HMH calling you the 15th of Feb with the news your timeshare is sold. Most likely they will come up with a dubious offer of changing it to another product which can be sold straight away…yes and you have to pay more money for that!
Please don’t pay anymore to them and start to claim your money back
Kind regards
Customer Care
Hi Andrew Williams. I can predict exactly how it will go with HMH. You will not hear from them until you decide to contact them after the 15th. Then they will tell you that the buyer can’t raise the money so it has fallen through. But they will have a new offer for you: a corporate sale via another holiday club company called Principle Travel. Apparently they are desperate for your membership despite HMH not being able to sell it privately. The only drawback for you will be you have to pay more money to HMH to cover your joining fee for Principle Travel, something like €1650 from memory. Oh and the extra kicker is that ALL of the money that you have paid out will come out of the sale price of your membership, so you will never see that money back. Not that there will be a sale of course.
How do I know? I’m sure you can guess. I got suckered the first time but I did not fall for the corporate offer bull thanks to this website. BTW I signed with HMH over 10 months ago and still no sale. Weird how all these people including yourself had mad keen buyers for their membership yet they couldn’t sell mine in that time. Couldn’t be anything to do with collecting all those lovely ‘deposits’ could it?
The best you can do is to try your credit card/bank and get your money back for misrepresentation under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. I have had 2 rejection letters from mine but I am contacting the Financial Ombudsman next.
Or this Norwich accountant which I know nothing about sadly. If you do find his name and address could you post it here or email it to me as I would love to contact him too. The police might be interested in his details too.
Best of luck to you but don’t give HMH any more of your hard earned money.
Hi Mark,
Thanks for your comment, this is very usefull and you are so right!
Kind regards
Customer Care
13.15 UK time Wednesday 14 September 2011.
I have just received yet another call from HMH and I have fantastic news.
They actually have a young couple sitting in their office right now who would be willing to pay me £4000 for my DWVC membership. They asked if I am interested and of course I said I was extremely interested.
The really nice man asked if I had any outstanding debts or loans on this membership and I said I had not as I paid in full when I joined.
He then said he would now need to pass this on to his finance or security department who would run a check on my membership and he would get back to me in about ten minutes.
I told him I was just so delighted and was really looking forward to his return call and whilst I wait I will do some reading on a web site called Mindtimeshare which I have been reading for some time now but have not finished.
The poor man is so deprived as he told me he had never heard of the site and asked what it was all about.
Oh says me, it is so interesting and I really do recommend he reads it and passes the URL on to all the people he cold calls as it would be such a shame for people to miss this interesting site.
He said he would have a look at it as it did sound good from my comments.
Well, he must be reading every single word on the site because it is now over two hours since his call when he promised me a return call in ten minutes.
I do understand his situation as when I come in the blog for a read I spend a long time in here as well, we just can’t help it you know.
I will now sit here and contain my excitement at having a young couple in his office sitting there waiting for him to finish reading this amazing blog then get me my £4000 tucked away in my bank.
Dear Brian,
Thanks for sharing this with us.
Seems they are changing their pitch slightly to make it even more credible…people sitting in their office.
Where is the office? Their paperwork only has a postbox…
You think they will call back?
Kind regards
Customer Care
I have just been contactwed by Loise from Half Moon Holdings. She told me they have cleared £12,095 for my timeshare /holiday club. I am to give them 1,200euros ,they will complete the paperwork and my timeshare will be a thing of the past. She will guide me through proceedures and answer any questions.The process would take 3/4 weeks max. Admin would phone to confirm and take the money. They phoned within minutes and stated the process would take 4/6 weeks. I told themm to hold on this was not the information I had received. I asked to speak to Louise. The Admin guy said yes but we are finished with you.
Louise came back on the phone and stated that they had to say 6 weeks in case of postal delys but she really wanted me to get through it and receive the cash. Admin then phoned again and proceeded to go through the agreement. I said @so you have all the cash cleared?’ @no only a deposit.’ I replied so if they change their minds(whoever these fictious people are who will pay £12,000 for a timeshare!!!) I will get my money back immediately?’ ‘No we will try to remarket it’.
I said ‘This is in line with all that has been stated on the internet. Let me do my research and I will get back to you tomorrow’
They refused this stating it was there and then. I said GOODBYE!
Thank you for the website