In February 2014, the European Commission published a brief report/resume about the activity of the European Consumer Centres, with regards to the complaints received in general from the European Consumers.
Recently they have published a full report on these complaints they received in the year 2013. You can see this report on the following link report_ecc-net_2013_en
Numbers provided are from the 31 offices in 28 European Countries.
According to this report, the total number of consumer complaints received by the ECC-net Centres in 2013, was 32,552. A similar amount of complaints was received in 2012.
They have grouped the complaints by type of business.
In 2013, the activity of “Timeshare” and other holiday products and packages, amounted to 7,4% of the total complaints received by the ECC-net from the consumers. Which means on a positive note that they dropped from second place (in 2012) to fifth in the ranking of complaints, behind the airlines, rent a car, domestic items and recreational services, sports and culture. The rate remains the same as for the year 2012, with 7.4%.
A 7, 4% incidence rate related to the Timeshare and Holiday Products equates to an approximate number of 2.400 complaints.
We are completely convinced that these complaints are not generated by Timeshare developers and promoters. The number of complaints about legitimate timeshare products we receive have continued to decline and we know from information received from the ECCs that these numbers remain low,
The vast majority of the consumer complaints are generated by the activities of the so called (fraudulent) Discount Travel Membership Clubs and other fraudulent companies.
Therefore, reading statistics should always be done with proper care, even though they come from official sources.
In 2013, the Association Mindtimeshare received 9.766 complaints from Consumers related to dealings from the consumers with dubious companies and most of these companies turned out to be fraudulent.
These companies are doing a great harm to the actual Timeshare Industry.
What the European consumers need is for the authorities to take action against these companies and do all in their power to eradicate the fraud in this sector.
We want to make the authorities aware of these numbers in order for them to realize that this is a very important problem for the European Consumers. And it is extremely important that they pay attention to this problem, for the benefit of the European consumers.
Have a nice weekend!
Mindtimeshare 