An investigation by the DMC (Direct Marketing Commission) into Hollywood Marketing, which runs sellmytimeshare.tv and Monster.Travel.com, has resulted in a recommendation that Hollywood Marketing’s membership of the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) is terminated.

The Direct Marketing Commission (DMC) is the body, which oversees the Direct Marketing Association (DMA)’s Code. The Code and DMC are here to give effective protection to recipients, users and practitioners of direct marketing.

As they explain on their web, they aim to ensure companies observe the highest standards of integrity and trade fairly with their customers and with each other, and they do this by investigating complaints, scrutinising direct marketing issues and practices, and providing guidance to consumers.

The Commission’s (DMC) decision has been published on the 25th of October 2015 on their website.

This decision is based on contacts the DMC had with consumers directly and Trading Standards.

Quote from this decision: “The Commissioners concluded the sales techniques were high-pressured with advice meetings that ran for hours with consumers described feeling ‘bombarded’ or ‘overloaded’ with information and with contract documents that ran to over two hundred pages. People attended these meetings with no prior notice of Monster credit purchases as the primary focus of the sessions, no appreciation they would be offered deals that involved them investing thousands of pounds, with no basis for assessing the value of these deals and with no understanding whether the deal would or would not get them out of an unwanted timeshare. Regardless of any subsequent cooling off period, few consumers had a chance to understand and absorb the nature of the agreement prior to signing.”

For the complete text of this DMC decision and all the reasons on which they base this please have a look at the following link:

http://www.dmcommission.com/adjudications/2015/10/complaints-against-hollywood-marketing/