'Too good to be true' deals
Courtney Kaminski
Issue date: 9/11/07 Section: Focus
Murphy also recounts in his blog entry the moment that confirmed for him that he was not going to buy into the membership: "Tammy asked about losing her job and what would happen. The response just blew me away. If my bullshit meter wasn't on overload already, it was now. 'We don't take your social insurance number or anything so if in a year you can't pay, who cares? It's not like we can find you.'"
"It was really a bunch of things like that," said Murphy. "The money was really out of my reach, even though Tammy and I seriously considered making it happen ... But that final comment from the sales lady about not paying if we didn't want to, because they didn't take our SIN numbers to track us down, I can't see any legit business saying that."
According to Ric Borski, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) of Midwestern and Central Ontario, the type of presentation that Murphy and Blair attended is not unique to this company at all, but rather is common practice within the timeshare/vacation club industry.
"The big thing is that you have to be cautious," said Borski. "They lure people in with promises of free holidays to get you to go into the presentation and then it's a pressure type sales situation, without knowing that that's what you are going into."
The BBB is an organization that handles issues from consumers with complaints against companies for poor business practices.
"Most people think of us as an organization that handles complaints against companies, and certainly, that is a large portion of the work that we do," Borski said. "But what we would like to see, and what we would like to encourage people to do, is to access our company reliability reports, essentially before they do business with someone. It's always a good idea to do some research when you are spending any large amount of money, especially if you are talking about a major purchase."
"Thankfully, we have a report on Club Par Excellance, and people should probably visit that report and get that information on them," he added. "This is a company that is in the business of selling vacation packages, and there is always a big price-tag with these sort of purchases, and this company happens to have an unsatisfactory record with us because they haven't responded to some of the complaints we have brought to their attention."
"It was really a bunch of things like that," said Murphy. "The money was really out of my reach, even though Tammy and I seriously considered making it happen ... But that final comment from the sales lady about not paying if we didn't want to, because they didn't take our SIN numbers to track us down, I can't see any legit business saying that."
According to Ric Borski, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) of Midwestern and Central Ontario, the type of presentation that Murphy and Blair attended is not unique to this company at all, but rather is common practice within the timeshare/vacation club industry.
"The big thing is that you have to be cautious," said Borski. "They lure people in with promises of free holidays to get you to go into the presentation and then it's a pressure type sales situation, without knowing that that's what you are going into."
The BBB is an organization that handles issues from consumers with complaints against companies for poor business practices.
"Most people think of us as an organization that handles complaints against companies, and certainly, that is a large portion of the work that we do," Borski said. "But what we would like to see, and what we would like to encourage people to do, is to access our company reliability reports, essentially before they do business with someone. It's always a good idea to do some research when you are spending any large amount of money, especially if you are talking about a major purchase."
"Thankfully, we have a report on Club Par Excellance, and people should probably visit that report and get that information on them," he added. "This is a company that is in the business of selling vacation packages, and there is always a big price-tag with these sort of purchases, and this company happens to have an unsatisfactory record with us because they haven't responded to some of the complaints we have brought to their attention."
Be the first to comment on this story