By: Mr. Garry Leigh, UK Travel Consultant

Benefits of Preventive Action

Some of you will have read in my earlier post of 14/09/09 entitled “Good Communication”, that in an organization the size of mine, it is essential to ensure that company policy is correctly communicated through every level, all the way to the client who is receiving a presentation.

To ensure that this happens we have introduced some major changes to the way we do business and, quoting from the original article:

“I’ve introduced a new procedure that means that sales must be signed off by potential clients at every stage to ensure that they understand what they’re buying and, as importantly, so that my office has clear and indisputable evidence of exactly what the salesperson said.

I and others of every industry type have suffered for years at the hands of journalists, some of whom portray themselves as “defenders of the public”, who print one-sided and often wholly inaccurate accounts of client’s experiences.”

Why am I repeating this? Because my old “friend” Nick Sommerlad of the Mirror has been on to us again, supposedly looking to find some more mud to throw at me in his totally biased and inaccurate way, hoping that some of it will stick. Here are the questions he has sent to one of my directors about a Mr & Mrs McNutt, who, incidentally, are not clients of ours and from whom we have not received one penny.

1. Can you please explain to me what happens to the timeshare ownership of clients like the McNutts. They tell us that they were assured the ownership would be transferred to ILG and they wouldn’t have to pay maintenance fees but that this wasn’t on the paperwork they were given.
2. Can you tell me what levels of cashback are currently being achieved by past ILG clients? The advert stated “up to 100%” of your money back? How can this be achieved?
3. The McNutts said they were told it might be 50%? Again, can you provide proof that this can and is being achieved?
4. Finally, the McNutts said they found their picture on the ILG pages of the Flickr website without their approval. Can you explain this?

I, nor any of my staff, will respond to Nick Sommerlad, as in my opinion, he has no journalistic integrity and is not interested in any way in the truth. However, for the McNutt’s and anybody else who is interested, here are the answers to the questions, which demonstrate that I have done exactly what I said I would do above and have implemented systems that ensure that there is complete transparency and clarity with every client and furthermore, that each client voluntarily signs documents to state that that is the case:

1. When a client wishes to dispose of a timeshare along with the purchase of a holiday club membership package, it is passed to a deed agent for disposal. ILG undertake to discharge of any associated fees that occur after the completion of the purchase and before the timeshare is transferred out of the client’s name. As you may be aware, some timeshare companies use intimidating methods with clients as they are dismayed at the potential loss of their revenue and in some cases will continue to issue management fee invoices to the client to unsettle a transfer agreement with to company such as ours. We warn the clients of this tactic and issue a number of SAE’s for their convenience to forward any charges they receive. This year alone, we have paid over £1m in these types of fees on behalf of clients whose final transfer is still pending. Both clients signed a ‘Relinquishing Use of Ownership’ form section (e), which states “As agreed and understood that ILG & their Deed Agents will assume responsibility for our timeshare/Points upon receipt of our final payment of the above numbered contract.” And section (g) “We agree and understand that ILG & their Deed Agents will take full responsibility for our future Maintenance Fees and should we receive any future invoices, charges, claims or demands we will forward them immediately to ILG in the envelope provided.”
2. The advert in question would have referred to the use of the promotional product Reclaim that could be issued to a value of the original purchase price of their timeshare plus the cost of joining the holiday club. The Reclaim promotion has been running for over 10 years and has statistically paid out between 19.9% and 68.33% of the certificate value, so as the certificate is generally issued for more than the clients paid for their timeshare (the addition of the holiday club membership price), there is the real possibility that they could receive 100% of their original timeshare purchase price back.
3. The McNutts both signed “yes” to acknowledge clause 12 of the new member’s declaration of understanding which states “We understand that on completion of our contract we will be issued with a Reclaim redemption certificate of £***. If we correctly follow the terms and conditions of the promotion it is possible to receive as low as 9.5% up to a maximum of 95% of the certificate value. However, neither of these figures have ever been achieved, past performance has demonstrated the lowest ever payment to be 19.9% and the highest 68.33%”. Is that in any way confusing?
4. Finally, we have a signed consent form from the McNutts giving us permission to use their comments and photo for our promotions, along with their comments in their own handwriting stating “what a clear and informative presentation showing us our options, all staff are very pleasant and helpful. it is a relief to be rid of our maintenance fee burden, thank you”. You can view this on the attached link. Having a photo taken is purely voluntary on the client’s part and we always ensure that we have all of the relevant signatures on the consent form before publishing. However, since the Mc Nutt’s are not clients of ours and their file is closed, the photo has been removed.

So there you have it. I apologize for the size of this article but I needed to go into detail to show the lengths we have gone to in order to avoid any chance that our clients could feel that the presentation they received was not clear or was confusing in any way. The McNutt’s, in their own words, received “a clear and informative presentation” and signed their names to that statement. This tells me that I have done my job. I guess that Nick Sommerlad will now do his and twist some of the above into another unfounded attack on me.

Let’s see.

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Originally posted on universumtech.vox.com