The Timeshare Consumer Association whitewash won’t work

The Timeshare Consumer Association whitewash won’t work

After a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority by an aggrieved timeshare owner that the Timeshare Consumer Association (TCA) did not disclose it was financially and operationally connected to European Consumer Claims (ECC) was initially rejected, a new complaint was filed.

The complaint provided proof that the TCA site was purchased by ECC, and that it was being used as a lead generator for ECC. It also cited a further misleading article published by the TCA that stated “ASA review shows Timeshare Consumer Association not linked to ECC”. Now, after a further ASA investigation, that misleading article has been removed – but even though the ASA insisted accurate details were provided on the TCA website, attempts at whitewashing have continued.

Strong advice from the ASA forced the TCA to publish a revised version of the TCA history and links with ECC – but it’s still very far from the whole truth.

In its new version, the TCA mentions far more of the history, but fails to come clean about some vital elements, such as –

• • The business that ECC purchased the TCA site from – Tolmex Ltd., was a company owned and controlled by Mark Rowe. A person who along with 17 others, has been arrested and charged in a large-scale fraud case which involved targeting timeshare owners – there are 79 counts of fraud in all.

• • Once the TCA website had been purchased by ECC, several facts published on the site previously regarding the involvement and connections of ECC CEO Andrew Cooper and ECC itself to businesses closed down after action by the UK authorities were removed. These included the notorious Club Class network, where thousands of people lost money to scam ‘holiday club’ / ‘concierge services’, and ITRA, which was wound up in the UK High Court after it failed to make court-ordered refunds to timeshare owners who had paid for timeshare exit and claims services that were never provided.

• • Content removed from the TCA site includes a quote from the original founder of the TCA, Sandy Grey about Andrew Cooper and his since deceased business partner Peter Utal – it read “Peter Utal is probably the arch proponent, together with co-conspirator Andy Cooper, of all the major scams including holiday clubs and the advance fee fraud.”

• • The new TCA site has sought to portray Andrew Cooper and ECC as ‘consumer champions’ – this despite Cooper being a director of 2 of the shut down Club Class businesses and for a substantial time being in control of ITRA – which was previously a sister company of ECC, sharing the same offices, systems and people.

• • The new TCA has promoted ECC and acted as a lead generator since ECC purchased it, with the vast majority of timeshare owners seeking help from what they have presumed was an ‘independent consumer association’ being passed on immediately to ECC. Several of these have since launched reclaim actions against ECC.

Why the TCA whitewash won’t work

There are many thousands of timeshare owners that have suffered grievous financial losses and distress that would certainly not trust a ‘timeshare consumer association’ that since 2016 has been associated with people that have had been involved in multiple businesses that have been forced to close down because of severe detriment to timeshare owners. KwikChex will be publishing some of their stories and what they think of the situation shortly.

There is hard evidence from official sources and respected journalists that is more than sufficient to counter the propaganda that has been published on the TCA website for far too long – including the Mirror’s leading investigative journalist, Andrew Penman, who has been exposing issues related to the TCA, Andrew Cooper, Club Class, ITRA, Mark Rowe and ECC for 10 years – see links to some of his articles below

Monster Bad Deal

Timeshare refund bosses pay up…

The Timeshare Consumer Association……

Shut down – the company that took upfront fees…..

18 defendants face trial after 5 year investigation…

How timeshare owners can raise their level of self-protection when seeking advice about their timeshares – follow the ‘Stop & Check advice, published on the following link