The Consumers Association of Singapore or CASE expects timeshare
disputes to be the top complaint again this year.
From January to September, the consumer watchdog received 1881
complaints from consumers against rogue firms selling various
timeshare products.
A public forum was held today to educate consumers on timeshare
and vacation exchange.
Saifulbahri Ismail with more:
Wong Liang Yong has been enjoying vacations with his family
using the timeshare programme for many years.
Members pay a fee to stay at resorts worldwide.
But when the 70-year old retired, his lifestyle changed and felt
he didn't need the scheme anymore.
The bank staff officer wanted to terminate the contract, and was
approached by a timeshare company claiming it could help take over
the contract, handle the legal negotiations and reclaim the
investment:
"They got wind that we had timeshares. They say, you hold this
four timeshare companies, you know you have to pay subscriptions
all through your life, even when you pass away your children has to
pay for it. They mentioned a sum of $200,000 liability for lifelong
subscription. So, that intimidated us. They say there's a way out,
then they came up with a scheme of theirs."
In that scheme, Mr Wong had to pay some $35,000 for 'transfer
and administration' fees.
Later the company, Maxmega Group informed him it was unable to
retrieve his money.
The company is currently being investigated.
According to CASE, most of the complaints were related to resale
companies.
The association is also lobbying for a timeshare related
legislation to enhance protection to consumers.
Seah Seng Choon is its Executive Director:
"We think that it's important to have a timeshare legislation in
place, basically to ensure transparency and ethical practices.
Currently, when members buy a timeshare membership, they will not
know how many membership has already been recruited for that
particular event, and very often than not, timeshare members
complain to us that they are unable to book the resort after the
holiday after they are paid up for their timeshare membership
fee."
However, industry players also warned against legislation which
is too stringent:
Adrian Lee is Managing Director Asia, Group RCI:
"We've also seen markets whereby legislation was put in place
and it killed the entire industry. That's not something that we
want to see. For example Taiwan, they legislated it, but basically
it killed the entire industry. It was so stringent that it becomes
non-commercially viable."
In April, amendments were made to the Fair Trading Act.
Customers now have a longer time of up to 5 days to change their
minds when buying timeshare products.
Going forward, CASE will be pushing for a longer cooling off
period in the next review of the Act.
--938Live