As we reported back in October, there are a group of 487 Claimants that believe they have suffered in the holiday exchange program sold to them by RCI Europe. These claimants believe that they were not delivered the exchanges that they were promised in the presentations or the lovely colourful holiday brochures at the time of purchase. These showed a multitude of accommodations that the buyer could interchange with the property that they had invested in, to a similar standard and value.
Once purchased, however, the clients found that anytime they tried to make an exchange for another property of a similar value at a similar time of year that their requests were always rejected due to one reason or another. The excuses always being that there were no units available in the resorts requested, that they were booked up for over a year, or that there were no properties of similar value available.
If proven guilty is a clear breach in the obligations that were promised to the claimants by seemingly the World’s largest resort holiday exchange network. RCI have always boasted about their extremely large pool of properties with which you are able to exchange your weeks.
Law firm Edwin Coe LLP, whom have a lot of past experience in Class Actions will be representing these 487 RCI Members in a case to start next week in the high court in London. The case ‘Abbot & Others v RCI Europe’ is due to be heard over a period of ten days which will be used to determine whether the members are entitled to the compensation that they believe they are from RCI Europe to the sum of £5000 each, totalling a whopping £2.4m.
This class action, if successful, will open doors to the other 700,000 RCI members across Europe, whom will be following this UK case. They may find it interesting on the basis that they may have had similar experiences and may provoke similar cases in the future across Europe. Theoretically it could change the world of timeshare exchange programs going forward.
For more information regarding this article or assistance in any other timeshare related issues please contact the TCA on 01908 881058 or email: info@TimeshareConsumerAssociation.org.uk