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
This timeshare thing is just a fallacy.Just kill the whole damn thing before more ppl get conned.
It'll never intended to serve or benefit ppl at the first place.This thing is gullible and a dangerous bussiness tool that hack you off before you know it.
Just kill the whole damn thing and buried it!
Their hard selling tactics should be looked into definitely.
It's like buying cigarettes -- you're burning your money away. Might as well buy 4D, at least get chance at winnig money. Heh.