Dwvc Holiday Club review: getting your money back 3

This is a warning about ILG and their accountant trying to put people off claiming their money back.

In the past year I have been bombarded with calls offering to sell my holiday club or get my Reclaim cashed early. I am ashamed to say I've paid a couple of companies to sell it as they were very convincing. I've also had a couple of legal companies offering to get my money back but they sounded dodgy.

I was contacted by a UK claim company in May called Claim Specialist Group and I sent them my paperwork for assessment. They told me I had a claim and I was about to go ahead when I got a letter from Kieth Lawrence from Gibraltar telling me he was the ILG accountant and they'd gone into liquidation and there was no money. I also had resale companies telling me I couldn't claim, as there was no money left so I was best off selling. It was an absolute nightmare! I didn't know who to believe.

In the end I did go with the claim company and paid them money because I went into their office in England and used my credit card to make the payment. They also gave me a cooling off period, which I liked. My lawyer was in Manchester which was a bit far for me to go in, but in the end i didn't need to.

I did get a settlement a couple of weeks ago which is a relief and I used their claim pack to recover the money I'd paid Half Moon and Viva Connect from Barclaycard. Well, I got one payment back and I’m arguing with Barclaycard about the second one (my fault, really. Paid on the spot without getting paperwork - thay got me on a bad day!)

What concerns me is the fact that I almost told claim specialist group to eff off! - especially after the ILG liquidation letter. Actually, my husband and I ignored them for about 2 weeks and I was quite rude when I spoke to them again.

I wish it was as easy as saying to people - just use a UK company to get your money back and you'll be all right, because I bought the holiday club in England so your not safe at home, either!

Anyway, don't let the liquidation letter put you off. There are lots of claims companies in the UK and in my case CSG went after the banks these companies use not the company itself so the liquidation was irrelevant.
Oh and a 'law firm' called Ramirez and Ramirez slagged off claim specialist group and tried to tell me I would have to claim in Spain and go through the Spanish courts as DWVC is in Spain and it was the only way to get my money back. Rubbish! DWVC is Spanish and ILG is based in Gibraltar but I sued from the UK - so did the OFT and we both won. Do not pay a Spanish firm anything or you will regret it. I did so I know.

Despite me getting my money back DWVC are still calling me – twice last week. The latest thing is about the reclaim certificate. I told them I got my money back and they said it didn’t matter – I could still claim the value of the reclaim certificate. Can you believe these people. CSG told me I must destroy all my paperwork now and forget timeshare altogether – easier said than done when they ring you up all the time! Despite the inconvenience we’re thinking of changing our number.

More on DWVC. I’m on holiday in the Costa del Sol at the moment so I thought I’d pay DWVC visit at the address on all their correspondence. I quite fancied telling them I got my money back – they obviously don’t know that yet. I was also looking forward to telling them to stop ringing all the time. I was very surprised to see that their head office is shut down! Does anyone know where they are now?

No doubt when I get back off my hols I will be getting another call off them and I will be asking exactly where they are calling from! That should be an interesting conversation!