Marketer warns of time-share rip-offs

Press, 31 January 1989, Page 1

Marketer warns of time-share rip-offs

By

GLEN PERKINSON

New Zealanders could be losing their life savings to unscrupulous time-share resort salespeople, a Christchurch-based marketer says. Mr John Philips, of International Resort Marketing, believed New Zealanders could be facing rip-offs on a greater scale than Australia’s Gold Coast, where many seeking their dream holiday home had been fleeced by fast-sell tactics. Mr Philips said a "watchdog” authority was needed desperately to protect people’s investments. He wants the Government to act to control the growing industry. Many people had already succumbed to unscrupulous developers and salespeople and there was potential for the problem to escalate in New Zealand, he said. In Queenstown reports show holidaymakers are badgered by time-share touts, or outside personal contacts (O.P.C.S), as marketers call them. Mr Philips said with the huge increase in South Island time-share resorts, it could

be a prime target for unscrupulous selling. “Tricks and dubious methods that border on misrepresentation and callous rip-offs are appearing here in New Zealand,” Mr Philips said. In Australia the Corporate Affairs Department and the National Securities Commission were called, in to oversee the development and sale of timeshare complexes. Mr Philips, an Australian in Christchurch to market a new resort in Canterbury, said the most prevalent abuse by salespeople was promising prospective buyers resorts with amenities that “will never eventuate.” Even worse can be buyers paying a deposit for an as-yet-unbuilt resort that may not be finished or even started. Prospective buyers can lose their deposits. Time-share did not deserve to have its name blackened because it was a good, affordable holiday concept for many people, said Mr Philips.

The Government should establish an authority to ensure everything promised by time-share salespeople was delivered, he said. It would be difficult to protect the public without a statutory body, he said. A Parliamentary source indicated yesterday that two Government departments were investigating the sale of time-share resorts. The Commerce Commission was checking it, the source said, and the Securities Commission, in conjunction with the Time Share Council, had also begun investigations. Time-share sales were on the commission’s agenda for securities reform. The head of the Time-Share Council, Mr Des Wishart, was unavailable for comment on Mr Philips’ call for a watchdog authority. A spokeswoman for the Minister of Justice, Mr Palmer, said his office had received no Ministerial complaints about timeshare sales practices.