Mercantile claims has successfully terminated timeshares for thousands of clients desperate to end their nightmare obligations. Happily, today, we can share with you the story of one family, who’s timeshare nightmare started back in 1995.

Whilst visiting their favourite holiday location in Mallorca, our clients were approached by some individuals working for a hotel and offered some free scratch cards. To their surprise, they had won a week’s free stay, for whenever they liked, at a beautiful new timeshare resort.

The reps persuaded them to go back to the office to claim their prize. What they didn’t realise was that they had actually walked into a timeshare sales presentation, which lasted for nearly six hours. Our clients described this presentation as relentless, and incredibly, after explaining to the sales reps that they had to leave because their teenage children were waiting for them back at their hotel, the sales rep rang the hotel to check the children were safe and well.

After hours and hours of pressure selling, the offer was starting to become appealing. The reps had now lowered the cost of the timeshare to a price which they thought was more reasonable and cost effective for them. They had always stayed in hotels before, but the option of a timeshare where you could do your own washing and cook meals seemed like something that would suit them better as a family.

They agreed to sign up there and then and purchased a top floor unit, with its own sun roof terrace for £12,000. They had also explicitly told the reps that they wanted one week during the summer school holidays, so their children would not miss out on school time. Despite this, when the family went back to the resort in May the following year, to use their free week they had won from the scratch card, they learned that the unit they had bought was actually for week 27, and at the beginning of July.

Immediately, they demanded their money back, instead the resort managed to persuade them to change their week to August and purchase an additional week. All they had to do was pay £7,000 and they could part exchange their unit. They agreed to do this and were happy with the extra week.

It wasn’t until 2016 when things really took a turn for the worse with the timeshare resort. It hadn’t been all plain sailing up to this point, there had been some teething problems, as there is with most things, and the occasional mandatory presentation they had to endure. However, in 2016 the resort was taken over and things quickly started going downhill.

Our clients described how the resort went into disrepair, and how the timeshare company had axed most of the staff that worked there. Simple things like the cleanliness of the resort was being ignored, the pool and gardens were not being looked after properly and the rooms were cleaned just once a week. Their complaints went unanswered and finally they had had enough. Thankfully friends recommended they use Mercantile Claims to help release them from their timeshare contract, and happily we can say this has been successful and they are free to holiday wherever and whenever they like. They also no longer have to pay annual maintenance fees.