Design Vacation/Trustresale

[Tina]

We were on a holiday in Gran Canaria.
On the way to the local market we won a price with a scratchcard.
They taken us to a hotel Puerto Atlantico on the roof of the building and talk to us about more than 3 hours.
And they promised us cheap holidays in a ***** hotels over the world.
For 8000,00 euro we can get 8 holidays with the tickets.So we signed a contract and we payed bij creditcard 4000,00 euro
and the rest we have to paid once a month for six months.
But Back in Holland we tried to book a vacation a couple of times, but it never works out.
They dont answer our phonecalls and emails.
So we cancelled the contract and we dont pay anymore.
After many expansive phonecals and emails they downgraid our membership, that means that what we paid is alright and now the contract is for 4 years instead of 8 years.(4 holidays with the tickets included)
We tried and we tried several times but we couldn't book a holiday without paying for it..
They say we have to pay for the tickets, but they promised us that the tickets were included with the deal.
In the end, we booked a holiday in Holland were we come from.
The trip was to Arguineguin where we went to see Joost Botos and Chuck Masset.These are the guys who let us signed the contract and promised us everything.
We spoke to them about the holidays and tickets they had promised us.
This time they told us that everything would be alright and that we shouldn't worry because they would give us the tickets and an accomodation in Turkey for 1 week for free. Back in Holland we spoke to them on the phone and this time they told us to pay 804 euros for the meals (all inclusive) while they promised us that it was for free. This is ridiculous because we can book a whole trip for 1153 euros, to the same hotel WITHOUT Design Vacation.
Everything they promised again is a lie.
In march Design Vacation was arrested but they are now free again.
Design Vacation is still under investigation.
See here some newspapers!
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=81&story_id=28684&name=Gang+stole+millions+from+European+holidaymakers"]
http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/609/opgepakt24bm.jpg

[John Fairheart]

Hi Tina,

Thanks for posting the story and the links. It is a little off the beaten track for us as we deal mainly with West African based email fraud, but this is certainly worthy of a posting. Thanks for sharing.

[John Fairheart]

Just a quick note to add for our Dutch speaking visitors and members. Tina has also posted in our Dutch Language Forum (http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2239). Many thanks Tina!

[breccia]

Tina, thank you for posting your story.

In early May there was segment on the BBC's Watchdog program (http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/tv_and_radio/watchdog/reports/holidays_and_travel/holiday_20060509.shtml) which was about the form of fraud that Tina experienced.

Thank you Tina for posting about this, because with the upcoming Summer holiday period in Europe, there are bound to be many people who get targetted by this scam whilst they are abroad.

To anyone reading this: heed Tina's warning. If you are approached by touts giving out "scratch lottery" tickets, tell them you are not interested, and get on with enjoying your holiday in the sun. Just like most of the advance fee frauds that we describe on this website, these "scratch lottery" schemes are an elaborate - yet less anonymous - way to part people from their money.

Tina, well-done on helping fellow survivors of the scam. Maybe it is also worth telling your story to any other Dutch newspapers who will listen, and to TV programs as well. The key to putting these people out of business is raising public awareness about their activities. I take my hat off to you for your efforts!

[moeke1953]

Hello all

For several reasons I can write mine story only anonymous.
We has been a victim of http://www.designvacation.com Trustresale since November 2005.
While on holiday with Christmas 2004 till New Year 2005 at Gran Canaria we were approached by a girl with scratch cards, she told us that she worked for a government licensed holiday company that specialized in supplying cheaper holidays by booking over the internet.
After we ‘d scratched she told that we were very lucky because we had won a top prize because I had 3 stars (I only get 1 or 2 every 3000 cards). We were told that we must claim the prize immediately and were put in a taxi to the Club Puerto Atlantico hotel in Arguineguin this is a partner of Design Vacation.
We went to the terrace on the roof and got introduced to a guy, Jorgen from Belgium because he speaks the Dutch language, he seemed to be a very friendly person and we talked for a while before we were given the tour.
The presentation sounded really good 4/5* hotels at a very reasonable prizes and we were also promised that we would be able to book by the internet for a short vacations in a 4* or 5* resort with discounts up to 30-50% and much cheaper flights via their Blue Atlantic travel agency in the town.
It looks too good to be truth.
That company sales holiday packages and is located at Arguineguin.
http://www.designvacation.com
We bin duped for 2200,00 euro. The day after we had signed, my feelings are not right and so we going for the second time to Arguineguin to ask questions.
Afterwards we take a taxi to our hotel, I ask the taxi driver about Design Vacation, he was scared and shout in English “corrupt , corrupt don’t do” it!!!
But that was too late for us because we had already signed the contract.
When we got back in our hotel we spoke to the hosts of our travel organisation and she recommended us while we still on Gran Canaria to take a lawyer.
We take a taxi immediately and stepped to the lawyer in Playa Del Ingles who was recommended by our travel organisation.
After telling him the complete story the lawyer explained us what the possibilities are:
1: He would write a letter with request to cancel the contract with the request to pay back the money what we payed already.
2: And if nothing helps the lawyer start a court case to get our right.
The lawyer costs us another 2200,00 euro together it costs us 4400,00 euro.
And such as we expects Design Vacation don’t react to the written letter of the lawyer.
We give the lawyer authorisation for a case against Design Vacation and Trustresale to cancel the contract and refund the 2200,00 euro and also the costs of the lawyer 2200,00 euro.
The case was on 03/05/2006, in Spain, the lawyer came in November 2006 with a releasing report that we have won the case but that Design Vacation and Trustresale had 20 days time to go in appeal, but they didn’t do that.
But now Design Vacation deny that they have established on Gran Canaria but has established in Gibraltar.
Trustresale wont take the documents (pronouncement) of the court (the both parties Design Vacation and Trustresale has the do that)
The documents must be delivered personally by the court or lawyer, so our lawyer has a problem and look for a solution.
So we must wait patiently for the money what they taken from us.
This can take a long time(again)!!!!!!
Perhaps is there somebody who can help us with some prove that Design Vacation really have established on Gran Canaria, but that has to be on paper black and white.
There is also a weblog http://designvacationtrustresale.web-log.nl/ it is dutch but you can translate here http://babelfish.altavista.com/
Here is an other link for people who wants to know more.
http://www.konsumenteuropa.se/mallar/en/artikel.asp?lngArticleId=3294&lngCategoryId=1364




THE LAST NEWS!!

The firma Design Vacation is still active, but now operates under the name Voyager!
I looked on the Internet, tel. number is the same http://www.designvacation.com is called now VOYAGER http://www.lifestylevacation.net also and George Kanne has now the control, his e-mail address is gkanne@idecnet.com and is still in the hotel Club Puerto Atlantico in Arguineguin.
The shade Ltd is Blue Atlantic management S.L
Their bank is in Tanger in Morocco and the financier in the Netherlands http://www.dfsinternational.nl/, of course in Maarssen.
A complete labyrinth of Limiteds and of course intangible on the Seychelles just like formerly Design Vacation.
Their phonenumbers and adressess are the same.

C.C. Ancora, Local 48-49
E- 35120 Arguineguin, Gran Canaria, Spain
Fax: 0034 928 18 50 52
Website: www.lifestylevacation.net
E-mail: info@lifestylevacation.net
Booking- and Servicehotline:
(+34) 928 18 50 39

Design Vacation
C.C. Ancora, Local 48-49
E- 35120 Arguineguin, Gran Canaria, Spain
Fax: 0034 928 18 50 52
Webpage: www.designvacation.com
Email: info@designvacation.com
Buchungs- und Servicehotline:
(+34) 928 18 50 39


Probably they hide from their victims and now tries another name so that the victims cannot find it on the Internet.
We put the new name here VOYAGER

Be continued!!!!

[shree1881]

I would like to say thanks to you that have posted your experiences with Design Vacations, which now operates under Lifestyle Holidays, which we at the moment are being victims off… You have helped us to stop this from going ahead but we have failed to cancel before cooling off period. My story starts from 24 February when we flew out to Gran Canaries. We were staying in San Augustine. On the 25 February we set out for a walk towards the beaches and we were stopped by someone who was handing out tickets. We were asked to scratch the cards and if their is a 1 Euro sign on the card you get a free T-shirt, If 2 Euro (sorry I can't remember the prize for the 2 Euro) and if 3 EURO then you win either a free holiday, 600 Euros or a Camcorder. My wife had the card with the three Euro signs and was told that she was very lucky and that their are only 3 of these cards out of 3000 that had the big prizes.

We were told in order to collect the prize we needed to go to Argeniguin which was about 15 minutes drive from San Augustine, and that they will provide a free taxi to get us their. While all this was going on A German tourist went past us and started saying things in German, but we were told by the tickets holders that this guy always talks rubbish, his on cocaine. He was still persuading us to go to Arguineguin and that we will spend max 90 minutes there to be shown around the 5 star hotel, and we will then be given the prize.

We decided since it was our first proper day on the Island and we had not planned anything for the day, to go along with this. We sat in the Taxi and it took us to Club Puerto Atlantico in Arguineguin. They took us to the terrace where we saw many customers being spoken to by individual team members. We were sat down and another member came over and spoke to us. They mentioned that they will take us around the resort for a show round, and then they came to the real point which was tax free holiday bookings. They were trying to sell us the fact that we can book tax free holidays from this company of theirs called "LIFESTYLE HOLIDAYS". The fact that booking holidays from outside the UK, from the canaries can save us lots of money as its tax free and that we will be paying less for more luxury e.g., our holiday for one week in the canaries by Apollo Travels booked through lastminute.com cost us £500.00 per couple and if we had booked through "LIFESTYLE HOLIDAYS" we would have only paid £600.00 between two couples. We were then shown a room of a 5 star luxury, and they said that these are the sort of facilities that we would get if we booked through them. They showed us how to do booking online on the internet, which showed prices of different destinations e.g. two weeks in Mexico in a four star resort would have been around £400 per couple. Prices for flight to India in the June/July season were £250 per person when if booked in the UK we would realistically be looking at £600 per person.

Everything seemed so genuine, the hotel, the internet, the five star accommodations. We were promised that we could get luxury of a four and five star for just paying 89.00 Euro per year and a one off joining fee and this will guarantee luxury holidays for low prices for the next 25 years. The catch was that we had to pay a joining fee of £6600! We were shocked with this but then when we talked amongst ourselves we decided that this one off fee was still worth paying for as we could use this company to book for our family and friends and take unlimited holidays a year for low prices for the next 25 years. They also told us that they are registered with IATA.

On the contract there was a cooling period of 7 days from the date we signed the contract. We decided to go ahead with the contract and put a deposit down for 3910 Euros. The rest we would pay once we got the funds available. However we were not able to access their website until we got the password which we would have received once the full payment was completed. We read through the contract and everything seemed clear and genuine still, and was happy to sign it. In total we ended up spending 6 hours with them. Before we left we were invited for dinner paid by them on any day of the week, which will also give us opportunity to ask any further questions.

On the 28 February 2007 we went back to Club Puerto Atlantica (again taxi was provided by them to get us there and back) Again everything seemed Genuine we asked further questions and they answered well. We were due to fly back on the 3 March at 18:45 from Las Palmas. We reached home at 01:00 in the morning. Basically our 7 days cancellation deadline was on the 3 March the day we were travelling back.

The next day on the 4 March 2007 I was talking about this holiday deal to my family and I was told by one member that they heard something about this being on Watchdog. I sort of panicked and went on the internet to search for any such thing. And then we learnt that this company had been operation under the name “Design Vacations Trust Resale� which had many complaints logged against them for fraudulency on the following websites:

However not a lot was mentioned under their current name “LIFE STYLE HOLIDAYS� The same people were running it “George Kanne�. We got on the phone to them straight away and told them of these complaints. We were told to write in to them to mention that we want to cancel the contract. Being the 8th day after signing the contract we were really worried that we will loose the money. After emailing them on the 9 March and sending the cancellation letter by recorded delivery to the following address: Life Style Holidays Limited, Calle Clavijo Y fajardo, 35120 Arguineguin, Gran Canaria, Espana.

A week later we still had not yet heard from them. My letter of cancellation was very basic. So on the 13 March we decided to write an email to them explaining the reasons for cancellations and giving them information on the website where they had complaints against them, we did this to get them to understand why we wanted to cancel. And we still received no reply.

On 26 March 2007 I received a letter from them asking for the rest of the amount, and that they have denied our cancellation request because our cooling of period had ended. I gave a call to their office and fortunately George Kanne answered the call. I mentioned that we sent him emails and that he did not reply, he denied that he received any e-mails from us. When I confirmed the email address that we sent it to, he re-confirmed back the same email address and asked where I got the email address from, which I replied from the internet where complaints were logged against him. On the 27 March I then faxed over to him with a covering letter all the emails and the letter that we had sent to him, and hoped for his reply once again.

On the 28 March 2007, I had called the Citizens Advise Bureau for advice and they mentioned that by rights Life Style Holidays have complete rights to asks for the rest of the money. This was the moment I felt drained out. I felt angry with myself that I was too gullible and that there are probably like me many people out there that may have got sucked in and that they could do nothing about it.

Obviously If I had know about the fraudulency, not just me but anyone would not go ahead with the contract. But even after signing the contract and then finding out about the fraudulency in what mind can anyone expect us to pay the remaining full amount. I wish their was a law that would protect consumers from signing contracts even after the cooling off period, especially having finding out that they have been under fraud watch. The only hope I have left is to speak to George Kaane and come to some sort of agreement… but I wish and hope that a lot more can be done to help get my money back that I have worked hard for and not just throw it away to fraudsters.

[Aeval]

Ladies and Gents from our Support group who are located in the UK - is someone able to comment on the legality of this kind of a contract?

[FW Admin]

Seems to me that it would be Spanish law that would be applicable here, since the contract was agreed with a Spanish (or Gibralter, or other country - no-one seems too sure) based company.

Although it looks very much like you have lost the initial deposit, I assume you live in the UK due to your mention of the Citizen's Advice Bureau. As such, I cannot see how you can be made to pay the balance of money allegedy owing to this company since you have not been given any services or goods for which you can be billed.

On the 28 March 2007, I had called the Citizens Advise Bureau for advice and they mentioned that by rights Life Style Holidays have complete rights to asks for the rest of the money.
I would definitely, without question, get a second opinion on that advice. UK Law does not operate in this manner, as basic contract law stipulates that payment must be made for goods or services received. Any clause in a contract that states moneys must be paid in full "no matter what" is unenforcable by law and cannot be upheld under any circumstances.

I have checked the website: http://www.lifestylevacation.net but unfortunately it doesn't seem to like going beyond the first page. It may be a temporary glitch. The domain WHOIS details are as follows:

Registrant:
Taylor, Jeremy
Syntax International
9 Sylvan Close
Limpsfield
Oxted, Surrey RH8 0DX
UK

Domain Name: LIFESTYLEVACATION.NET

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Taylor, Jeremy Jeremy@IOWebHosting.com
Syntax International
9 Sylvan Close
Limpsfield
Oxted, Surrey RH8 0DX
UK
+44-7801-932292


Record expires on 25-Jul-2009.
Record created on 25-Jul-2006.
Database last updated on 28-Mar-2007 12:05:19 EDT.

Domain servers in listed order:

NS1.OPENHOSTS.COM
NS2.OPENHOSTS.COM
Although I'm not sure how this individual is tied into the company.

Personally I would wait until you receive a letter from their lawyers, then you can take that to your own to receive their advice. I would suggest that you have more than enough grounds for a counter-claim (should it proceed to a UK based civil court) and you may even get an order to return your deposit. But I certainly wouldn't do anything until you receive a legal request for the balance.

[Frazzle]

I'm not a lawyer, so take the following with a grain of salt.

Since the contract was signed in Gran Canaria which is part of Spain, I'd say that Spanish law will apply.

My feeling is that the contract is practically unenforceable. It will cost more for them to win a case in court than they will get out of it. Even if they were to win in a Spanish court, they still can't get any money out of you if you don't go to Spain.

Unfortunately, probably the same goes for you trying to get your deposit refunded. You would have to make a case for it in a Spanish court, which is going to be expensive. Chances are that by the time you win (assuming you do win), the company will have been shut down and the money disappeared.

I agree with FW Admin -- wait to hear from their lawyer, and then get one of your own.

[Peter van Huys]

They are operating under a new name and website: http://www.lifestylevacation.net

Reported by Angel in the Dutch forum (http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/showthread.php?p=29644#post29644). Thank you Angel!

[shree1881]

Hi,

Thank you for those that have given advice. Just to shed some light on those that have been victims, we contacted the Citizens Advise bureau again as you advised, and explained our situation, and they then advised us to speak to our credit card company which was Halifax. Halifax had told us to write in and send all the correspondance that we had sent to Life Style Holidays. They then looked into the correspodance and acknowlaged that despite us writing constantly to Life Style Holidays they didnt reply back to us.

Halifax at the end of April wrote back to us explaining that our account will be re-credited of the amount taken, and they will wirte to Lifestyle, for which Life Style Holidays will have 45 days to reply back to us, if they reply to halifax then they will then debit the money back. Till this date Halifax had not heared from them and had written back to us on Friday 8 June 2007 saying that our money will remain credited and that we no longer had to worry. They will claim the money back from their side.

So in the end without having lawyers involved or any court cases we were able to get full refund of our money with the help of Halifax. So for anyone out there in a simular situation please contact your creidt card company to see if they can help in anyway. This for me is a great relief and im stil till today cant believe that I got all the money back without further expenses.

[Aeval]

Shree,

I am so happy to hear that you got your money back! :thumbup:

Thank you for coming back and advising us and everyone else who was scammed by those people that there is an easy and cost-free way of getting the money back.

:thumbup:

[t1999]

I would like to say thanks to you that have posted your experiences with Design Vacations, which now operates under Lifestyle Holidays, which we at the moment are being victims off… You have helped us to stop this from going ahead but we have failed to cancel before cooling off period. My story starts from 24 February when we flew out to Gran Canaries. We were staying in San Augustine. On the 25 February we set out for a walk towards the beaches and we were stopped by someone who was handing out tickets. We were asked to scratch the cards and if their is a 1 Euro sign on the card you get a free T-shirt, If 2 Euro (sorry I can't remember the prize for the 2 Euro) and if 3 EURO then you win either a free holiday, 600 Euros or a Camcorder. My wife had the card with the three Euro signs and was told that she was very lucky and that their are only 3 of these cards out of 3000 that had the big prizes.

We were told in order to collect the prize we needed to go to Argeniguin which was about 15 minutes drive from San Augustine, and that they will provide a free taxi to get us their. While all this was going on A German tourist went past us and started saying things in German, but we were told by the tickets holders that this guy always talks rubbish, his on cocaine. He was still persuading us to go to Arguineguin and that we will spend max 90 minutes there to be shown around the 5 star hotel, and we will then be given the prize.

We decided since it was our first proper day on the Island and we had not planned anything for the day, to go along with this. We sat in the Taxi and it took us to Club Puerto Atlantico in Arguineguin. They took us to the terrace where we saw many customers being spoken to by individual team members. We were sat down and another member came over and spoke to us. They mentioned that they will take us around the resort for a show round, and then they came to the real point which was tax free holiday bookings. They were trying to sell us the fact that we can book tax free holidays from this company of theirs called "LIFESTYLE HOLIDAYS". The fact that booking holidays from outside the UK, from the canaries can save us lots of money as its tax free and that we will be paying less for more luxury e.g., our holiday for one week in the canaries by Apollo Travels booked through lastminute.com cost us £500.00 per couple and if we had booked through "LIFESTYLE HOLIDAYS" we would have only paid £600.00 between two couples. We were then shown a room of a 5 star luxury, and they said that these are the sort of facilities that we would get if we booked through them. They showed us how to do booking online on the internet, which showed prices of different destinations e.g. two weeks in Mexico in a four star resort would have been around £400 per couple. Prices for flight to India in the June/July season were £250 per person when if booked in the UK we would realistically be looking at £600 per person.

Everything seemed so genuine, the hotel, the internet, the five star accommodations. We were promised that we could get luxury of a four and five star for just paying 89.00 Euro per year and a one off joining fee and this will guarantee luxury holidays for low prices for the next 25 years. The catch was that we had to pay a joining fee of £6600! We were shocked with this but then when we talked amongst ourselves we decided that this one off fee was still worth paying for as we could use this company to book for our family and friends and take unlimited holidays a year for low prices for the next 25 years. They also told us that they are registered with IATA.

On the contract there was a cooling period of 7 days from the date we signed the contract. We decided to go ahead with the contract and put a deposit down for 3910 Euros. The rest we would pay once we got the funds available. However we were not able to access their website until we got the password which we would have received once the full payment was completed. We read through the contract and everything seemed clear and genuine still, and was happy to sign it. In total we ended up spending 6 hours with them. Before we left we were invited for dinner paid by them on any day of the week, which will also give us opportunity to ask any further questions.

On the 28 February 2007 we went back to Club Puerto Atlantica (again taxi was provided by them to get us there and back) Again everything seemed Genuine we asked further questions and they answered well. We were due to fly back on the 3 March at 18:45 from Las Palmas. We reached home at 01:00 in the morning. Basically our 7 days cancellation deadline was on the 3 March the day we were travelling back.

The next day on the 4 March 2007 I was talking about this holiday deal to my family and I was told by one member that they heard something about this being on Watchdog. I sort of panicked and went on the internet to search for any such thing. And then we learnt that this company had been operation under the name “Design Vacations Trust Resale� which had many complaints logged against them for fraudulency on the following websites:

However not a lot was mentioned under their current name “LIFE STYLE HOLIDAYS� The same people were running it “George Kanne�. We got on the phone to them straight away and told them of these complaints. We were told to write in to them to mention that we want to cancel the contract. Being the 8th day after signing the contract we were really worried that we will loose the money. After emailing them on the 9 March and sending the cancellation letter by recorded delivery to the following address: Life Style Holidays Limited, Calle Clavijo Y fajardo, 35120 Arguineguin, Gran Canaria, Espana.

A week later we still had not yet heard from them. My letter of cancellation was very basic. So on the 13 March we decided to write an email to them explaining the reasons for cancellations and giving them information on the website where they had complaints against them, we did this to get them to understand why we wanted to cancel. And we still received no reply.

On 26 March 2007 I received a letter from them asking for the rest of the amount, and that they have denied our cancellation request because our cooling of period had ended. I gave a call to their office and fortunately George Kanne answered the call. I mentioned that we sent him emails and that he did not reply, he denied that he received any e-mails from us. When I confirmed the email address that we sent it to, he re-confirmed back the same email address and asked where I got the email address from, which I replied from the internet where complaints were logged against him. On the 27 March I then faxed over to him with a covering letter all the emails and the letter that we had sent to him, and hoped for his reply once again.

On the 28 March 2007, I had called the Citizens Advise Bureau for advice and they mentioned that by rights Life Style Holidays have complete rights to asks for the rest of the money. This was the moment I felt drained out. I felt angry with myself that I was too gullible and that there are probably like me many people out there that may have got sucked in and that they could do nothing about it.

Obviously If I had know about the fraudulency, not just me but anyone would not go ahead with the contract. But even after signing the contract and then finding out about the fraudulency in what mind can anyone expect us to pay the remaining full amount. I wish their was a law that would protect consumers from signing contracts even after the cooling off period, especially having finding out that they have been under fraud watch. The only hope I have left is to speak to George Kaane and come to some sort of agreement… but I wish and hope that a lot more can be done to help get my money back that I have worked hard for and not just throw it away to fraudsters.
Sorry, it was me who worked there, i left the company one week later after i found out they were operating illegally, glad you got your money back. They ripped me off too Tim

[bottomldon]

i have just paid www.lifestylevaction (http://www.lifestylevaction) money after a lawyer of theres wrote to us because we had not paid them i carnt believe what im looking at now (a con)they are still based in gran canaria does that mean we have to now pay 4 a solicitor which i dont have the money 4 from donna send me a text if you want at <removed - please do not post personal email addresses on open forums as these may be harvested by spam bots>

[newbe]

my motherinlaw and fatherinlaw also got scamed by lifestylevacation on hols.
but thanks to this site they only got hit with a £400 deposit. as this is all they paid and were going to pay 360 a month for 10 months. I read the contract for them when they got home and must admit could not find any fault with it. I decided to check the internet and site clearly put us in the picture and saved us 3600.

thankout to all