Pitkä, mutta opettavainen tarina noista tuputuksista, joihin törmää lomakohteiden kaduilla, tällä kertaa ex-työntekijän kertomana.
Meidät houkuteltiin Club Greece:n lomaosake-esittelyyn, valehtelemalla että kun käymme uuden hotellin esittelykierroksella max 45min, saamme luvatun palkinnon.
Esittelykierros osoittautui lomaosakepakkomyynti tapahtumaksi, joka voi venyä yli 3 tuntiseksi,
meille riitti vähempi;)
Eli ei varmaan kannata myöskään pilata lomaansa, tuolla "ilmaisella" Gopher Travelsin "lahjakortilla", joka on jatkokusetus.
Ex_Employee 15-12-2006 01:49 PM
Joined: 15 Dec 2006
Posts: 1
As you can tell by my name I'm an ex-employee of Club Greece. Just to make you aware it's not just the customers that they sell a raw deal too.
When I saw an add in the paper advising me that there was work available in Greece and they were recruiting for an open day in May of 2005 I thought what do I have to loose?
The advert was offering positions as ‘Holiday reps'
I called the number and spoke to a man called Glenn. He advised me that it wasn't the qualifications that people had but the way that they were with the general public, so after a 3 minute conversation I was invited to go along to an open day in The Marriott hotel. There were 46 people who managed to get past the initial telephone interview stage. (Yes I know young and gullible)
Anyway, the open day just consisted of them advising us that there would be just 5 people who they could take with them to set off into the sun. They actually led us through a 2 hour presentation of what I thought was telling us about the company, at which point I found out was just the standard presentation that they read off to sell time share.
The people who actually get the positions with them are the people who believe in them the most, unfortunately for me I was one of them. I was advised that all I would need to do would be to pay for a flight and that they would give me free accommodation for the season. They also said that wages would be discussed when we were in Greece. However I wanted it so much I didn't even question it. They did advise me though that pay would be in arrears and I would need a sum of £200 to last me until the first pay check would clear, along with this they also advised that money in Greece that was earned was tax free for the employee and that the company would pay necessary taxes etc. To which point on arrival in Greece and registering with the tax office, they lied about my wages so they wouldn't need to pay as much tax and said that I was a cleaner!
Anyway on arrival in Rhodes airport I found that there were only 3 other people who had come from the same location as me. On arrival at apartments that we were situated in then there were 9 other new employees. Obviously we were all in a foreign country and made close bonds very quickly.
The next day there was when we actually started the training to work for Club Greece. No wages were discussed, everyone was care free and not at all concerned about anything as we were all starting new lives in a foreign country, it was very exciting.
The training we were told would last initially 2 weeks only in the building for 3 hours a day! Of course we were all over the moon with that factor.
Anyway the so called training was basically teaching you the timeshare presentation word for word, then we all realised that we weren't there to be holiday reps but sales people selling timeshare!
Within 2 days of this I (along with others) expressed my concern about this, however we were all made to believe that we were genuinely helping people not selling them something that they didn't want. I know this may sound kind of drastic but in a way (not to make excuses) the majority of us felt so vulnerable and as if we needed to believe it ourselves, so the training commenced.
We were shown how to build rapport with people, and their sales techniques, i.e.; third party stories – Taking clients around and chatting to them, then advising them that they could go somewhere that you had already been and just make up stories about how fantastic it was and make people actually ‘feel' the wind running through their hair or the sun beaming down on them and just painting a fantastic picture of the idealistic holiday, when realistically you hadn't gone there, it was a story you found on the internet.
We then discovered there was no basic salary, we worked on a commission only pay. The commission was simple 10% of whatever it is that you sell, so out of the standard £3000 that people are charged then you would make £300, plus you could get a bonus of about 100 euros the next day.
I only took 1 family on the presentation and being completely honest I was told that if the presentation didn't last 3 hours then I would be fined 200 euros! So the family that I took around instead of roping them into spending £3000 I was just completely honest with them and although showing them around the hotel etc I didn't make any effort at all and built a genuine rapport with them and took them out to lunch and advised them actually NOT to go ahead and as long as I didn't get fined then I was happy.
The company after that ‘presentation' could see that I wasn't happy with my role there so I moved to an OPC role (Outside Personal Contact), so I turned into 1 of those irritating people on the street who drag you into a taxi and force you into a presentation. I quickly learnt how the scratch cards worked but had no option but too stay as I was in a foreign country and by now my money had run out and I needed to make some money even if just to feed myself.
Anyway 2 weeks of this and I thought I had gone on for long enough but I eventually left the company, obviously they were very unhappy about this as someone who knows all of their inside tricks can make a lot of trouble for the company. I had friends there and was unable to get home and despite the company earlier promising to pay for me to get home if it didn't workout, but they refused and I was left to my own devices to try and get a way home. I was told that as I didn't work for the company anymore then I was an in Greece as an ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT! Obviously I was very scared by this and they completely took advantage of the situation.
All of the friends I had made were advised that they weren't allowed to speak to me so we had secret meetings on the beach and hide to talk to the few friends that were still left in that country who didn't go home. Eventually with thanks to friends and family they got the money together to get me a ticket home.
Anyway that's my traumatic ordeal. Just to make you aware of how a few ‘scams' of the company work though.
• Scratch cards
There are 2 scratch cards used
1) On Top
2) Underneath
When you see a family or a couple then you go over and talk to them, they advise talking to the women first, you always give the scratch card to the woman last though, this card comes from the bottom of your cards. You give the top scratch card to the man and get him to scratch it first, in which case he will scratch and reveal 2 palm trees and normally an X. Then you say
‘Oh never mind, you have won a T-Shirt you can pick this up at the tourist information'
Then you encourage the woman to scratch the card and they always say
‘I have 3 palm trees, what's that?'
To which you reply very excitedly
‘WOW! I can't believe this! You just won me 50 Euros! That prize always goes to the Germans! I can't believe this, you've wont the star prize! All you need to do is go and pick it up! I can put you in a taxi free of charge to pick it up'
Obviously you generalise it more than that but that's how it works.
So what's the difference between the cards?
The cards on the top have 2 full stops on them this indicates a loosing card, and the cards underneath (the winning cards) have 3 full stops instead.
• Lucky Bags
You will find with these that they are just a basic poly pocket that you use in everyday office work but prettied up a bit with flyers and brochures either side of it. The only difference is that there is a piece of card in the plastic wallet that acts as a divider between both halves. On 1 side you have the loosing dips and the other you have the winning dips, just by change of hand then you can change the direction of the cardboard indicating which yet again with a slight of hand you can determine which dip you will give to each party.
• The prize
If you go ahead after the presentation and buy the holiday you will always win an alarm clock/beach radio.
If you don't buy then you will win a holiday that's free and all you have to do is pay for the flights! Sounds good doesn't it. What they fail to tell you is that for the week you have the holiday every single day even when you are in your room you're constantly put under strain by their high pressure sales agents to buy into timeshare!
I know that this has been a very long winded post but I just though that I should make everyone aware that it's not only customers that get hurt and feel trapped by this company.
Meidät houkuteltiin Club Greece:n lomaosake-esittelyyn, valehtelemalla että kun käymme uuden hotellin esittelykierroksella max 45min, saamme luvatun palkinnon.
Esittelykierros osoittautui lomaosakepakkomyynti tapahtumaksi, joka voi venyä yli 3 tuntiseksi,
meille riitti vähempi;)
Eli ei varmaan kannata myöskään pilata lomaansa, tuolla "ilmaisella" Gopher Travelsin "lahjakortilla", joka on jatkokusetus.
Ex_Employee 15-12-2006 01:49 PM
Joined: 15 Dec 2006
Posts: 1
As you can tell by my name I'm an ex-employee of Club Greece. Just to make you aware it's not just the customers that they sell a raw deal too.
When I saw an add in the paper advising me that there was work available in Greece and they were recruiting for an open day in May of 2005 I thought what do I have to loose?
The advert was offering positions as ‘Holiday reps'
I called the number and spoke to a man called Glenn. He advised me that it wasn't the qualifications that people had but the way that they were with the general public, so after a 3 minute conversation I was invited to go along to an open day in The Marriott hotel. There were 46 people who managed to get past the initial telephone interview stage. (Yes I know young and gullible)
Anyway, the open day just consisted of them advising us that there would be just 5 people who they could take with them to set off into the sun. They actually led us through a 2 hour presentation of what I thought was telling us about the company, at which point I found out was just the standard presentation that they read off to sell time share.
The people who actually get the positions with them are the people who believe in them the most, unfortunately for me I was one of them. I was advised that all I would need to do would be to pay for a flight and that they would give me free accommodation for the season. They also said that wages would be discussed when we were in Greece. However I wanted it so much I didn't even question it. They did advise me though that pay would be in arrears and I would need a sum of £200 to last me until the first pay check would clear, along with this they also advised that money in Greece that was earned was tax free for the employee and that the company would pay necessary taxes etc. To which point on arrival in Greece and registering with the tax office, they lied about my wages so they wouldn't need to pay as much tax and said that I was a cleaner!
Anyway on arrival in Rhodes airport I found that there were only 3 other people who had come from the same location as me. On arrival at apartments that we were situated in then there were 9 other new employees. Obviously we were all in a foreign country and made close bonds very quickly.
The next day there was when we actually started the training to work for Club Greece. No wages were discussed, everyone was care free and not at all concerned about anything as we were all starting new lives in a foreign country, it was very exciting.
The training we were told would last initially 2 weeks only in the building for 3 hours a day! Of course we were all over the moon with that factor.
Anyway the so called training was basically teaching you the timeshare presentation word for word, then we all realised that we weren't there to be holiday reps but sales people selling timeshare!
Within 2 days of this I (along with others) expressed my concern about this, however we were all made to believe that we were genuinely helping people not selling them something that they didn't want. I know this may sound kind of drastic but in a way (not to make excuses) the majority of us felt so vulnerable and as if we needed to believe it ourselves, so the training commenced.
We were shown how to build rapport with people, and their sales techniques, i.e.; third party stories – Taking clients around and chatting to them, then advising them that they could go somewhere that you had already been and just make up stories about how fantastic it was and make people actually ‘feel' the wind running through their hair or the sun beaming down on them and just painting a fantastic picture of the idealistic holiday, when realistically you hadn't gone there, it was a story you found on the internet.
We then discovered there was no basic salary, we worked on a commission only pay. The commission was simple 10% of whatever it is that you sell, so out of the standard £3000 that people are charged then you would make £300, plus you could get a bonus of about 100 euros the next day.
I only took 1 family on the presentation and being completely honest I was told that if the presentation didn't last 3 hours then I would be fined 200 euros! So the family that I took around instead of roping them into spending £3000 I was just completely honest with them and although showing them around the hotel etc I didn't make any effort at all and built a genuine rapport with them and took them out to lunch and advised them actually NOT to go ahead and as long as I didn't get fined then I was happy.
The company after that ‘presentation' could see that I wasn't happy with my role there so I moved to an OPC role (Outside Personal Contact), so I turned into 1 of those irritating people on the street who drag you into a taxi and force you into a presentation. I quickly learnt how the scratch cards worked but had no option but too stay as I was in a foreign country and by now my money had run out and I needed to make some money even if just to feed myself.
Anyway 2 weeks of this and I thought I had gone on for long enough but I eventually left the company, obviously they were very unhappy about this as someone who knows all of their inside tricks can make a lot of trouble for the company. I had friends there and was unable to get home and despite the company earlier promising to pay for me to get home if it didn't workout, but they refused and I was left to my own devices to try and get a way home. I was told that as I didn't work for the company anymore then I was an in Greece as an ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT! Obviously I was very scared by this and they completely took advantage of the situation.
All of the friends I had made were advised that they weren't allowed to speak to me so we had secret meetings on the beach and hide to talk to the few friends that were still left in that country who didn't go home. Eventually with thanks to friends and family they got the money together to get me a ticket home.
Anyway that's my traumatic ordeal. Just to make you aware of how a few ‘scams' of the company work though.
• Scratch cards
There are 2 scratch cards used
1) On Top
2) Underneath
When you see a family or a couple then you go over and talk to them, they advise talking to the women first, you always give the scratch card to the woman last though, this card comes from the bottom of your cards. You give the top scratch card to the man and get him to scratch it first, in which case he will scratch and reveal 2 palm trees and normally an X. Then you say
‘Oh never mind, you have won a T-Shirt you can pick this up at the tourist information'
Then you encourage the woman to scratch the card and they always say
‘I have 3 palm trees, what's that?'
To which you reply very excitedly
‘WOW! I can't believe this! You just won me 50 Euros! That prize always goes to the Germans! I can't believe this, you've wont the star prize! All you need to do is go and pick it up! I can put you in a taxi free of charge to pick it up'
Obviously you generalise it more than that but that's how it works.
So what's the difference between the cards?
The cards on the top have 2 full stops on them this indicates a loosing card, and the cards underneath (the winning cards) have 3 full stops instead.
• Lucky Bags
You will find with these that they are just a basic poly pocket that you use in everyday office work but prettied up a bit with flyers and brochures either side of it. The only difference is that there is a piece of card in the plastic wallet that acts as a divider between both halves. On 1 side you have the loosing dips and the other you have the winning dips, just by change of hand then you can change the direction of the cardboard indicating which yet again with a slight of hand you can determine which dip you will give to each party.
• The prize
If you go ahead after the presentation and buy the holiday you will always win an alarm clock/beach radio.
If you don't buy then you will win a holiday that's free and all you have to do is pay for the flights! Sounds good doesn't it. What they fail to tell you is that for the week you have the holiday every single day even when you are in your room you're constantly put under strain by their high pressure sales agents to buy into timeshare!
I know that this has been a very long winded post but I just though that I should make everyone aware that it's not only customers that get hurt and feel trapped by this company.
Vastaukset 5
Vanhimmat
Unohtui tosiaan laittaa linkki, missä on tuosta varsinaisesta lomaoikeus-kusetuksesta ja Club Greecesta asiaa.
http://forum.holidaywatchdog.com/Timeshare-&-Holiday-Clubs-Club-Greece-Thread-585.html
Vitsi mikä ruikutus! Itse myin Kreikassa lomaosakkeita kolme vuotta erittäin hyvällä menestyksellä!
Palkka oli tietysti täysin provisiopalkka, mutta hyvälle myyjälle tuli hyvä liksa. Itse kuuluin näihin huippumyyjiin, ansioita en kerro, koska niihin ei usko kukaan muu kuin toinen lomaosakemyyjä. Mutta Suomeen palatessani oli asuntorahat kassissa.
No kerro nyt sit samalla et onko se kusetusta vai ei?
Missäpäin olit myymässä? Ja minä vuosina?
Yks Lapin poro oli kova poika kertomaan satuja 1998 Kreetalla. Puhui täyttä potaskaa, ilmaiset rantatuolit ja ilmastoidut autot hakevat lentokentältä jne. Sen jälkeen sitä tyyppiä ei ole näkynyt, siirtyi kuulemma Rodokselle.
Yks T... oli taas Kreetalla 2005.
Osuinko oikeaan jommassa kummassa? (Tuskin tulee vastausta)
Ostettiin hellehoureessa 3 lomaviikkoa Rhodoksella viime viikolla. Viikkoja myi meille Reima joka kyllä taitaa olla se Lapin liukaskieli. Samat valheet puhui kuljetuksista ja ilmeisesti rantatuoleista.
Tietääkö kukaan saako kauppaa mitenkään purettua (tehty neljä päivää sitten)? Myyjä kehui 90e lentojen onnistuvan helposti, viidelle lentojen hinnat menopaluu näyttävät lomaviikon maksun lisäksi (1/3 koko paketin hinnasta) tulevan paljon kalliimmaksi kuin sama huone Finmatkojen kautta.
Tietääkö kukaan jos on neljälle lomahuoneisto voiko sinne tulla viides 2v. lapsi pinnasängyssä? Reima sanoi että viides voi olla ekallakin viikolla, mutta hotellin varaukseen ei saa viittä tällaiseen huoneeseen.