The new normal
On the 5th March, I met with Chris Emmins director and co-founder of KwikChex in Westminster, for a debrief after his meeting with BEIS,(the Government Department for Business Enterprise and Industrial Strategy), which has oversight of consumer issues including timeshare, and has a direct line into the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority), which is responsible for licensing and controlling the claims management companies, since they were transferred from the Ministry of Justice. At that time in the UK, we were still at the “wash your hands frequently” stage of the COVID-19 crisis and social distancing was as yet not the norm. I do...
Coming of age?
It was in February 1998, that OTE was set up inLondon,(the office was moved to Brussels four years later)Brussels, and this year sees the organisation in its 21styear of existence – now as RDO. I think the only two staff members who have been there since the beginning are Maria Rodriguez, who worked for ANETC and Sue McNicol, who was working for the Timeshare Council, both then became Chapters of OTE. Having originally sat on the Board of the Timeshare Council as FNTC representative, it is hard to remember what conditions were like for the industry at that time and...
Brexit – Unemployable!
Unemployable - so this is where Brexit is taking us! Theresa May announced at the Conservative Party Conference last week, that “taking back control” after Brexit would mean that the UK would have control over who came here to work and “low skilled” workers, whether from the EU or elsewhere, who earn less than £50,000 would not be allowed entry. Setting aside the fact that it is highly likely that whatever limits the UK Government decides to put on EU workers seeking to come here, will be mirrored by the EU, so if you are a UK national and “low skilled”...
Brexit – What has happened to us?
We have a close neighbour who lives some three doors down from us. She is Austrian by birth but has lived here with her husband for some thirty years. She is probably in her early 70’s but last week, was clearly worried as she asked me if I thought she would have to leave the country once the Brexit negotiations were concluded. I did my best to reassure her that after all this time she would most certainly be welcome to stay I was listening to BBC Radio 4’s news programme at 10.00 last night (such a British thing to do whilst...
On BBC bias woes and timeshare
I like to think that I have always been a firm defender of the BBC and its independence and objectivity. But I must say I’m having second thoughts after my experience when I was asked to go on its “BBC5 Live Investigates” on the morning of Sunday 13th March. Admittedly the previous item overran its time slot and our scheduled 30 minute piece on the “- problems of timeshare perpetuity (sic) contracts and owners’ inability to exit” was reduced to about 20 minutes. But I still don’t believe this entitled the producer and presenter to devote some 17 of those 20 minutes...
Has It Been An Annus Horribilis?
For those not latin scholars - and I include myself in this category (though not our youngest who got a B in his A2 Latin – should have been an A but that’s another story), this was the really bad year referred to by Queen Elizabeth 11nd, when she referred to 1992, the year three of her children were either divorced and/or separated ,including Princess Diana and Prince Charles and Windsor Castle had a serious fire. Not sure our own industry’s year has been quite such an annus horribilis, but I am referring here principally to the three Supreme Court rulings...
United We Stand, Divided We Fall…….
The full quote is “United we stand, divided we fall” and surprisingly it is originally attributed to Aesop of the fables fame in his fable “The four oxen and the lion” written in the 6th Century BC. I hit on this title today as I was walking our retriever (Falco – named after a Roman Detective whose books are set by Lindsey Davis in the time of the Emperor Vespasian), he doesn’t have Falco’s intelligence needless to say – well he wouldn’t being a retriever – “an intelligent retriever” is an oxymoron after all. I hit upon this title gazing...
Are We Becoming Today’s Thief Takers?
It is no secret that RDO has been battling with the on-line fraudsters over the past few years – fraudsters who damage the reputation of the industry, leave consumers cheated out of their money and legitimate developers losing valued owners who are poached/tempted by offers that never come to fruition. Before the solicitors representing some of these organisations start reaching for their writs in contemplation of issuing defamation proceedings, let me make it clear that I have no intention here of naming any individual organization at this stage. Not for fear of being sued – RDO has amassed ample evidence against...
The Games Afoot……
As Sherlock Holmes was fond of telling Watson before embarking on his next adventure. The summer break is over for most of us and here in the UK we have had our last bank holiday before Christmas – where does the year go! It’s a time for renewal – stiffening the sinews and all that (and in our case recovering from a 5 hour traffic jam on the A6 in France – all due to the fact they had failed to take in some cones once they had knocked off from work at 5 pm!) – queue a mad rush...
Bit Early For The Silly Season…..
Apologies if this is a bit UK centric, but for those who are not aware, the last 2/3 weeks of August were and I believe still are, what we call “the silly season” – most politicians are away on holiday, so there is little news coming from Government and with Parliament in recess there is little or no gossip for the journalists to write about. They therefore have to resort to daft stories along the lines of (“ Freddie Starr ate my hamster”) or worse. The only reason I refer to this is that it would appear the silly season has...