Beachcomber International Resort Ltd files $750k claim against Exit Timeshare Now Pty Ltd, and director Mark Allison
A major Gold Coast timeshare resort has launched a $750,000 lawsuit against a company accused of ‘enticing’ timeshare owners to stop paying their fees and get out of their contracts.
GREG STOLZ, The Courier-Mail | September 30, 2020 2:02pm
A major Gold Coast timeshare resort has launched a $750,000 lawsuit against a company accused of ‘enticing’ timeshare owners to stop paying their fees and get out of their contracts. Beachcomber International Resort Ltd has filed a claim against Exit Timeshare Now Pty Ltd, and its director Mark Allison, in Southport District Court. Beachcomber, which operates a Coolangatta resort of the same name, alleges 76 timeshare owners have failed to pay almost $130,000 in fees since signing up with Exit Timeshare Now. The claim states ETN makes ‘enticement representations’ on its website, including that ‘our Exit Timeshare team will get you out of your timeshare contract’ and ‘100 per cent success rate ... we are experts in the field’.
Beachcomber alleges ETN provides advice and advocacy services ‘to persons who seek, or have sought to extricate themselves from obligations to make financial contributions in respect of timeshare schemes’. It claims each ETN contract stipulated that defaulting owners were ‘not to pay any service or body corporate levies or other levies or payments that are payable by you to the timeshare operator or timeshare scheme’. The claim alleges that ETN and Mr Allison knew that defaulting timeshare members were contractually obliged to pay levies and other fees but ‘intentionally procured’ them to breach their obligation and would continue to do so. Beachcomber claims defaulting members have failed to pay about $22,000 in fees in 2018, $52,000 in 2019 and $55,000 this year.
It accuses ETN of misleading or deceptive conduct, alleging that no employees or officers providing advice and advocacy are lawyers. Beachcomber is seeking a maximum of $750,000 in damages and an injunction restraining ETN and Mr Allison from ‘advising or encouraging’ the resort’s owners to not pay fees.
It also wants a court order restraining the ETN and Mr Allison from making ‘enticement representations’.
Source: GREG STOLZ, The Courier-Mail