No stopping ECC as international clams firm soars past major business milestone
The beginning. Timeshare
European Consumer Claims (ECC) incorporated in June of 2016, in response to decades of timeshare consumer abuse.
Since the 1980s timeshare has had a shocking and arguably well deserved reputation. Holidaymakers on the Spanish Costas and Islas were harassed by armies of touts, determined to corral them to sales presentations. Free gifts of duty free cigarettes and spirits, car hire, waterpark tickets and even free holidays were showered liberally on beach-going Brits (and other nationalities too) in return for 90 minutes of their time. And like the mouse who doesn’t realise the cheese isn’t free, we all fell for it.
Timeshare sales presentations were high pressure, often completely dishonest and regularly financially devastating to the high percentage of people who signed up.
Many resorts were run by gangsters who got very rich from the operations. From 1999 onwards Spain enacted laws to protect tourists, and by extension the country’s economy. The resorts by and large ignored the laws. It proved too complex for individual victims to sue them. ECC incorporated to handle the process and claim financial compensation.
Success was swift and consistent. Judges handed down decision after decision in favour of mis-sold clients. Timeshare giant after giant fell into liquidation or administration.
ECC has already secured tens of millions of pounds in compensation awards, and the fight continues with new timeshare clients seeking our help every day.
Holiday parks
By the early 2020s ECC was operating from a head office in Henley-on-Thames, its main administration hub in the south of Spain and offices in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
In 2024, ECC realised they had the resources and skillset to broaden their corporate mission. Holiday park consumer abuse had been hitting the media headlines and the issues were similar to those faced by timeshare victims.
The Holiday Park Advice Centre was formed as a subdivision of ECC, and began challenging rogue holiday park operators, with comparable levels of success to those already achieved on behalf of mis-sold timeshare clients. Claims can often take well over a year but early victories have already been achieved with out of court settlements. Generally these are protected by NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement), but some clients have been able to give video testimonials detailing their experience with ECC.
Even more recently an ECC client was delighted with a high court win of £180,000, achieved by ECC’s legal partners against an independent park.
With a similar amount of Brits owning holiday park units as own timeshares (around 400,000), ECC is receiving a huge amount of enquiries from people who have lost money to these businesses.
Retirement community properties
The latest rogue operators targeted by ECC have been retirement community property developers. The consumer abuses have again been widely covered by UK media and the damage is often even greater than that of timeshare and holiday park mis-selling.
Retirement community scandals are particularly sinister. Timeshare and holiday parks are based on leisure, but retirement community developers promise to safeguard our vulnerable loved ones.
When the elderly lose their life savings to the very companies we entrusted with their safety and wellbeing the nation sits up and pays attention.
All of us will be old one day. Most of us are likely to need help at some point.
This is not a ‘someone else’ problem.
It is early days for ECC’s Retirement Property Advice Centre but already indications are that a lot of money is going to be awarded to our clients by the courts and via negotiated settlements.
The next 10 years?
Currently ECC employ 150 highly trained staff and manage a claims portfolio of over £100 million. The future is likely to include even more expansion according to CEO and consumer expert Greg Wilson.
“Something we can sadly always rely on is individual and corporate greed,” notes Wilson. “Of course the majority of companies operate fairly and within the law but there will always be a need for unofficial arbitrators like ECC.
“Laws are constantly evolving to protect the public, but its an arms race with unscrupulous businesses determined to make easy money by skirting the edge of the law and sometimes crossing the line entirely.
“In the next ten years we may still be dealing with the same types of consumer abuse, or there may be entirely new areas that we can’t yet imagine in 2026. It is not a matter of stamping out mis-selling as a whole, rather we have to continuously identify and cut off each new head of the Hydra.
“What we can promise is that ECC will always be there to support people who have been duped, mis-sold or unfairly treated.
“Some areas of business have dedicated consumer protection, but even where specific statutes do not already exist, we have general purpose legislation like the Consumer Rights Act (CRA) which legally enforces that goods and services must be as described and fit for purpose.
“The CRA is one of the instruments our legal partners use to pursue redress for our clients, but there are many different paths open to us, including direct negotiation and out of court settlements.
“The last ten years have been a meteoric rise for ECC. But we really are just getting started. There is a wilderness of consumer abuse out there and we are the firm to challenge it.”