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European Consumer Claims privacy policy for the Timeshare Release website

Our Privacy Statement for European Consumer Claims (ECC) websites

At European Consumer Claims your privacy is really important to us, and we understand how important it is to you. Our aim is to be as clear and open as possible about what we do and why we do it. ECC is committed to the online privacy of all its users.

This Privacy Policy regulates the use by ECC and its partner companies of the information you provide when using ECC websites.

Personal Information We Collect

To be able to provide our services, we have to collect certain information from you. As part of this, you are required to give your contact information. You can change your details at any time by getting in touch with us at privacy@ecc-eu.com

Personal information

  • contact details such as name, email address, postal address and telephone number
  • details of any other persons included on any timeshare contracts and the relationship to you as a contract holder
  • identification information such as your date of birth
  • information relevant to timeshare contracts in order to process a claim such as details about your purchase agreement, timeshare resort, proof of payment, upgrades, maintenance fee bills
  • information obtained through our use of cookies.
  • your marketing preferences

How We Use Your Personal Information

We use the information given to us by you to provide the service you request from us in the way that is set out in this privacy policy. Our main uses of your information are to assist you with your enquiries as well as to help us understand your needs and provide you with a better service.

User name and password - if we collect a user name and password, this is so we can keep your information safe and so that we can have your information to hand each time you visit us.

Name, email, telephone number - without this we won't know who or how to get in contact with you and respond to a query.  If you have agreed to receive marketing communications, these may also be sent by email or sms.

Where you heard about us - we may ask you this to help make our marketing more efficient.

Correspondence - if you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.

IP addresses - when you visit our site, we will automatically receive your IP address, a unique identifier for your computer or other access device.

You may also provide us with personal information if you contact customer services, if you enter promotions or competitions run by us or if you get in touch with us in some other way  Eg via an email facility provided on the website.

You should also be aware of the following uses -

Marketing - we (including our group companies and partners) may use the information we collect to inform you, by letter, phone, SMS, or email, about offers, services and news that we think may be of interest to you.

We will tell you about this when we collect your information and if you do not wish to receive these communications, please let us know. You can change your mind at any time by contacting privacy@ecc-eu.com.  You can also unsubscribe following the instructions that we will include in any communication, such as email or text, we send to you.

Customer care and correspondence - as part of our customer care procedures, we may follow-up, either by letter, phone, SMS or email, customers who have purchased services from our website/landing pages or who have posted comments about ECC on the internet, for example to resolve a complaint or to ask for a testimonial.

Market research - from time to time, we may also use your information to contact you for market research purposes. We may contact you by letter, phone, SMS or email.

Website improvement - to help us design our website and improve your experience, we may collect information about the way you use and access our website. Our web system collects information about each visitor, including IP address, the length of time spent on the website and the order in which pages are visited. We may employ third party experts to help us look at this information. However, we make sure that anyone we employ treats all information with the same sensitivity and security that we treat it.

For How Long Do We keep Your Information?

We will keep personal information about you only as long as we need it:

  • to provide you with our service,
  • to pursue legitimate business interests,
  • to honour your choices,
  • to resolve disputes,
  • to fulfill the purposes described in this privacy statement, or
  • as required or permitted by applicable laws and regulations. For example, some laws and regulations may require us to retain certain transactional data.

Where you have requested marketing information from us, then we will only keep this information for a maximum of up to 7 years. This is to keep you up to date with changes in the law that may affect your potential to make a claim. If you do not contact us further after this period, then your information will be deleted.

Destruction of information

We take reasonable measures to destroy or permanently de-identify personal information in a secure manner when it is no longer required. For example, when the information is printed on paper, we take reasonable measures to delete or destroy it by shredding or incineration; where the information is stored electronically, we use technical means to render the information unusable.

Links to Third-Party Websites

Parts of our websites may contain links to third-party websites for your convenience and information. The privacy practices of these third party websites may differ from those of ECC. When you access these other websites, please understand that we do not control the content and are not responsible for the privacy practices of that website.

We suggest that you carefully review the privacy policies of each website you visit. This Privacy Policy does not cover the information practices of those websites to which this Website links. These other websites may send their own cookies to users, collect data, or solicit personal information.

Advertising Cookies Policy

Our sites use a number of different cookies. Below we explain the cookies we use and why we use them.

What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small text file that may be placed on your device when you visit our sites. When you next visit our sites the cookie allows us to distinguish you from other users.

There are two broad categories of cookies:

  • Persistent cookies
    Persistent cookies remain on your device until deleted manually or automatically.
  • Session cookies
    Session cookies remain on your device until you close your browser when they are automatically deleted.

Cookies we use and why we use them

  • Essential cookies
    Essential cookies are technical cookies that are required for the operation of our sites. Without essential cookies our sites can’t operate properly. Essential cookies include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas.
  • Performance cookies 
    Performance cookies allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors to our sites and to see how visitors move around them. This helps us to improve the way our sites work by enabling us to tailor our sites to the way visitors use them. The information we collect from performance cookies is aggregated which means that we cannot identify you from it.
  • Experience cookies
    Experience cookies allow our sites to remember the choices you make. Our sites use experience cookies to provide you with enhanced and personalised features. For example, we use information collected through what are known as “web-analytic” cookies to compare the choices you make to those of our other customers so that we can learn from those choices.
    Information collected by experience cookies cannot track your browsing activity when you leave our sites to browse other sites.
  • Marketing cookies
    Marketing cookies record your visits to our sites, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We use this information to make our sites and the advertising displayed on them more relevant to your interests. For example sometimes we use marketing cookies to limit the number of times that you see an advert. Sometimes we share information about your browsing activity, (which we have collected from cookies), with our advertising partners. They may use this information to advertise products, which may interest you, on other sites.

Your right to refuse cookies and what happens if you refuse them

You can refuse cookies by activating the relevant setting on your browser. However, if you do so you may not be able to access all or parts of our sites. If you carry on using our sites and do not change your browser settings we will assume you consent to us using cookies as described above.

Access Rights

You have a right to access the personal information that is held about you. To obtain a copy of the personal information ECC holds about you, please email us at privacy@ecc-eu.com enclosing your postal details and the details of your request.

Alternatively you can write to us at the following address:

Privacy Compliance
ECC.
The Henley Building
Newtown Road
Henley-on-Thames
RG9 1HG


Security - At ECC, information security is very important and we have taken many steps to make sure your experience with us is secure. Information about you will be kept safe and secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure of your information, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to protect and secure information that is collected online.

Payment Card Security - We use Stripe and the latest SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) technology to make sure that the details you provide when placing an order are kept private and secure, making payment on our website safe. Our secure server encrypts your credit or debit card number details along with your personal information and changes them into bits of code that are then securely sent over the internet. Your browser will show when you are in a secure environment by displaying either a locked padlock or an image of a key in the grey bar at the bottom of the page; it may also warn you when you are entering a secured environment as you go to place your order.

Security in our offices - access to your information is restricted in our offices. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job are granted access to personally identifiable information. The servers that store this information are kept in a secure environment.

You have a number of rights in relation to our use of your personal information including the right to:

  • ask us to correct your personal information if it is wrong
  • object to processing of your personal information in certain circumstances
  • object to direct marketing.

You can make any of the requests set out above at any time by using the contact details shown in your documentation. Please note in some cases we may not be able to comply with your request for reasons such as our own obligations to comply with other legal or regulatory requirements. However, we will always respond to any request you make and if we can’t comply with your request, we will tell you why.

You also have the following rights:

Right to access your personal information
You are entitled to a copy of the personal information we hold about you and certain details of how we use it. There will not usually be a charge for dealing with these requests. Your personal information will usually be provided to you in writing, unless otherwise requested, or where you have made the request by electronic means, in which case the information will be provided to you by electronic means where possible.

Right to rectification
We take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and complete. However, if you do not believe this is the case, please contact us by using the details shown in your documentation and you can ask us to update or amend it.

Right to erasure
In certain circumstances, you have the right to ask us to erase your personal information, for example where the personal information we collected is no longer necessary for the original purpose or where you withdraw your consent. However, this will need to be balanced against other factors, for example according to the type of personal information we hold about you and why we have collected it, there may be some legal and regulatory obligations which mean we cannot comply with your request.

Right to restriction of processing
In certain circumstances, you are entitled to ask us to stop using your personal information, for example where you think that the personal information we hold about you may be inaccurate or where you think that we no longer need to process your personal information.

Right to data portability
In certain circumstances, you have the right to ask that we transfer any personal information that you have provided to us to another third party of your choice. Once transferred, the other party will be responsible for looking after your personal information.

Right to object to direct marketing
You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time. Please see the Marketing section for more information.

The right to withdraw consent
For certain uses of your personal information, we will ask for your consent. Where we do this, you have the right to withdraw your consent to further use of your personal information. Please note in some cases we may not be able to process your insurance if you withdraw your consent.

The right to lodge a complaint
You have a right to complain to the ICO at any time if you object to the way in which we use your personal information. More information can be found on the Information Commissioner’s Office website: https://ico.org.uk/

Notification of Changes to This Policy

If we decide to change our Privacy Policy, we will post these changes on this website so you know what information we collect and how we use it. If at any point we decide to use personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time it was collected, we will tell you. You will have a choice as to whether or not we use your information in this different manner.

Feedback

We want to make sure we're giving you the information about privacy and security that you want - let us know what you think. If you have any feedback, questions or concerns, please email us privacy@ecc-eu.com

About Timeshare Release

During the Timeshare sales boom of the 80s & 90s, potential buyers were lured in by the promise of affordable exotic holidays, flexible exchange programmes and the impression that Timeshare would be a valuable "investment".

In an industry with little or no regulation, high pressure sales tactics were rife and contract smallprint was often glossed over and explained away by sharp salespeople.

Many Timeshare buyers were therefore unaware that they were actually making significant, long term financial commitments on behalf of themselves and their families.

To find out how you can escape the Timeshare Trap please complete the short Timeshare Release Wizard now.

The Timeshare Trap

The timeshare trap

For many Timeshare owners, annual maintenance fees were barely considered token amounts in the early "honeymoon period" of ownership.

However, year-on-year increases imposed by the resorts over time now mean that the maintenance fees have risen to become substantial sums.

Owners are also facing the prospect of ongoing yearly fee increases and realising that they (and their families) are often committed to long term contracts for generations to come.

Please try our Future Fees Calculator to estimate your liabilities over the term of your Timeshare contract, based on an annual increase of 7.5%.

If you're concerned about rising fees and how to escape the Timeshare Trap, please contact us today.

Timeshare Owner Reports

Timeshare owner reports

Recent comments from RCI Timeshare owners who have come to us for help with contract cancellation:

Mr Steve R, Middlesex - RCI/Hollywood Mirage

“We 'swapped ‘another place in Tenerife for this in order to move to the points system. Since then, getting exchanges to desirable resorts proves almost impossible, irrespective of in-season or off-season.”

Mrs Rachael B, Yorkshire - RCI Europe

“I purchased my timeshare in 1999 and have been a timeshare member ever since. More often than not, I have not be able to go where I wanted and have ended up giving a few weeks to Friends, etc to book somewhere they wanted in order not to lose the weeks. I have then stayed in a hotel!! I am desperately trying to get rid of the timeshare and am now paying Timeshare Shop in Manchester to get rid of it for me.”

Read more...