‘Loud music, no phone, no ID card’: Hong Kong buyers report sales tactics of travel agent
Consumer Council received 48 complaints where young people were lured and pressured into buying same South Korean resort package
The Hong Kong consumer watchdog publicly named and shamed a local marketing agent of a South Korean resort on Tuesday over misleading and high-pressure sales tactics.
The Consumer Council said it received 48 complaints against Great Time Universal (HK) in the first eight months of the year – a surge of more than four times the number of cases reported against the same company last year.
Great Time Universal claimed to be the authorised agent of Vistacay Vacation Club in South Korea.
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On Tuesday, the agent could not be reached for comment and the Post found that its office in Tsim Sha Tsui was closed for business.
According to the council, complainants said they were forced to wait in a room filled with loud music and heavy beats, after their identity cards and credit cards were taken away for processing. They were also asked to switch off their phones.
“The practice is very unscrupulous and highly detrimental to consumer interests. And we have observed that things are getting more and more serious,” Gilly Wong Fung-han, the council’s chief executive, said.
Wong said the marketing agent would first make repeat cold calls to people and tell them to come down and collect a free five-day holiday package.
