Do you seriously believe all the outrage of newspaper headlines?

As some of you know, I used to be heavily involved in the holiday-illness aspect of travel related problems.

There are many issues that Consumers complain about - often justifiably - particularly when they've saved hard for that precious 2 weeks away. 

In my time in dealing with holiday illness complaints, I was struck by how impressive many Consumers were, when faced with difficult situations. 

They were remarkable people and I have often said that there is a great deal of difference between the Consumers of the 1990s/early 2000s, to those compared with today. 

Consumers of yesteryear were not prepared to be treated badly by any company; today’s Consumers are by comparison, timid and frightened and they are it seems guided by commentary or expressions in newspapers or from politicians.

So, around 2010, when the new Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition came to power, the narrative changed against those same ordinary people, who complained about their holidays. 

The agenda was against the perceived ‘compensation culture’ and how new laws would be introduced to combat the apparent out-of-control holiday-claims and fraudulent holiday-claims industry. 

Into this mix, because there were pressures in other quarters of the legal industry, where work was being squeezed, and margins were suffering, the legal industry, including claims management companies, ran to the buffet-table that is/was holiday-claims. 

In the Organisation I ran, we started to witness an almost feeding frenzy for claims, with Law Firms and Claims Management Companies paying ridiculous sums of money for 'click-throughs' via online search engines; some were prepared to do anything to capture that legal case. When I say anything, some created teams of seekers in resorts, with one even creating a faux-ambulance to attract the attention of holidaymakers. 

The narrative continued on so-called ‘compensation-culture’ & the UK press joined in, promoting in my view, an anti-Consumer agenda, helping government & Industry through an established 'State' assistance to secure that agenda. 

Throughout all this, I ensured that our Organisation maintained a very high ethic, whereby we demonstrated a zero-tolerance on anyone who sought to make a false claim. I can honestly say that in 15 years at the helm, I could count on 1 hand, those who tried; they were dispatched very quickly with a very big bee in their ear! I ensured that the Organisation operated not just ethically, but openly, transparently and well above legal requirements. 

I left all this back in 2017 to concentrate on some key Travel issues & commentary. 

Since that time, the Travel Industry, riding high on their 'connection' to government, pursued some individuals through the courts - quite rightly - who had sought to defraud Travel Companies. In recent years, I have detected no more than half a dozen ‘prosecutions’. For those who don't know, I'm a retired Police Officer, a Lawyer and once worked for the Serious Fraud Office, so of course I would support these actions. But, the narrative since 2017 continues to suggest that Holiday-Claims are out of control and that there is a big Fraud problem. 

Toward the end of my tenure, the Organisation was ‘health-checked’ by the ‘Ministry of Justice and was found to be operating as expected. I was invited to the MoJ to present aspects of our work, but to also discuss and comment on the extent of fraudulent holiday-claims. In our discussions, I told them that out of all the holidays taken I thought that the extent of fraudulent claims would be no more than 1%; in fact I stated that it was very likely less than 1% - there was agreement around the room, yet, the Public narrative gave the impression that Industry was flooded with claims and something had to be done about it. 

So the government called an inquiry and despite having left this area, I provided a substantial input to the Consultation. 

But, no Stakeholders meeting was called, instead, the government, who had now ticked the box for the Consultation, produced laws to curb the costs and the apparent activities of the lawyers! 

Incidentally, and I stand to be corrected, I saw no sight of Claimant Lawyers in the Consultation. This is a problem found in most law-making, be it here in the UK or the EU, most Law Firms & Businesses do not see the importance of engaging in Politics, because many don't realise that politics can and does affect their bottom line. 

So it was disappointing to note that those Legal entities, who claim to help Consumers, appeared to be far from this particular battle! So Laws were introduced, and the feeding frenzy moved on & the Travel Industry are still talking about Fraudulent holiday-claims, bringing the odd court case and receiving supportive and ‘morally-outraged’ headlines. 

But through all this and following the government inquiry, we saw the first figures from the Industry (up to the end of the inquiry, they had been somewhat coy) and guess what, they matched my own 1% assessment? 

From the press commentary within the Travel Industry (I have produced a summary of this Podcast and you can find the link to that in the descriptive), there were clearly many unanswered questions as to actions to Industry past actions to curb this ‘runaway’ problem. It was also clear, depending on which measurement you applied the figures, claimed by the Travel Industry to, the actual percentage of so-called ‘fraudulent claims’ ranged from 0.0125% to 0.83% of holidays taken or illness suffered. 

How the MoJ must have been shaking their heads?

How the Travel Industry must have been rubbing their hands with glee with all this free State-Aid, aided by a political agenda against Consumers in the Media? 

So, this is a long but necessary explanation into the background of holiday-illness-claims and I was a witness to the twists and turns of this important issue for Consumers for many years.

So where are we today? 

I decided to take a trip down memory lane & check on my old stomping ground & in particular, what's going on, right now, via Trip Advisor. 

So I used three search words: Sickness, Norovirus & Salmonella. I saw very quickly in Spain & the Canaries and one old 'favourite' cropped up (amongst others) Los Gigantes, the story of what is happening to ordinary holidaymakers! 

Throughout these searches you can see the same complaints, ants, cockroaches,  dirt, uncooked food, poor service, poor quality, reps, illness, poor hotel management, and complaints not heeded - and these are recent complaints! 

I also noticed the extensive use by hoteliers of responding to complaints in Trip Advisor and from what I can see, some claim holidaymakers complaints are wrong, that everything is laboratory tested, and that they apply food quality HACCP principles and standards and so on!

I could see that along with the poor responses to complaints, the difficulty of finding good 'non-whites-of-their-eyes' legal representation, coupled with a society who frowns on Consumers who complain and I began to ask; what chance do Consumers have?

The landscape now presented to Consumers, see many going to Small Claims Court on their own & fail. 

Many become embroiled in an Arbitration which remains stacked against them through process! 

This is the 2019 reality. 

Do you remember the General Election? Do you remember any politician talking about how you spend your money as a Consumer? Do you remember any of them  talking about how they will protect your Rights in the future? What of making it easier for you to go to court or sue a company in the EU? No? 

I hate to add to your woes at the moment, but the pattern of how rights, perceptions of consumer behaviour and justice were all there to see well before this election.

Consumer Rights may not have been high on your radar in the election but I predict that you should expect more of the same; we are about to ‘Go back to the Future’ and the holiday-horror stories that were heard in the early 1990’s and subject to poor laws and enforcement are going to return to a holiday near you!

(This is the script of the Podcast - Holiday Illness: How Consumers have been failed!© You can listen to Frank's Podcast© here)