Apology to VOASA

TimesLive apologises to Vacation Ownership Association of Southern Africa and to Ms Melanie Hatjigiannakis (VOASA’s general manager), for publishing a headline that was both inaccurate and unfair to the timeshare industry, and which was not based on the content of the story.

Hatjigiannakis lodged a complaint with the Press Ombudsman about a story in TimesLive headlined Timeshare Bandits: Thousands of timeshare owners have been short-changed for years – but all that is about to change (published on 4 June 2013).

The story, written by Leonie Wagner, said that the National Consumer Commission (NCC) was investigating 545 complaints from disgruntled holidaymakers.

The Ombudsman, Johan Retief, said that the headlines “certainly had the potential to cause the industry some unnecessary harm”. He stressed the fact that the investigation was still underway. “Therefore, calling timeshare people ‘bandits’…was a conclusion, stated as fact, prior to the outcome of the NCC’s investigation.”

He dismissed Hatjigiannakis’s complaints that the story had put the timeshare industry in a negative light and that we have quoted her out of context.

Visit www.presscouncil.org.za for the full finding.