Our commitment

Help Line International is committed to respecting and protecting your privacy as a visitor to our website. We take the issue of privacy very seriously and value the trust you place in us each time you use our services and access this website. This Privacy Notice describes the practices and policies we have put into place to safeguard your personal information that may be gathered and used as you visit our website.

This notice describes how information about you may be used and disclosed, and how you can get access to this information. Please review it carefully.

The statement may change from time to time so please check back periodically. If you have any questions about our privacy policies, we encourage you to contact us using any of the methods outlined at the end of our Privacy Statement.

Whenever you provide personal information, we are legally obliged to use it in accordance with the laws concerning the protection of personal information.

What information do we collect?

We may collect Personal Data about you when you request our services, or contact us via our website, email or telephone. Such information may include:

• your name;
• postal address;
• invoicing details/address;
• information regarding the services you request;
• supplementary information you provide us about yourself when contacting us;
• email address;
• telephone numbers (including mobile);
• payment card details;
• escrow account details for our Escrow Trustees and
• bank details for bank transfer when you pay for our services as well as when your property is sold.

If you do nothing during your visit but browse through the website or download information, our system will automatically gather and store certain information about your visit. This information does not identify you personally and is used in an aggregate way to help us improve our website and tell us the number of visitors to our site each day. Our web server automatically collects and records the following information:

• the visitor’s domain name, but not the e-mail address;
• the visitor’s IP address;
• the name and release number of web browser software used;
• the operating system used;
• date and time you access our site; and
• the address of the website that linked to us (referrer URL).

The collected information is used to provide an overview of how people are accessing and using the Website. It is not used for any additional purpose, such as to profile those who access the Website.

What do we do with the information we collect?

The information we gather is used in the following ways:

• to enable us to advertise holiday ownership and contact our clients once an offer is made in order to negotiate on their behalf and then do the necessary legal transfer of ownership;
• monitor, review, measure, and analyse website utilisation;
• modify and enhance the website;
• improve the content and design of our website;
• respond to your requests;
• monitor and improve our customer service efforts;
• internal record keeping;
• to carry out any obligations owed to you through the use of our Website and in respect of any contracts entered into between you and us;
• to give you information that you request from us and to improve our services;
• to notify you about changes to our services;
• any relevant troubleshooting, testing or statistical analysis as appropriate; and
• to keep the Website secure.

Where we have your permission to do so, we may also use the information collected to:

• provide you with information about our services that we offer via promotional communications; and
• keep you up to date with features on the Website, however, you can opt-out of any of these data uses at any time by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  .

Data retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

Legal basis of processing

We will only process your information for as long as we have a relevant legal basis to do so. This is usually in order to provide you with the contractual services you have requested from Travel & Leisure Group or if you have provided us with adequate consent to process your information for other purposes.

If we choose to process your information under the legal basis of legitimate interests, we will always inform you of our legitimate business interest and your right to object.

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Telephone calls

Telephone calls may be monitored and/or recorded for training purposes and for maintaining the quality of our business.

Data security

We use a number of mechanisms to protect the security and integrity of your Personal Data. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be completely secure. So while we strive to protect such information, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us and you do so at your own risk. Once any Personal Data comes into our possession, we will take reasonable steps and all other precautions required by law to protect that information from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

All the Personal Data collected by us and stored electronically is held on a secure server in the EEA only. We use computer safeguards such as firewalls and data encryption, we enforce physical access controls to our buildings and files, and we authorise access to Personal Data only for those employees who require it to fulfil their job responsibilities.

Transfer of data outside of the EU

We shall not transfer any personal data to any country outside of the European Economic Area unless we ensure that such personal data is subject to an adequate level of protection and appropriate legal safeguards in accordance with Data Protection Legislation. We may need to transfer Personal data in this manner where a resort is located outside of the EEA.

 Sharing your information with others

Please be assured that we will not share your information for any other reason unless we are required by law or permitted to do so under this Privacy Notice. The main circumstances in which we will be permitted or required to disclose this is by law will be by court order, to government bodies and law enforcement agencies. However, sometimes we may share your information with third parties in the following ways:

• we may need to converse with the resorts where the client owns at or the purchaser is buying at;
• we may use carefully selected sub-processors to help us collect, store or manage your information. This will always be managed under the terms of a written data processing agreement;
• analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of the Website; and
• if Travel & Leisure Group is acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by it about its customers will be one of the transferred assets. We process your Personal Data for this purpose because we have a legitimate interest to ensure our business can be continued by the buyer. If you object to our use of your Personal Data in this way, the relevant seller or buyer of our business may not be able to provide services to you.

Access to your Personal Data

You have rights in relation to any Personal Data that we hold about you. If you wish to access your Personal Data you may make a formal subject access request by contacting Help Line International.

The information you request must relate to you or another person that you have authority to act on their behalf. Help Line International will require a confirmation of your ID prior to providing any information about the data we hold. If you are unable to provide sufficient information to prove your ID, Help Line International reserves the right to refuse your request for access to Personal Data. The rights you have in relation to the Personal Data we hold regarding you are:

• the right to rectify any inaccuracies in the information we hold;
• the right to erasure of information in specific circumstances;
• the right to request transfer of your information to another controller; and
• the right to object to processing in certain circumstances.

If you have provided us with consent to process your information, you always reserve the right to withdraw this consent via the method detailed in the paragraph below. We are committed to ensuring that your wishes are respected and upon notification that you wish to withdraw your consent, Help Line International will immediately cease processing the information in question.

Please send your request to Help Line International by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

Changes to this Privacy Notice

We may change this Privacy Notice at any time to ensure it always accurately reflects the way we collect, use and safeguard your Personal Information.

Please check this notice from time to time to ensure you are aware of any updates we may have made to our Personal Data handling practices. The date of the changes will be listed in the ‘Last updated’ section below. We will endeavour to notify all of our current clients of any updates to this notice via email and we will post the relevant announcement on our website homepage.

We recommend that you print a copy of this page for your reference.

Cookies

This Website uses cookies to help us recognise different users of the Website and to provide users of the Website with a good experience when using it. Please see our Cookies Policy for further information.

How can you make a complaint?

Please note that if you are not satisfied with the processing of your personal data as set out in this Privacy Notice, please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Contacting us

Please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  if you have any questions, comments or requests regarding this Privacy Notice.

Last updated May 2023

Help Line International was always working very close with Authorities, Investigations and State Customers Protection Departments to look after the clients victims of fraud, and for these activity and attitude we had the respect of the state

The first three years we were experiencing the numerous checks and constant control because we were meeting the clients of the marketing companies which disappeared, ran away, got bankrupt, etc. the Police was really willing to connect us to these companies since they could not find anybody to make responsible. It was really tuff time.

But at the end of the day they realized what we are doing step by step started trusting us. We became to the authorities the source of information what is timeshare, how the system works. We were educating the authorities and economic crime police that the resorts really exist, introduced to them people who been on timeshare holiday, explained to them the specifics of timeshare legislation, the protection of the owners, etc.

The State Customers Protection Department was recommending us to timeshare buyers who had disputes with the resorts or marketing companies, since we had lawyers who knew the specifics of timeshare. At the same time our policy was always to find a compromise and avoid confrontation. We would keep the client, send him on fly-buy, offer him alternative membership, etc.

A few times we even informed the authorities of some fraud resale schemes. But the police would not act unless they have people who lost the money. But by the time the victims come to police the crooks would be gone. Then we started warning the clients. This turned to be very dangerous thing to do. After a few serious threats and even attacks we became very courteous. But we still proceed with saving the clients and their money from crooks.

Help Line International is always open to get involved in any interesting timeshare related projects which require our local expertise.

At different times Russian market was attractive for different groups and serious players.

Some of them wanted to open up operations, others to invest into property.

Help Line International would put together a qualified analysis. We have highly qualified international lawers with the knowledge and understanding of timeshare, as well as bookkeepers, tax and real estate consultants.

We put together the projects for big timeshare group who want to open up timeshare operations in Russia, calculate the setting up costs according to the local prices & expenses, estimate the risks, offer variants of taxations and banking facilities thru our taxes experts and timeshare trained international Russian lawyers.

The most interesting and successful at the same time were the project  we did with the Royal Resorts Karma Group and another one with Holiday Club Finland.

With Royal Resorts Karma Group within a short period of less than a year we have recruited a strong Russian sales team, changed the paper work and restructured the follow up department to reduce the cancellation rate by 30%, introduced the drop sales procedure for the cancelling clients and got back 20% the cancelling deals, helped with the translation of the marketing materials, increased the awareness of the rental and real estate product to the tourist and real estate companies, and much more.

With Holiday Club Finland we totally prepared the opening the sales operations in Russian. In the beginning we organized the onsite sales to test the efficiency of sales with Russian clients. Then we provided the investment analysis. Underlined and helped to overcome the differences in marketing and sales techniques and much more.

We are proud that the first timeshare resort with its onsite sales operations in Russia was opened due to out contribution.

We also assisted the leading advertising and marketing companies like ABTV / Generator with local arrangements and also to choose the locations for shooting the films for the first timeshare resort and assist with our local expertise.

Being part of an organization can really give many benefits to its members but having said that if the organization is not recognizing a market or not foreseeing the problems which might develop to affect the other market one company should not give up and continue fighting its battle.

TATOC

We have worked very closely with TATOC for many years. They helped us with information, legal documentation and support protecting the rights of the members of different clubs our clients.

OTE

Help Line International has joined Organisation for Timeshare in Europe (now known as RDO) at a time of it's creation since we always believe that industry should unite to promote itself in public, protect its interests by lobbing the legislation all over Europe and withstand the timeshare fraud and bad practice.

Our membership last from 1999 till 2008.

We have actively participated in the work of OTE.

We have also strongly promoted OTE to Russian speakers and translated into Russian at our own expense and with the agreement with OTE and maintained the Russian website www.ote-info.ru  .

Later we turned that website into a timeshare educational project OTE (Общедоступная Таймшер Энциклопедия) General Timeshare Encyclopaedia powered by ourselves.

In early 2000 the Russia was flooded by timeshare resale crooks who claimed to be UK based companies, which was not true.

We estimate that just during their first year they picked up over 750.000 Euro from the victim clients. We were brave to stand up against the fraudulent activity of more then 10 crook companies.

We faced threats and danger to us personally and to the business operations.

We really needed the support from our European colleagues to stop these bad practise, which we really felt we could.

But unfortunately we did not get any support from OTE.

OTE has openly told us that this problem is not of their interest especially that they considered that Russia is not Europe disrespect that Russians were buying the European timeshare products.  

It’s was sad since later these resale schemes hit also the Europe.

We realised that we better rely on our direct contacts and business partners who are directly or indirectly involved with the Russian market then the organization which would not provide any support to its member.

We made our decision not to proceed with OTE since it could not give us what we needed.

ARDA

We joined ARDA in 2000 because we shared the ideas and goals with this association and thought to become a part of something big and important.

But then we found ourselves in the same organisation with a fraudulant Russian company with whom we would not want to be associated.

Of cause we would not blame ARDA since they could not know what is happening in a faraway country where they have only one other member, but for us there was unfortunately no other decision but to leave ARDA before the fraudulent company disappears with hundreds of thousands Euro of the victim clients which did happen two years later.