Villa Parade

[widge]

The holiday plans of thousands of Britons are in limbo after an upmarket villa firm went bust.
Customers of Villa Parade, which managed more than 1,000 properties across the Mediterranean and in America, have been scrabbling to get their cash back after it went under last month.
It is claimed the holiday watchdog, the Association of British Travel Agents (Abta), was warned that the company was struggling, but allowed them to continue taking bookings until a few weeks ago.
The villa firm is the biggest in the travel industry to go under since 2008.
It is understood the firm, run by a husband and wife team, had run up debts of more than £6.5million - £3.3million of which was owed to holidaymakers.

Villa Parade claimed that negative postings on travel websites such as TripAdvisor wrecked consumer confidence in the company and led to its rapid demise.

[sam]

How can you rapidly run up 6.5m debt?

[HampshireRich]

How can you rapidly run up 6.5m debt?

Within weeks if you have over 1000 properties to rent out - you'll be looking at over £1 million per week in rental income this time of year. If they are buying the rental periods off the owners and not filling them it won't take long.

[alf1956]

What a terrible thing to happen to all those people who have paid up front for their holidays only to be let down i feel for those people but hopefully they may have some recourse for getting their money back.

[LICY]

What a terrible thing to happen to all those people who have paid up front for their holidays only to be let down i feel for those people but hopefully they may have some recourse for getting their money back.

If they paid on a card/PayPal they will, but at some point we the consumer have to pay.