ECC apology for erroneous press release announcing "bid to land honour" for chairman

Erroneously published article highlights journalistic inertia about over a billion pounds worth of timeshare fraud.

Article calling for honours recognition

On August 19th 2024 European Consumer Claims (ECC) published an article calling for Chairman Andrew Cooper to be recognised in the New Year Honour's list. The article should never have been published. It was written by a external, third-party contributor as a (pretty left field) concept, and instead of circulating the idea for opinion or comments, several internal protocol gateways (designed to prevent exactly this situation) failed and the article inadvertently went live.

Cooper himself did not see the article before publication. It was removed from all online domains once the mistake was realised. Possibly slower than it should have been. It was considered a bit embarrassing, but not life changing...

"For the record, I have definitely not been angling for a knighthood," smiles the Henley businessman.

There were a few red faces illuminating the ECC media corridors when the offending article was noticed by the wider team, and more than a few wry chuckles reverberated around ECC's various worldwide offices. But after our obvious disavowing of the content and its removal, it became clear that this gaffe had actually served to reveal British journalistic attitudes towards timeshare fraud.

Immediate journalistic interest

What we did note is that within one day of the removed article being published, two of the country's most well known 'consumer hero' journalists got in touch with our press office with enthusiastic requests for more information. Both of them seemed to be approaching this 'story' from the same angle, eg: questioning Mr Cooper over his apparent social climbing attempts.

Since 2020 ECC has published hundreds of detailed articles highlighting over a billion pounds worth of timeshare fraud and illegal sales affecting hundreds of thousands of consumer victims. These two journalists have never responded to even one our previous press releases despite publications like the Times and Financial Times having done so.

Yet an embarrassing story that seems to show a self aggrandising businessman seeking personal glory is considered immediately to be of far greater public interest by these experienced journalists who champion consumer rights..

"It's a shame," says Cooper. "I'm a big boy, I don't mind people having a laugh at my expense if a blunder is made. I did find it quite funny myself at first although there are clearly a lot more deserving people ahead of me in that particular queue.

"What would be amazing is if that same journalistic interest was focussed on highlighting the very real, and very serious issues of timeshare companies writing illegal contracts, attempting to avoid their responsibilities. and in turn harming hundreds of thousands of consumers."

ECC unreservedly apologises for any offence caused by the now unpublished article.