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From timeshare touts to card sharps to unscrupulous sales professionals: the film shows the popular rip-off schemes. The reporter films with a hidden camera on beach promenades, in front of hotels and in shopping arcades. Reinhold Rühl is lured into holiday resorts as a supposed customer. The report provides hair-raising insights: behind the nice young people with advertising brochures or scratch cards there are often mafia-like groups. K1 author Reinhold Rühl also speaks to victims of the shady business people. The report shows: any holidaymaker can fall for the clever tricks of the rip-off artists. They are supposed to be the "best weeks of the year". Take Herbert B. from Thuringia, for example: for him, his holiday in Tenerife turns into a horror trip. On the very first day, a young man lures him into a holiday resort with a fake lottery win. There he is "worked on" for hours by savvy sales professionals. Result: he buys shares in a holiday apartment. But the next day he begins to have doubts. Too late: the deposit of over 1000 marks has already been debited by credit card. The practices of the dubious providers are varied: contracts with no cancellation period, high deposit demands of up to 50% and the concealment of additional costs. In the worst case, the investment is threatened with loss if, for example, it turns out that the holiday complex is hopelessly in debt. But it is not just shares in holiday homes that are for sale, but also overpriced video cameras or counterfeit branded goods. In Playa del Inglés on Gran Canaria, chain stores even name themselves after well-known German companies: Foto Porst, Kaufhof or Saturn. But the imitators have nothing to do with the German original. The audio and video equipment scam is firmly in the hands of Indian clans. They manipulate guarantee cards and sell their alleged special offers at extortionate prices. _______________________________________________________________________________________ Title: Ripped off on vacation Program: Kabel 1 Reportage Writer + Director: Reinhold Rühl Camera: Michael Böttcher Collaboration: Jasmin Cilesiz: Editor: Melanie Felske First broadcast: 24.06.1999 Viewers: 1.29 million