I've been in one or two remote places in my time, so I thought nothing of travelling to Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands in February.  After all, it's an outpost of Spain, a member of the European Union, and thus a decadent Western country, depending on your point of view.

 

In fact, Fuerteventura is almost the 'least developed' of the Canary Islands. As a result, the scenery is a lot more restful and natural.  I'm sure developers are itching to get their hands on land to build oodles of mass tourism properties, but one of the advantages of having remained undeveloped for so long is that a host of distinct species of plants and animals has been discovered on the island.  Large swathes have been designated conservation areas.

 

I wonder if one of the reasons for not developing the island would have been a shortage of water.  Annual average rainfall is almost nil.  The topography is more subdued than on the neighbouring islands of Lanzarote and Tenerife, so there aren't the mountains to lift the moist air from the Atlantic and precipitate rain.  It has the oldest geological basement amongst the islands.

 

But that's not my main concern here.  The conmen of the Canary Islands thrive still in a backwater where regulation is  little known and unexercised.

 

Len and I stayed in Corrajelo at the northern end of the island.  One evening, sauntering back from our evening meal, I espied a Sony HD handycam in a shop called Photo World, offered for sale at £200.  My eyes widened.  Greed leapt into my soul.  Ricky, or Nicky, the attractive-looking sales assistants of apparently sub-continental origin, had an air of suave, assured gravitas.  As if customers could take it or leave it when it came to buying their goods.

 

I went back two days later to check on that price and to ask to buy one.  They told me that they would have to telephone out and asked me to sit down.  A conversation appeared to transpire over the telephone, ostensibly to acquire a model from stock.  Nicky, or Ricky, put the phone down and started to work on me.  Would I look at this other slimline camcorder which had much better quality than the Sony, was more compact, was Hitachi, etc etc etc

 

I was really, really stupid.  I trusted him. I was tired and I wanted to get out of the shop.  I wasn't wearing my glasses, so just before the sale was concluded, I suddenly realised that this was not a branded Hitachi camera at all.  Hi Tech was the name printed on the box.  Ricky, or Nicky, was adamant that it was Hitachi, or the same as Hitachi, a subtle and untrue difference.

 

AND it only took a 2Gb SD card.  I'd wanted a HD video with gigabytes of capacity.  I left the shop with a massive credit card bill as well as the camera.  Nicky and Ricky must have thought that it was Christmas and their joint birthdays combined.  And the Sony HD camcorder never appeared.

 

I decided that I had been well and truly had, and planned reprisal.

 

Happily for me, the management of the hotel where we were staying was outstandingly helpful, and explained how I should go back to the shop to get paperwork to reclaim my money.  They also gave me the telephone number for the local police and said that they would help with translation.

 

Thus armed, I marched down Avenida General Franco and into the shop.  I have a loud voice when I choose, and stated my position very forcibly.  I also shooed customers out of the shop by claiming that they would be dealing with cheats and liars if they bought anything.

 

Ricky, or Nicky, had been very careful to point out at the time of sale that there was no refund on my purchase, which is phooey if you only know how to get the regulations working.  The problem is that, as a tourist in town for only a week or so, you don't have the luxury of time to wait for the law to take its course.

 

Aware of this, and after I had vented my anger, I concurred with the suggestion that they get me what I actually wanted, an HD camcorder.  A JVC Everio would arrive from Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, on Friday afternoon, two days later.

 

I returned on Friday.  A box branded JVC Everio GZ-MG37E was brought forth.  This was more like it.  I had taken my laptop with me to demonstrate the poor quality of the video clips recorded by the so-called Hitachi and I had managed to find an Internet page showing various models of the Everio.  Unfortunately, it was impossible to get an Internet connection at the shop, or else I could have done even more research on the spot.  I realised that the salesmen weren't altogether up to date with web content, and knew nothing of file formats.  Their sole purpose was to charm and cheat you out of as much money as they could.

 

We loaded the software.  I took videos of Nicky, or Ricky, or both, and of the shop from the street outside.  They even had the cheek to sell me additionally a lens cover, which was probably a good idea, but failed to get me to buy a new battery. What part of NO don't you recognise? I asked.  For all I knew, they were trying to sell me the original battery which they had substituted with a fake.  I shall buy a new battery in UK.

 

And then, do you know what they did?  They deleted all the videos that I had taken with the Everio from both my camera and my laptop.  I was uneasy about this.  And as I was leaving the shop, I passed another salesman concluding a transaction with another tourist for that dubious Hi Tech camcorder.

 

Back in UK, I have confirmed that there is such a thing as a JVC Everio GZ-MG37E camcorder, although I remain uncertain about my model in hand.  I was able to download the instruction manual from the website.  There had been no English language manual in the box.  I can tell you that I was over-charged.

 

But there is a warning notice on the JVC website about a model of camcorder being sold under the brand of MXJVC in Spain, the Canary Islands and on the Internet.     These products are not genuine JVCs, have no connection with JVC, and thus will get no technical support.

 

In addition, a very frustrated gentleman called Erwin Hainzinger has published a denunciation of this very same shop: 

or here for the English translation.

 

You'd like to think that a holiday in the sun should be a happy experience, not one where you can be ripped off by conmen such as Ricky and Nicky.  And I don't think the Spanish authorities should be satisfied with their lack of enagement in consumer woes.  Much stronger action is required to enforce regulation and to get these people to trade honestly.

 

Incidentally, the receipts didn't show the telephone number of Photo World.  I tried looking up telephone directories on the Internet, but was supremely unsuccessful at finding anything for the Canary Islands.  In desperation, I rang the hotel where I had stayed.  The receptionist apologised but said it was very difficult to find telephone numbers.  Why?  I wanted to know.  Because people don't register their telephones. 

 

Spain?  A developed country?