Time's up:A Europe-wide crackdown on time-share touts and holiday club scams has been given the overwhelming backing of MEPs. EU rules agreed 14 years ago to protect consumers when signing up for time-share properties are now outdated and need improving to cover a new generation of holiday deals which create new rip-off opportunities for ruthless operators, according to proposals from the European Commission. Under the new rules the cooling-off period has been increased to 14 days, and there is a total ban on advance payments to sellers until that period has expired.