Back on the 27th December of last year, we wrote an article on Abogacia Española, and who they are. This article explained that there was no such company, as we looked into the company register number, there seemed to be nothing appearing. This story has just become a lot more complicated with a web of what one can only presume ‘fraudsters’ preying on the unsuspecting Timeshare Owner.
There are three companies that seem to all be connected, however, they are trying to prevent the public from finding this out. The three company names are:
Litigar Abogados – http://litigarabogados.com/ , Litigous Abogados – http://litigiousabogados.com/, and Abogacia Española – http://abogaciaespanola.com/.
They all claim to be founded by different Directors, however when delving into the websites we can be reassured that they more than likely all have the same founder, the same plan and the same desire to con timeshare owners out of their hard earned cash. The founders of the above companies are said to be Manuel Amas Conde for Litigar Abogados, Emilio Leyes Catillianos for Litigous Española and Fernando Roleba Holaci for Abogacia Española.
This is slightly unsettling to start with, as well as the fact that each of the websites references www.icatf.es, which is the legal body for the institute of lawyers in Tenerife. The reference to this website, indeed leads the website user to believe this is a legitimate website. One has to wonder why ICATF have not already cottoned on to this, and why they have not had these websites disabled?
The next unsettling part of this network of websites is the fact that they are all pretty much identical. Sure, some of the details have changed, all have a different Company Register number, the first of Abogacia Española, we discovered, did not even exist. One could be almost certain that the other two are just as misleading. There are two addresses and two 0800 phone numbers and an 0034 number on one of the websites. Apart from these details, the content, photos and even the menu bars of content all seem to be pretty identical. This would lead one to think that they all have the same founder or owner. However, this could be a ring of people all carrying out the same fraudulent transactions, in agreement.
There has been further proof that these are not legitimate lawyers, in the fact that there has been correspondence from a third party whom were involved in a so called ‘legal case’ to be heard in November 2016 in respect of their timeshare, the lawyers on this case were from Litigious Abogados. The client was contacted by the lawyers and told that there was a hearing in November 2016 in relation to their Timeshare ownership, to join the legal hearing and to be in with a chance of compensation, they simply had to pay a fee and wait. The client revised the websites, and as most would, presumed them legitimate, so made the 1200€ transaction. Later to discover that the ‘hearing’ had been successful and they had won a sum of over thirty thousand euros, the only thing the client had to do to release this money was to pay the court fees and taxes, which amounted to around 6000€, the client told Litigous Abogados that they simply could not afford this amount. This was when the client started to do further research on the company only to discover that he had been conned, and the company indeed looked somewhat fictitious. They lost €1200, but they could have been set to lose a lot more if they had not made further investigations.
We at the TCA are keen to hear from any other cases involving these companies in Tenerife, however, be warned that these are not the only ones, and there are more and more of these companies raising their head in the light of the 2015 Supreme Court Rulings in Spain. Please do get in touch if you are unsure of any of the companies that you are dealing with and we will do all we can to help. Our contact email and telephone number are below.
For more information regarding this article or assistance in any other timeshare related issues please contact the TCA on 01908 881058 or email: info@TimeshareConsumerAssociation.org.uk