For those who remember the BBC series “Hustle” the show introduces us to a wily band of con artists – including leader Mickey ‘Bricks, Mickey’s old mentor Albert, facilitator Ash, rookie Danny, and the gorgeous and seductive Stacie. All are diabolically clever, but they share one quality unusual for criminals of this nature; compassion. The principals all use mind tricks and shell games to help people in need. Each con is set up with brilliant invention and vision, and in each case, we watch an unsuspecting mark being led seriously off course by a weakness of character.
Unfortunately, the con artists and hustlers working their scams in the timeshare industry have no such morals, they don’t care if you are in debt, seriously ill or an 85 year-old widower, either way you will become their “mark”.
Sophistication
Much like the TV show, these con artists are becoming more and more sophisticated in not only the weaving of their lies but the supporting evidence that; to the unwitting, conclusively proves they are telling you is truth and of course they are not. For the untrained eye or ear it is so easy to be sucked into the scam and consequently suffer considerable financial loss with absolutely no chance of gain or recourse. Once upon a time it was a simple cold call with some elaborate story that sounded plausible and £500 later you never heard of them again, not so nowadays. Within this article we reveal the levels to which these crooks will go to spin their web of deceit.
Fake Cloned Websites
As consumers become more and more tech savvy, the need to produce websites to build credibility is a very common part of the con. Domain names cost about £30 or so and building a site is no longer a black art reserved for computer geeks, a 12 year old can produce a convincing site. Content can be a problem so the best way is to steal content or clone a complete website belonging to a legitimate business, this is the case with two fake law firms that we discovered recently:
Morales & Maxwell – https://moralesandmaxwell.com/
Suarez & Simpson – https://suarezandsimpson.com/
Both of these fake lawyers have cloned the website of a legitimate firm of Abogados (Spanish lawyers) based in Barcelona. Carbray are a multi-disciplined law firm and are fully registered in Spain, they are also members of the Barcelona Bar, see: https://www.carbray.es/.You will observe that all the specialist pages on the scam sites use exactly the same wordings as Cabray, why would the scammers do this? Simple, it builds credibility and stealing someone else’s website saves a lot of time and effort, this part of the con has certainly appeared in “Hustle” many times!
Totally Fake Websites
To go to the lengths of cloning a site is a bit extreme so it would be so much easier to fill a site with basic text to satisfy a Google search. These sites tend to use lots of fake graphics and photos. On the site will be photos of their supposed staff but do a little investigation and all will not be as it seems. In the case of both Torcaz Abogados and Paloma Abogados; two fake law firms that the TCA have already exposed this year, they use the same pictures on both sites but rather weirdly the names change. A Google search also reveals that the people named do not exist! On both sites they have a photo of the founder and senior lawyer and it certainly is the same person but funnily enough his name changes. Where this scam falls over is that the photo belongs not to a Torcaz or Paloma lawyer, but a senior judge named Dana Sawbra of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. For full information please see our previous articles:
Fake Companies
Apart from fake websites, nearly all scam companies are not registered with the authorities, some pretend to be by quoting fake company registration numbers, this is certainly the case with Torcaz and Paloma. Most scam companies operate from mainland Spain or the Canaries, but don’t let that put you off. It is easy to see if the company is registered. The main site to check Spanish companies is http://www.infocif.es/. Even if you are totally non Spanish speaking the site is easy to use. Simply enter the registration number or company name in the search box with the text “Busca por Nombre, Razon social o NIF”. Which translated means “Search for name, business name or company registration number”. In the case of a supposed UK company the search may be carried out here: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/ the site is self-explanatory and therefore easy to use. If after a search no registered details are found there is a 99.9% chance they are scamming con artists.
Fake Documents
Once again the scammers are aware that many of their “marks” will request some form of confirmation paperwork, needless to say whatever is emailed or posted will be fake. To the untrained eye these documents may look really authentic because they purport to have official stamps and signatures; however when scrutinised by a real lawyer it becomes apparent that they are forgeries and not even good ones at that, but enough to give the scam credibility. As an example see our article below where fake Greek court documents may be downloaded to see:
The Cheques in the post
Amazingly the scam may be taken to what appears to be a conclusion. Having paid a considerable sum to the scammers a letter arrives with your settlement cheque enclosed; only problem is the cheque is missing and the envelope is ripped. Naturally you contact the scammers who tell you that a gang of eastern Europeans have infiltrated the post office and stolen your cheque and they can’t issue you with another one because the case is under police investigation. In many cases they will even send you a copy of the stolen cheque, this too will be fake, IBAN numbers will be wrong or allocated to a different bank entirely. A real cheque will never arrive and after a while you naturally wan’t to find out what is going on and guess what? The phone lines don’t work, your emails bounce back and letters are either returned or never answered.
Survival Kit Pt 1
Below, we have put a simple list of pointers that should start the alarm bells ringing if you are approached by a scammer. This is not a scoring system, it serves simply to put you on your guard:
- Contact not initiated by you.
- They know an awful lot about you.
- They are hard selling and persistent.
- They straight away promise financial gain.
- You exited your timeshare many years ago.
- You exited your holiday club many years ago.
- There is a court case you have won in Spain, Greece or anywhere else on the planet.
- They do not have your documentation so how could there be a court case?
Survival Kit Pt 2
We are only too well aware that scammers can be very persuasive and the story may sound too good to resist and so you are tempted. STOP THERE! Here is another list that hopefully will save you both money and heartache:
- Never pay anything on the strength of one phone call.
- Ask for written or email confirmation of their offer.
- Ask for company registration and website details.
- Ask for third party verification or endorsement.
- Ask if they accept credit cards (more on this below).
- Once in possession of this information contact us and we will advise further on the validity or not of the company.
Above we mentioned credit cards. Most scammers will be unable to obtain what is known as a merchant facility, this is the mechanism that allows a company to have a credit card collection service. That said some may have a facility with a third party. Be aware that third party “gateways” such as PayPal should not to be used because they offer little to no protection. In UK law there is a piece of legislation known as the Consumer Credit Act 1974, within this legislation is Section 75, this affords incredible protection for credit card users should something go wrong. Please see our article below for full details:
Remember that under UK law there is no protection for bank transfers and debit card payments, generally once paid they are gone forever.
Action Fraud
We cannot overstate the sterling work carried out by Action Fraud and the various UK police fraud squads, unfortunately however, as most of these con artists are based abroad, notably in Spain, the long arm of the law won’t stretch that far. So even if you make a complaint there is really little legally that can be done, you are on your own. Whilst a few thousand pounds may be a fortune to you, it hardly warrants an Interpol investigation.
The best thing is to keep your money safely in your bank account. If people stop paying these blatant crooks, then much like the Dinosaurs they will eventually become extinct!
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