Here we go again. Most readers know that Azure Malta went into liquidation earlier this year, however with the efforts of the joint liquidators a new management company was formed, being Vacation Club Services Limited (VCSL), to act as the new club manager. VCSL in turn has established a company in Malta called VCMS Co Limited, which will employ local staff to service the clubs’ members. So effectively, it’s business as usual, but not according to Themis Resolution.
Here is a reproduction of an email received from one concerned Azure owner:
“Hi,
Had a call from these, and others have also. I know it’s a scam but they are scaring people by saying that the membership fees are being used to pay off the loan to FNTC as the loan is going to be called in early next year and VCMS will have no money to run the clubs therefore another liquidation. He said they are having hundreds of calls about it.
I can’t see this “company” registered at companies’ house and their website looks amateurish.
Do you know of them?
Regards,”
We can honestly say without fear of contradiction that this is another scam in the making. There are no loans outstanding and even if there was it would be highly unlikely that First National Trustee Company (FNTC) would once again put the “club” in jeopardy. We are not sure how this scam will pan out but there will certainly be a request for a financial payment to progress whatever they are promising.
Themis Resolutions
So who are Themis? Well this is a bit difficult to deduce. Upon a search of UK Companies House and the Spanish equivalent we can find no sign of the existence of this company. This is borne out by the fact that there is no reference to either the status of Ltd or SL on the website and furthermore there is no company registration number either.
Turning to the website, it was only registered on 16th September 2020 and is set to expire on 16th September 2021. So far we have a nonexistent company that was formed less than two months ago, this is not looking good.
On the contact page there is the usual form to fill in and submit. The telephone number: 01935 548 026, the STD code is for Yeovil in Somerset; although we very much doubt that any such company exists in Yeovil.
More alarm bells ring when it is noticed that no contact address is quoted anywhere on the website, in fact the “contact us“ page does not appear to have been completed by their web designer as the address is left blank, see screen shot below:
Oh dear, things are going from bad to worse and thus far there is a trust factor of 0.
Be on your guard
From the copy email that we received, Themis are obviously mounting a cold calling campaign from stolen Azure client data. As usual we advise that if you didn’t instigate the contact from them, then it should put you on alert. If they know more about you than they should, that’s also not a good sign.
Do your own due diligence, check the registration of the company, if there is no registration then it is not a legitimate company. Check if they have a website, and more importantly check when the domain was registered, below we list the sites which may assist:
UK Company check: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/search/companies?q
Spanish Company check: http://www.infocif.es/
Domain check: https://whois.domaintools.com/
Most scam companies have sliver tongued sales staff at the end of the phone who purport to turn lead into gold, unfortunately, quite the reverse tend to be the case and your hard earned gold will soon be turned into lead if you entertain them. You have been warned.
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