Yet again we must compliment the tenacity and downright deception of the scammers. We have seen in the past some pretty convincing fake documents that purport to come from the courts in Spain and it must be said, for the untrained eye, these documents look pretty convincing but of course they are not real.
Joining our wall of shame is a supposed Notary company based in Madrid. It starts with a cold call informing the “mark” that they would have received the court documents confirming their claim has been upheld. The unsuspecting victim says they have not received the said documents so the following email is sent:
“Dear Mr
We have been informed that you did not receive the Court Summary regarding your claim held at the Madrid Courts which includes the confirmation of your settlement.
We can only but apologize for this mishap but we have had many problems with the international post, please find attached all the information you will require to accept your settlement.
Please fill in the acceptance form and email back with a valid form of identification, either passport or driving license.
Kind regards
Anna Hernandez”
And so the con begins.
How this scam pans out
Basically, the court document states that there has been an award given, in this case, €28,000. The case is presented against Breakaway Destinations, to be honest we have never heard of this company and during investigation we can also find no details for them when carrying out a web search, except an article published on Mindtimeshare back in August 2011, see:
Needless to say, the website quoted is long gone.
So the court document confirms the win and as may be seen from the email all that is needed is a copy of documents to confirm identity. After receipt the monies will be sent by bankers draft and delivered by UPS. Very odd in this digital age, why not a simple transfer? At this stage there is no mention of a fee but rest assured that will soon become apparent.
In the case we investigated it was nipped in the bud before any money passed hands but if this scam runs true to form a demand for money will certainly appear. The normal route is to ask the claimant to pay Spanish VAT, known as IVA. Currently the rate is 21%, so after you have paid €5,580 IVA, which will not be paid to the court but a named individual account, and by the way, only by bank transfer, so no legal protection, the funds will be delivered by UPS.
Simple question, “Can’t you deduct the tax from my win and send me the balance?” Simple answer, no, the courts don’t allow that, it’s your money and they are not empowered to take any monies from the award, convenient or what?
Our investigation
We start with the email address; administration@notariodemadrid.com. This would indicate a domain name of www.notariodemadrid.com, however when trying to access the associated website, this is what we find:
For a Madrid notary we find the fact that there is no website rather strange. After attempting to access the home page all that shows is just an internet admin page. We then investigated the domain name, it was actually registered in 2017 but the owner is hidden under a privacy shield. An interesting point is that we find it difficult to explain why a Spanish notary would register a domain through a London company, see registration details below:
The Documentation
To add authenticity to this scam, the prospect is sent a rather convincing letter from the Tribunal Supremo, the Spanish Supreme Court which basically is full of rubbish about the law in Spain. Law 19/2003 is quoted, this law was for the prevention of money laundering, below is a brief explanation of this law:
“This Law takes into account Directive 91/308/EEC of the Council of the European Communities, the basic content of which, in regard to financial institutions, is reflected in chapter I of the Law.
Since the provisions aimed at preventing or hindering the laundering of capital basically impose administrative obligations on Financial institutions in the areas of information and cooperation, it seemed consistent and in conformity with the Directive to limit this Law to the laundering of capital derived from those illicit activities which are of particular social concern and are more easily identifiable by the financial institutions, such as drug trafficking, terrorism and organized crime.”
This all a little odd as the actual court document makes no mention of charges for money laundering, what it actually states is:
“The accusations of fraud by intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a
victim of a legal right violating the civil law of the plaintiff.
Therefore the case of gross mis-conduct and miss-selling were brought to the Audiencia Nacional.
Juzgado Central de Instrucción nº 13 by the prosecution lawyers and the accuser.
It may be clearly established that the supposed court case was in connection with fraud and gross mis conduct and mis selling, nothing at all to do with money laundering.
The document is signed by the Honourable Judge Juan Miguel Hernandez, we could find no record of such a judge. The document is also signed by Maria Lorensa Delgada, again no reference could be found. Whilst nit picking, the Spanish name Lorensa is normally spelt Lorenza. The email is signed by Anna Hernandez, a relation of the phantom judge, perhaps.
The date on the letter is 21st January 2021, rather strange that the signature date quoted later is 28th August 2020.
A copy of the redacted document may be downloaded below;
In summary
Given the evidence we are in no doubt that this is a 100% fraudulent operation and should be avoided at all cost. Nothing at all is factual. No actual address of the supposed notary company is mentioned, also no contact number.
Spanish courts do not send documentation in English, also in our opinion, the document has been written by a native English speaker as the grammar is not what we are used to seeing when translated by a native Spanish speaker.
The fact the domain name was registered by a UK based company would further lead us to believe that this scam is operated by English, not Spanish individuals. The acceptance form for agreeing the claim is in English and so simple it’s embarrassing, if this were a real document, the court would expect a Spanish translation, not a very amateur form, and after all it is a Spanish court not English. Should you wish to see the form, you may downloaded below;
This form should also bring with it a warning. As the scammers require a copy of either a passport or driving licence then given the criminal nature of this outfit, identity theft cannot be ruled out.
The final icing on the cake is there is no court case in Spain or anywhere in the world against Breakaway Destinations so the whole story, whilst plausible, is fake.
All in all our advice is to not engage at all with this or similar scams as despite the promise of riches beyond avarice, the only loser will be you. If you are at all in doubt, get in contact with us. Luckily for this enquirer we were able to stop this scam dead in its tracks before any money passed hands.
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