We reported recently the story of a couple in the UK who have been arrested, charged and are now in prison for running an elaborate Club Class scam, the story may be read here. Well it appears they are not the only ones.
We received a call from a former Club Class owner who was approached by a supposed company called Inter Bank, a clever choice of name. When you use a Google search there are over 20 million results using Interbank, when using Inter Bank there are 567 million results, why, because this term is widely used in the banking industry worldwide so our scammers know that they can never be discovered via Google. As a point of fact we tried all combinations during our searches and we couldn’t find any timeshare related Claims Company with that name.
Our investigations
Our caller was contacted by a cold call to give the good news that he was due the sum of €38,150 for a court case that had taken place in Madrid against various Club Class companies. Following the cold call he was emailed with court documentation, more on that later.
Telephone numbers were recorded with the following numbers being used: Madrid +34 911 436 873 and London 0203 769 2332. The London number is not a mainstream supplier number such as BT, it is a VOIP number issued by DIDWW Ireland Limited. This means you cannot perform a reverse lookup to find the line owner. The Spanish number is certainly a Madrid dialling code but we doubt these scammers are in Madrid.
As we have established there is no website but these scammers use an email address from a domain name of @oficinademadrid.com, upon investigation, this domain name was only registered on 4th August 2021, see below:
For those not familiar with Spanish, the domain translation means office in Madrid, not very convincing. Needless to say the real owner is hidden behind a privacy shield, all very suspicious.
The icing on the cake is the court documentation.
Court Documentation
Our caller was supplied with supposed court documentation confirming he was indeed in line for a massive payout of €38,150 which includes interest & damages of €6,050. To the untrained eye it may be possible to think this documentation is real, however it is all fake. Spanish court documentation follows the same style throughout the whole country and for sure what was sent bears no resemblance to the real document.
The first point that needs addressing is the stated court name being Consejo General Del Poder Judicial, is not a Spanish court. The organisation exists for the inspection and regulation of judges, translated it means “The General Council of the Judicial Power” and is a constitutional collegiate and autonomous body made up of judges which exercises government functions of the Judicial Power in order to guarantee the independence of the judges in the execution of their judicial function. In short this organisation neither will nor has the power to act as a court.
The main giveaway is the fact that part of the document is in English, as you would imagine a court case in Spain will have all documentation in Spanish, English will never appear.
You may view the redacted court documentation here.
Our summary
For our caller this was a lucky escape because he called us before any money passed hands. Although the subject of fees hadn’t been discussed at the time we were contacted, we have no doubt that serious amounts of money would be requested long before the nonexistent award would be released.
Nothing about this scam is true it’s all fake, once again we make the point In this particular case the supposed judgement of the Spanish court case was against Club Class, one has to ask how a Seychelles and Gibraltar based company would ever have a hearing in a Spanish court. The answer is there has been and neither will be any court action against the Club companies.
Grant Thornton, the liquidators of the seven businesses collectively known as the ‘Club Class companies’ have confirmed that the winding up process has been completed and they are finally being dissolved. It is also confirmed by Grant Thornton that the many former Club Class owners will not receive a penny in compensation.
If you are approached in relation to Club Class and potential compensation do not, we repeat do not get involved. Grant Thornton are one of the largest accountancy practices on the planet and if they say there is no money then 100% there is no money.
This not the first time Interbank have cropped up but as is the pattern, once they are rumbled they change identity, see our previous article here
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