Yet again we have to report on the sophistication and outright audacity of the fraudsters operating on the peripheral of timeshare. We were recently contacted by the son of an 87 year old mother who many years ago paid to have her ownership at MacDonald Resorts cancelled. Out of the blue she received contact from a company purporting to be Ardaga Abogados who are a practising firm of lawyers based in Madrid.
Ardaga Abogados certainly exist. According to a domain search their web presence commenced in February 2001 so they are at least 20 years old. According to their website their practice areas are:
Bankruptcy Law, Civil law, Commercial Law, Banking Law, Administrative law, Criminal law, Traffic accidents, Labour Law, Audit and Consulting. No sight of timeshare. This is the real company not to be confused with the fake scammers’ copy.
Apparently a court case is about to take place in Arona Tenerife filed against MacDonald resorts with a charge of issuing timeshare contracts in perpetuity, so the caller said. As per usual there is a request for monies to be paid, in this case to a fake Procurador named Jose Vazquez, the sum requested is €1,287. If past history repeats itself the request for monies will not stop there, as the supposed case continues more monies will be requested for nefarious reasons.
The court case
The covering letter mentions a class action against not only Macdonald Resorts SL but Anfi SL as well. First point is that these are two separate legal entities and would not be lumped into one class action. Secondly Macdonald Resorts is not a Sociedad Limitada – SL Company, it is in fact a Sociedad Anomina – SA. Another point is the name quoted is incorrect; the name of the Macdonald Company in Spain is Macdonald Resorts Spain SA. Turning to Anfi, although Anfi have a number of companies, according the Spanish company registry there is no such company as Anfi Group SL. If a law firm can’t even get the names right, what chance is there of anything else they write being true?
At this point it is of little value to go over the fake reasons for this supposed legal action as it no way applies to the lady in question. The MacDonald ownership she had was in the UK and covered by a UK purchase contract. This fact alone removes any opportunity to take action in any jurisdiction other that the UK. Furthermore MacDonald Resorts have an exit strategy in place for the elderly. In this case the lady paid the requisite fee to release herself from the contract many years ago so she doesn’t even own anymore.
As a final point, the letter confirms that the submission to the Spanish court took place on 21st September 2021 with a hearing set for 21st October 2021, this is completely untrue. In Spain from presentation of a case to the court to the actual first hearing is never normally less than 3 to four months and completion of the legal process may well be in excess of 18 months.
The covering documents
One thing is for certain, the communications and fake court documents are certainly good enough to fool the untrained eye, especially an 87 year old. Starting with the letter sent to cover the facts of the claim. The scammers have copied the exact corporate logo from the real law firm to prepare the letterhead paper; they have even quoted the names of the real partners of the firm.
When searching further we spotted two email addresses, info.adagalawyers@consultant.com and 24-7-adarga@legislator.com these are the first clues that this is fraud. The real lawyers predictably use their domain name as part of their email address, the real address is info@ardagaabogados.es
@consultant.com is much like gmail or hotmail, anyone can purchase such a domain mail address. @legislator.com is a little more confusing in as much as this domain is parked with a holding page as shown below:
We have no idea where an email would end up if sent to this address, either way both email addresses are fake and if used, communication will of course never be delivered to the real law firm.
The accompanying letter is riddled with logos from all sorts of Spanish organisations just to add credibility to the scam, rather strange that the real Adarga make no reference to membership of these organisations on their corporate website.
The address quoted on the letter is Avda Daltran 108, Edificio Morales in Tenerife, odd, as the real website makes no reference to a branch office in Tenerife and only shows the head office in Madrid being; Av. Alberto Alcocer, 5 – 2º, Madrid. When searching Google maps the Tenerife address doesn’t appear to exist.
Fake court and Procurador documents
Once again, the accompanying court document looks pretty real to the untrained eye. When checking the various names quoted on the documents we could find no real people in the positions quoted. Given that social media is so prevalent nowadays, upon a search we could find no matching profiles. An interesting point is that many of the names, whilst sounding Spanish are in fact of South American origin.
The invoice sent for payment of the €1,287 is sent from a fake Procurador by the name of Jose Vazquez, search as we did we could find no reference to this individual, he is certainly not a court official in Tenerife or anywhere else for that matter.
Our next step
As we have mentioned before, we have connections with many bona fide law firms in Spain. We have engaged the assistance of one such firm to report this fraud to the genuine law firm in Madrid who by all accounts were shocked that these scammers could be so blatant in their attempt to pretend to be their company. Naturally copies of all the documentation in our possession has been forwarded to them. They are now carrying out their own investigation and will take the appropriate action to stop this obvious fraud.
Final thoughts
Once again we find another scam operator trying to hide behind a real company. Apart from the obvious fraud this creates, the potential damage to the reputation of the real company is alarming. These people know no limit to the damage and heartache they wreak.
We thank our enquirer for bringing this blatant fraud to our attention before his 87 year old mother lost to her could have been a considerable sum of money. Once again this scam began with a cold call and as we continually say this is the first pointer that should ring alarm bells. Both the story and accompanying documents seem to stack up but when digging deeper the fraud is exposed.
Remember, there are no court cases purporting to offer financial compensation that you personally have had no involvement in. Class actions involve statements of truth and other supporting documentation. As a foreigner, if you wish a Spanish lawyer to handle matters for you then you will need to sign a power of attorney with an appointed Notary in your own country. Lawyers cannot simply turn up at court with a list of names and monetary amounts then expect the judge to rule on a case with no real corroborating evidence or authority to act on behalf of the plaintiff.
If you are in any doubt about any contact you receive in relation to timeshare get in touch with us. A very sad facet of manning our helpline is more often than not money has already changed hands before the victims come to us for advice. Luckily for this lady her son was on the ball so saved her from becoming another victim
Copies of the fake documentation may be downloaded here:
Post Script: Many thanks to Inside Timeshare for adding more research and exposing this fraudulent activity, their article may be viewed 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