We have recently run a series of articles regarding fraudsters hiding behind real Spanish law firms, the latest of which involved a company called Ardarga Abogados. As is the usual pattern, once rumbled or once they have taken significant sums from their victims, they simply reinvent themselves but once again pretend to be a real law firm.
Company investigation
Before we look at this particular scam, it’s worth looking at how the real company compares with the scammers. The copy letter we received from our enquirer certainly has a sort of copy of the real lawyers’ logo, obviously stolen from their website then adjusted slightly but there any similarity stops. The letterhead is plastered with logos of supposed legal organisations they belong to and not surprisingly is an exact copy of the letterhead used by the fake Ardarga just a simple change of logo.
The address stated is Avenida Contesa General 12, 08022, Barcelona, España. Try as we did we could not find such an address in Barcelona. The real address as quoted by the legitimate firm is Ronda General Mitre 169-171, 08022 Barcelona. España. Turning to the email address, as expected our old friend @consultant.com once again appears. The real email address is what you would expect, info@ab-abogados24h.com. @consultant.com is an open email platform where anyone can create any available address.
When checking the real lawyers’ website, the first thing of note is that there is no English translation which fairly indicates that this company don’t actively deal with English speakers and yet the letter sent is in fluent English. According to the legal help they offer it includes Commercial Law – Labour Law – Administrative Law – Tax Law, not a mention of timeshare anywhere.
If this lawyer has no real dealings with the English then why is a UK freephone number quoted? The genuine firm do have a freephone number, 900 927 027 but this is Spanish, note the missing +34 international dialling code for Spain which would be pretty standard for a company dealing with calls from outside Spain. The scammers letter quotes a Barcelona contact number 93 220 7328 which is spaced incorrectly and should read 932 207 328, on investigation this number is from a town called Igualada, some 62Km from the supposed office address.
The scam
This is where it gets interesting in as much as there is no request for money, in fact there are several mentions of no win no fee; however we know that this is just the sprat to catch the mackerel, sooner or later, once on the hook, there will be a request for money and lots of it.
The letter runs to five pages and is crammed full of gobbledygook relating to supposed Spanish law and certainly for the untrained eye it definitely looks impressive, problem is its all fake. Needless to say there are references to court cases that have never taken place and a court case that is scheduled to take place on the 24th February 2021, which will certainly not take place because there is no such case.
The letter quotes action taken against Petchey Leisure Group SL, SL being Sociedad Limitada a Spanish limited company, only problem here is that Petchey Leisure never had a Spanish company their head office was in Portugal with Infinity Points being managed from London. Petchey were taken over by MGM Muthu and again action was supposedly taken against MGM SL, research once again established that MGM never had a legal presence in Spain, there certainly was a company called MGM SL but they were a publicity company based in Madrid and were dissolved some time ago.
Given that Petchey Leisure were never a legal entity in Spain we find it strange that according to the letter they filed for bankruptcy in Tenerife, how can that be? A Portuguese company filing for bankruptcy in Spain, unheard of.
The single named defendant quoted (name redacted) certainly has been involved in timeshare over the years and was for a period a Director of Anfi, however at no time in his career did he ever have any relationship with either Petchey Leisure or MGM Muthu.
Our advice
Albeit a very sophisticated attempt to extract monies from either current or past owners of Petchey/MGM it is without doubt a 100% scam. As we have said on numerous occasions as a possible plaintiff in a court case it is extremely unlikely that you would have had no involvement in the proceedings prior to receiving such a letter. Whilst the letter tries its best to smoke screen any need for involvement, no court in Spain will take action without prior involvement of claimants either in person or via a notarised and apostilled power of attorney giving permission for your legal advisors to act on your behalf.
If you receive communication out of the blue from Abogados 24H please take no action as this will only involve a loss of monies. The whole content of the letter is prefabricated with not a shred of truth contained. If you would like to view the content of the letter it may be downloaded here.
Naturally we have reported this identity theft to the real law firm.
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