Of late there have been a plethora of enquiries directed to our helpline regarding fictitious court cases that supposedly have taken place and the lucky recipient of the phone call has been awarded a substantial sum by the court. Before we look at the modus operandi of these scammers we need to dispel the myth surrounding the nonexistent court cases.
The court case that didn’t happen
We begin by stating categorically that the reason you receive contact is because your personal data has found its way into the hands of these fraudsters by illegal means. The General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) enacted in 2018 basically prohibits any form of illicit contact without the recipient giving some form of tacit prior permission so in reality there should be no legitimate reason why you are contacted.
Now to the court case, the first point to note is that the scammers already know where and who your timeshare or holiday club was held with, we say “was” because a common trait of these scams is that they are aimed at past owners. You are informed that there has, or imminently will be a court case where you are part of a class action and the court has been told that you are owed a sum of money for misselling. In their covering letter there are often quotes such as confirmation that “punitive damages are awarded in cases of malicious or wilful misconduct towards a large group of people”
In any court case anywhere in the developed world the “plaintiff”, i.e. you, would have had to have some input before the case is presented to court, so how is it that you are part of a class action that you have had no prior knowledge of? As a named individual, at minimum you would have had to present a witness statement and/or a statement of truth. In accordance with Spanish law your lawyer would have to evidence that they have authority to act on your behalf, this is achieved by you entering a power of attorney which would need to be notarised and apostilled in your country of residence and without this the lawyer cannot represent you. Did you apply for and complete such a document? No, we thought not.
Fake law firms
When this scam first materialised the law firms supposedly handling your case were entirely fictitious with made up names and stolen photographs of staff that in most cases were not even in the legal profession, naturally we exposed these companies as soon as we found them. An article of such firms may be viewed here.
Now things have taken a more sinister turn. These fraudsters have now aimed their attention to hiding behind real law firms. This move is a deliberate attempt to deceive. At TCA our advice has always been to carry out your own due diligence before parting with any money. The scammers have got wise to this, so by offering a real lawyers website as evidence and copying their corporate logo they confuse their target into believing that their company is real, which is far from the truth. Some recent examples are:
Above are links to the real company websites; the first point to mention is that none of these company websites have an English translation. The majority of people contacted by these crooks don’t speak Spanish so they take a look at the website and as the logo matches they simply accept the reality of the company. When looking at the areas of expertise of these law firms there is not a single mention of timeshare or any other long term holiday product.
Where it all falls over
Given that these lawyers have no English translations on their sites it would appear that they are not courting English speaking clients. Rather odd then that the letter sent from these scammers is in pretty well perfect English. Regarding the letter sent, the communication address, if one is given, is more than often false, a quick check of Google Maps can confirm this. Telephone numbers, again if given, don’t match the real site, after all the scammers don’t want you calling the real company or turning up on their doorstep that would prove very bad for business!
Another glaring anomaly is the email address quoted. As you are no doubt aware, companies with a website have a domain name and in nearly 100% of cases this is used in their email address. By way of example, the above law firms real contact addresses are as below:
- info@bcnlegalgroup.com
- info@adargaabogados.es
- info@jrabogados.es
Each of the scam letters contain email addresses of @consultant.com or @legislator.com these are open source addresses and are similar to Gmail or hotmail so can be created with fake details.
Regards phone contact. As we have established, none of the real law firms actively court English clients so why would they have a UK free phone number?
The court documents
Supplied with the covering letter are often fake Spanish court documents. Admittedly to the untrained eye these can look very authentic but once again they are all fake. Throughout the entire country and islands Spanish court documents follow the same procedure. Below we show the real versus the fake. We leave you to make your own mind up.
Although there are passing similarities, the real document stands out by a mile. Note; there are no silly pretend rubber stamps or signatures in strange places. Also the real court document, in this case runs to 12 pages, obviously we have not included all pages but suffice to say the fake document is a single page. Furthermore accompanying the fake document was an invoice which quotes a payment of €791 for “Procurador” services, no real court document requests Procurador payments.
Greed is a powerful motivator; the eagle eyed amongst you will notice that the amount of the settlement quoted on the fake document is €9,934, who wouldn’t be tempted!
How the scam pans out
After the initial call and supporting documents a relatively small sum will be required such as to pay the Spanish Procurador (a Spanish court official) but with a promise of a large compensation payment, once paid you are on the hook. Following on will be further requests for more payments for spurious reasons such as Spanish VAT (21%) and/or translation fees. Once all these are added up the cost will be considerable, with of course no chance of either; a) getting your “winnings” or b) getting your money back.
A final alarming point is that any payments requested will be by bank transfer, scammers very rarely have card or merchant facilities. In all cases we have investigated, payments are requested to be made to individuals this in itself all wrong, legitimate law firms have corporate accounts or client accounts; under no circumstances would you pay their fee to a named individual. As a further point, although getting better, UK banks afford little or no protection against fraud when making either transfers or wire payments.
Finally
As we hope we have pointed out these scams are well engineered and executed and obviously work. From our enquiry line we have established that the target market of these scammers is senior citizens, those vulnerable individuals who maybe don’t have the whys or wherefores to carry out their own due diligence. The very same group of society who can least afford to lose the sort of money that these scams entail.
No criminal action can be condoned but to defraud those who will be most affected is deplorable, we wonder how these people sleep at night, but sleep they do. Naturally we always inform the real law firms of this fraud in the hope they will take the necessary action, however we know that once discovered these scammers simply reinvent themselves and hide behind another legitimate law firm.
Our friends at After Inside Timeshare have also been involved in the investigation of these fake lawyers. We thought that a comment from them is entirely appropriate:
“The audacity of their actions in fraudulently using a reputable law firm and sheer contempt for the people they are stealing from seems to know no bounds.”
By way of comparison, take a look at the website of a bona fide Spanish law firm who specialise in timeshare matters. M1 Legal we think you will agree they present themselves professionally and as may be demonstrated by their comprehensive website and clear statement on the home page “Since 2017, M1 Legal Have Been Assisting UK Citizens with Overseas Contract Disputes”
We can only expose these fraudsters as and when we discover them it still relies on you, the potential victim to be on your guard. Remember the old adage, if it seems too good to be true then it almost certainly is.
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