Litigamos Abogados – A warning – Part 2

On July 4th we published a warning concerning Litigamos Abogados, another fake law firm supposedly based in Tenerife. One lucky potential victim spotted our article and stopped any further action dead in its tracks, fortuitous for TCA the near victim had copies of paperwork sent which he has kindly shared. In this update article we will share this new evidence as this will allow us to confirm once and for all that this is definitely one “law firm” to steer of. As usual, the scam revolves around a supposed court case where an award has been made and subject to paying monies the award will be released, except it won’t because there has never been any court case. Firstly we will look at the court case:

The court case

As per usual, it all starts with a cold call to get interest. This is then followed up with an email plus enclosures to provide the evidence or “persuader” to get the victim on the hook, below is the text of the email:

Santa Cruz Claims

Inbox

Dear Mr. & Mrs.

We hereby attach a letter with some good news from one of our Lawyers Mr Juan Linares. 

Mrs. Judith Winstal from our Liaison office has been instructed to telephone you to confirm that you have received this important email and its attachments. 

Yours sincerely, 

Belén Marita Nadal   

Departamento Legal 

This email is confidential and intended for the named recipient only. If you have received this email in error, please notify us immediately and delete the email. You must not copy, distribute, disclose or take any action in reliance on it. This email message and any attached files have been scanned for the presence of any computer viruses. 

© 2013 Ilustre Colegio de Abogados de Tenerife. Todos los derechos reservados. 

European Union Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC 

A good place to begin would be to examine this email. In this communication of only three lines four names are mentioned three sounding Spanish and one English, why? Well for the scammers they believe this will add credibility, maybe it would if they were all real people but the names are fake.

Reference is made to: Ilustre Colegio de Abogados de Tenerife we have made this an active link so you can search any of the names mentioned both in the communication and company website, what we found is that no names stated are registered with the colegio, were we surprised? Of course not.

The Court Case Enclosures

Before moving on to the supposed court documents, attached was an invoice to pay the court Procurador. The Procurador is a genuine position of an official in Spanish court. The Procurador is a legal professional frequently hired in Spain to reinforce the link between clients and courts. Specialised in procedural law, the Procurador is well acquainted with all the judicial proceedings and is able to provide for a better representation of the client before the court.

In this case the appointed Procurador is a company known Del Pereras. Once again we could find no reference to this company, neither the actual Pocurador being M Del Carmen Pereras. The invoice was for the sum of €1,479, now the interesting point is the bank the sum is payable to. The international bank account number (IBAN) is shown as ES03 6713 0002 5700 1307 4344 this number belongs to a bank called PFS or Prepaid Financial Services.

PFS Card Services (Ireland) Ltd is an electronic money institution focused on payment card services. PFS Card Services (Ireland) Ltd offers payment cards, virtual cards. Incorporated in Ireland, PFS Card Services (Ireland) Ltd is authorized and regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.

So we have a Spanish Procurador using an Irish pre paid banking system. That doesn’t seem to add up does it? As a final point, Procuadores are independent companies so is it not odd that the address quoted on the invoice being C/ Linare 11, Edif. Colma, CGPE, 428, 38003, S. Cruz, Tenerife is the same address as the dodgy law firm:

The court case document

The letter that accompanies the court documents states:

“Our Lawyers have yesterday Tuesday 19th of July, successfully lodged your compensation claim for a minimum amount of 26,833€, Ref: BOE-S-2022-172.”

Rather odd as there is a reference to BOE. The Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE; “Official State Gazette”, from 1661 to 1936 known as the Gaceta de Madrid, “Madrid Gazette”) this is similar to the London Gazette. This document is in the public domain and can be freely downloaded; we did just that and found absolutely no reference to said court case. You may download a copy here:

The letter then goes on to say:

“The hearing is now set for Thursday the 1st of August at 12:20 at the Santa Cruz Court No. 5.” 

This also is odd as Spanish courts close for the month of August.

Another point that cannot be possibly be correct is the statement:

“As you are now aware, we are currently involved in a Class Action for Punitive Damages against, Lanzarote Beach Club S.L, Anfi Group S.L & Mr. Mark Rowe.”

Again this is complete fiction. None of the two entities and the individual named are connected therefore how can they all be lumped into the same court case? This is done so the scammers can send the same letter “topped and tailed” to owners of both timeshare resorts and those who were involved with Monster Travel.

The Actual court document

The picture used to intro this section is a copy of a real Spanish court document, you may notice the difference! It also relates to Anfi Sales SL.Once again this is the same fake court document used by all the scam law firms. We can say without contradiction that this is far away from the real document than chalk is to cheese, as may be evidenced by the picture above. To the untrained eye it’s good and seemingly convincing but it is complete nonsense.

Moving on, to add greater credence to the scam, page two has been produced on what is known in Spain as Papel de Timbre. Basically this paper is similar to signing over a stamp all those years ago in the UK. The paper is readily available in tobacconist shops and is normally used in the notary business. As you will notice, each sheet has a tax payable of 3 Centimos:

No court in Spain uses this paper so again another “persuader” that is all fake.

TCA comment

We are extremely pleased to have been able to flesh out our previous article thanks to a vigilant reader. We will once again reiterate that you cannot possibly be in line for any form of court awarded compensation if the first you became aware of is when you are contacted out of the blue offering you, in this case €26,833 for a case you have won.

In any court case where you will need to be involved we reiterate involved, yes you would have had to be involved long before the court case takes place. If you have been wronged surely you would have needed to submit testimony, courts globally don’t accept a list of names then pay out.

To have a Spanish law firm represent you in a court of law you would need to sign a Power of Attorney to allow that, did our enquirer? Of course not, the first he knew was when he was told that  €26,833 was coming his way and yet the final court date hadn’t even passed.

So we have a law firm that doesn’t exist with staff that don’t exist working from an address that doesn’t exist confirming awards from a court case that doesn’t exist. If this is not enough to put you on your guard the we might as well pack up and go home.

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