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We always find it encouraging when potential victim of scams contact us to ascertain the validity of either the story they have been told or for us to have a look at the paperwork they have been sent. One such example happened recently. Although we are not in possession of the full facts we have sufficient paperwork to have ascertained that our enquirer was on the brink of losing initially the sum of €742. We will take a closer look at the paperwork a little later but from what we received we could tell it was the old chestnut of the fictitious court case with the resultant award to be paid, subject of course to the payment of various spurious fees. The “winnings” in this case were £51,179.56.

The paperwork

Firstly there is an invoice sent for the authentication, origin and legality of the supposed transfer of funds, this is where the €742 comes in. Below we will look at this invoice as it reveals some interesting points:

First off, the name on the invoice is quoted as Consejo General Del Notariado, complete with a cut and paste logo, Translated, this is the General Council of Notaries, the governing body of notaries in Spain, not an actual firm of notaries.

There is a company registration quoted being B92785054, this number is a legal requirement for companies in Spain, now this is where it gets interesting. According to Spanish Companies House, this registration belongs to a company called Ramirez & Ramirez Abogados SL. Ramirez & Ramirez were one of the original timeshare scam companies who were exposed many years ago and have since reinvented themselves many times.

Straight away this rung alarm bells with us. According to Spanish Companies House there have been no registered name changes so our conclusion is that Consejo General Del Notario is a reincarnation of Ramirez or they have stolen the company registration and are hiding behind it, either way this certainly reinforces our belief that this is all a scam.

Albeit a minor point, as we have stated before, what legitimate company, especially a notary public would have @Gmail as an email address? Needless to say the real domain for Consejo General Del Notariado is notariado.org not Gmail.

The telephone number quoted is a Spanish mobile phone, more on this later. The fax number is interesting as there is no international code. If the first three digits, 070 are an international code then this code belongs to Kazakhstan! On the other hand, if this is a UK number then 070 is a premium rate UK number often used by scammers and costs £1.50 per minute. Ofcom has a warning on their website with the headline:

“Consumers warned about 070 missed call scam”

The full warning may be read here.

The Convincer

Accompanying the invoice was a copy of an international bankers draft drawn on a Spanish bank known as Cajamar. Below we reproduce the draft.

Having studied the draft, two glaring problems arise. Firstly the originator quoted is the Juzgado Instancia de Madrid, this is a court in Madrid, all good so far because if there were a court case then it’s likely the court would be the ones to distribute the funds, although this is questionable as normally they pass through a Procurador.

Our first comment would be why is the document all in English? Spanish courts work in their native language, Spanish. Moving on, the telephone number quoted begins with the number 6, all numbers beginning with 6 in Spain are mobile phones, and would a Madrid court really have a mobile as the main contact? Spanish land lines all begin with the number 9. The Instancia 1 court in Madrid has 914 932 672 as their contact number.

On the draft is a contact email address, at least this time it’s not Gmail, however when carrying out a domain name search, Madrid-justicia.es does not exist, in fact it’s for sale:

No surprise then that when trying to access the domain, the following message is shown:

Yet more proof that this is all a big fraud.

TCA Comment

Once again we see scammers trying to look as professional as they can when attempting to defraud innocent victims. Luckily for our enquirer this was nipped in the bud before any damage was done, unfortunately we wonder how many people fall for this and lose substantial funds.

Although like a stuck record, we have to remind readers again that it’s impossible for you to benefit from a court case that you have had no previous knowledge of until apparently you have been awarded a large sum, the justice system in Spain or anywhere else for that matter simply don’t work that way. Court cases need plaintiffs and defendants, as a plaintiff you would have needed some prior involvement; you simply don’t get an award with no knowledge that there was even a court case, or not as this scam proves.

These scams mostly revolve around bogus holiday clubs such as DWVC or Club Class and latterly Eze group and Monster Travel, as many of these organisations were dissolved some time ago, who is actually in court for the judgement to go against? Both Spain and the UK have statutes of limitation and a large proportion of holiday clubs disappeared many years ago, it’s unlikely that they could even be prosecuted.

If the supposed court case surrounds Monster Travel and associated companies, no court case has, or will take place in Spain. Court cases for this will take place in the UK courts in 2023 after the Crown Prosecution Service dictate.  

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