Once again we visit the current scam of trying to persuade former timeshare owners, that despite them exiting their timeshare correctly with the developer, they will still be liable for the back maintenance not paid. The first part of the lie surrounds the fact that the victim is still on the register of timeshare owners, the very register that doesn’t and has never existed. Our article on this point may be read here.
Secondly bringing into play the fact that certain timeshare developers have been taken over and it’s the new owners that will be demanding payment. The main developers cited are Diamond Resorts, because they have been taken over by Hilton Grand Vacations and Club la Costa (CLC) who have been taken over by Wyndham. We will begin with CLC, fact of the matter is that CLC have not been taken over by Wyndham, instead that have entered an operational franchise agreement in order to use the Wyndham brand. CLC are still owners of all the resorts and both manage them and collect maintenance fees, nothing at all to do with Wyndham. Now we turn to Diamond.
Diamond Resorts
Diamond has evolved over the years from acquisitions of Grand Vacation Club (GVC) and, Sunterra, then being acquired themselves by Apollo Global and finally being sold to Hilton Grand Vacations, which is where we are today. This article was stimulated by an enquirer who exited his Diamond ownership in February 2012, naturally because of the number of scam calls he has been receiving he was starting to worry that maybe there was some truth in the stories. In early May he contacted Diamond at their UK head office in Lancaster just to check. Below we produce their reply:
If that is not 100% evidence that ownership is cancelled we don’t know what is!
Legal Advisory SL
In the case in question our enquirer was contacted by an outfit called Legal Advisory SL. SL is the Spanish abbreviation for Sociedad Limitada, the equivalent of a UK limited company. All SL companies in Spain must be registered with the equivalent of UK Companies House, we checked the Spanish equivalent and this is what we found:
From this we can conclude that Legal Advisory SL doesn’t exist.
TCA Comment
If you are a former timeshare owner, in this case with Diamond and you have rock solid evidence from the developer that your ownership is cancelled then believe us when we say it is. Diamond appears to have had a data breach as the number of scam companies hanging their hat on this scam surrounding Diamond is alarming.
If you have exited your timeshare correctly then do as our enquirer did, get in touch with the developer and ask for confirmation. The evidence obtained by our enquirer has not only put his mind at rest but will head off any other scammers that may contact him in the future.
As a final warning, scammers will often say that even if you have written confirmation from the developer the letter isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, if they do, TCA will spell out in capitals that what the scammer says is absolute RUBBISH.
Just to finish this article we thought it pertinent to impart details of a recent enquiry. A couple aged 82 and 84 were contacted by scammers using the scam as outlined above. The couple stopped paying their maintenance back in 2006, but according to the scammers they still owned. Luckily, the husband was a retired police officer and decided, before accepting the scammers’ kind offer of exiting their ownership; he would investigate and contacted us.
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