How would you feel if out of the blue a court in Barcelona informed you that you had € 217,789.11 coming your way as the result of a case that you’ve had no knowledge of? As they say, never look a gift horse in the mouth. Problem starts with the fact that this gift horse wants’ a mere €3,900 from you before the money can be released. Still not a bad investment for more than € 200,000 in return, except there hasn’t been any court case and there certainly isn’t any € 217,789.11.
Thanks to one of the TCA army alerting us to this we have been able to investigate and dismantle this fraud.
TCA Investigation
Let’s start with the letter supposedly sent from the court in Barcelona. After that we will look at the documents sent and show the verifiable evidence as to why this is a scam:
“Dear Mr Prospective – Mug
The documentation pertaining to the claim is now mostly out of date due to new legislation passed in the European courts the apostile stamps through out the case file must be updated, in order for the notary to change and update the stamps they must conduct a full case review.
Please find below a list of the sets of documents pertaining to your case file that require International apostile stamps to complete the new legislation requirements.
7 x Judicial Documents – free of charge
32 x Legal Transcripts
9 x Authorization letters
2 x Cross Boarder Litigation Permits
19 x Certification of Origin documents
19 x Articles of Incorporation certificates
7 x European Enforcement orders
6 x Customs certifications
2 x Insurance documents
Each Apostile stamp costs 50€ x 96 stamps is 4,800.00€ – 900.00€ for victim support = 3,900.00€
These costs are classed as refundable legal costs and must be paid prior to the service commencing.
We are very sorry that this situation has arisen but unfortunately it was unforeseen and not within our control. As long as the paperwork is amended and brought up to date with the current legislation then you will have no problem receiving your settlement.
The payment can be made in euros by bank transfer to Woods & Woods S.C. who will process every thing on your behalf.
Please be advised this fee will be reimbursed to you from the guilty parties, this will take between 4-6 weeks to process.
The awarded amount of 217,789.11€ will be released within 5-7 working days of the full payment being received by our accounts.
Kind regards
Carmen Rodriguez
Tel: 0034 687116567”
Before we look closely at this, all the spell and grammar errors were as sent. The first giveaway the telephone number quoted, 0034 is the international code for Spain 687 116 567 is a Spanish mobile phone. All numbers that begin with either 6 or 7 in Spain are mobiles; now tell us, what official court or Government body communicates with mobile phones?
Next, we look at the email address:
Proton mail is an open source email platform similar to Gmail or Hotmail, below the real email address of the court in Barcelona is barcelona@xij.gencat.cat. Next we see some spurious reasons as to why €3,900 has to be paid, but of real interest is that this person who supposedly works for the court is requesting payment to an exterior company known as Woods & Woods S.C. S.C in Spain means Sociedad Colectiva which is similar to a partnership. Surprise surprise, when checking the official registers, no reference to Woods & Woods could be found.
Moving on to the court document sent, this mentions a lawyer by the name of Dona Ana Rodríguez Santamaría, a check of the Spanish central registry of lawyers could find no trace. Also of interest is an error no court would make. Dona is not a name but is the Spanish for “Mrs” and is spelt Doña. In the same document a CIF (NIF) number being A21876391 is quoted. Take a quick look at our exposure of Jesus Perez and strangely the same number appears, a number we can confirm doesn’t exist in any Spanish registry.
Accompanying the court document was an instruction confirming where the monies should be paid. It stated that the account was in the name of Woods & Woods and the address quoted was C. De Blanca de Castilla, 14, 28023, Madrid, Spain, a check of Google Maps shows a cul de sac with some rather posh properties shielded by tall hedges. This is not the odd part, the strange part for us is the IBAN (International Bank Account Number) ES48 0081 7451 3000 0231 9334 actually is a bank in Fuengirola, odd as Fuengirola is some 300kms from Madrid.
For some other odd reason, a company called Financial Services UK crops up, it is they who have sent the fake court documents:
On checking the domain name we established that this was only registered on the 20th February 2024. To our surprise, there is a website, well not actually a website just a single page:
That’s it, no other pages, no contact details, nothing…very convincing…not!
Further evidence
Obviously we have a tenacious bunch here that has no intention of giving up. Below is a transcript supplied by our enquirer relating to his latest call with the scammers and the lies he was told as convincers. Hans Christian Andersen would have been proud to write this fairy story.
“The caller by the name of Mr Jones says he has been working for Financial Services UK for 5 years, but they have been in existence for 15. They don’t have a website, but they process payments from abroad on behalf of banks and charge 2% commission.”
This is rather odd, a company that has been around for 15 years with no record of their existence. Not registered anywhere we could find. More importantly, to handle this sort of business, the company would need to be regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. On checking the FCA register, no such company was found. Mr Jones says they don’t have a website, as we have proved they do but barely one month old and void of any content.
“He assures me that all banks know about them, but I haven’t tested this yet with mine. I’m not sure why they can’t do their own transactions! This is the first time he has dealt with a “Timeshare” settlement, and he wishes they hadn’t got involved, as it is all so complicated.”
This is just an out and out lie, check with your bank to see if they have heard of them.
“Woods and Woods come into it because some court officials are self employed and handle transactions for a fee.”
Again another lie, Spanish courts never use self employed persons, neither are court officials self employed.
“He told me the court case started in Portugal, and then went to Barcelona. The funds were paid to the Portuguese Crown Court (but they are not a monarchy anymore!). He has records that I had to pay for escrow, Apostil stamps, International clearance and clearance from the Town Hall, all of which are true, and the documents may well be out of date by now.”
A real cluster of untruths here. Firstly the companies cited in this fake court case being Ramirez & Ramirez and DWVC were registered companies in Spain. Portugal would have no legal jurisdiction to be involved. Furthermore, town halls would never be involved. Well spotted by our enquirer that to have a Crown Court the country needs a monarch. Portugal is a Republic.
“He reeled off the dates when I had made transactions, but he said them rather fast and I did not manage to write them all down. I have asked him to send me a list. They are in the period when I was dealing with Greece, but the dates did not seem correct. One payment he mentioned was a correct amount, but took place later than he said.”
The above pretty well confirms that this company, if you can call it that, is simply going over old data of previous victims, how else could they know of previous scams. Chances they are one of the same trying their luck a second time.
“He also dangled the possibility of further refunds of amounts not included in the award, less 20% for non-EU citizens. He put on time pressure: I need to make the payment within 10 working days (the period has been extended) and the bankers’ draft will be sent within a further 5 days. I will need to be at home to sign for it. If I miss the deadline I will have to go to Spain and sort it out for myself (which could be interesting).”
Putting pressure on and citing deadlines are all methods that scammers use to force their victims to make hasty decisions.
Just to finish, the supposed court case is against Ramirez & Ramirez, also Designer Way Vacation Club (DWVC). This is odd because DWVC was a sham holiday club and Ramirez & Ramirez were a scam claims, sales and exit company, both of which ceased to exist very many years ago. Here’s a point of interest, both these companies were based in Fuengirola, so is the bank account mentioned above, coincidence or link?
TCA Comment
If you are contacted in this manner then terminate any dealings, as although the temptation of getting an unexpected nest egg is really attractive, it’s all fake. A very big thanks to one of our astute readers for making us aware of this outfit. Please be on your guard as this scam has been around in slightly different formats for a very long time, but in all cases the same mistakes we have highlighted are present. The reader who contacted us was approached some time ago regarding the Greek scam he nearly got fooled by. In total, TCA has published three articles about this scam but of interest was Part 2. Check this link because weirdly Ramirez & Ramirez and DWVC are both mentioned, again, coincidence or the same outfit regurgitating old data regards victims they missed the first time round, that’s more like it.
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